HITLER’S FAILURE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3251, 12 April 1943, Page 7

HITLER’S FAILURE

“INTUITION” BLAMED DEFEAT AT STALINGRAD OPINION OF NAZI GENERALS Hitler’s “intuitive” military leadership was directly responsible for the of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad and its subsequent annihilation, writes Godfrey Blunden, in a cabled dispatch to a Sydney Daily Telegraph. That is the conclusion I draw after conversations with the Soviet generals who conducted the operations which resulted in the destruction of the Sixth Army. This conclusion is supported by the demeanour of and remarks made by 11 of 24 enemy generals captured by the Russians, and whom the Soviet authorities permitted me to see in the presence of their staff officers. All the evidence, in my opinion, points to the fact that Hitler insisted on the continuance of the battle for Stalingrad long after the position was militarily untenable from the German viewpoint, and probably against, the advice of his 1 higher officers. Hitler also insisted through Field-Marshal von Paulus, commander of the German Sixth Army, that there should be no surrender after the situation was hopeless. This led to disagreement among senior German officers. Bitter Austerity When I myself saw von Paulus, he was standing on the step of a small wooden unpainted house on the Don Steppe. Carved in wooden fretwork on the window architrave was the double eagle of the 1 old Tsarist regime.

Von. iPaulus wore a light grey rab-bit-fur cap, and his greatcoat had leather patches where the equipment was fastened. The marshal is above average height, thin, but stoop-shoul-dered. His attitude is one of bitter austerity.

The corners of his mouth were turned down, and he would not look in the direction of the newspaper correspondents, but gazed at the horizon. 'Photographs tahen of von Paulus immediately after his capture show him unshaven, bitter-mouthed. When I saw him he was clean-shaven and be- 1

frayed no sign of physical breakdown except a nervous twitch in his eyes. He answered two questions put 'by a Soviet officer at the correspondents’ request. ' . He said his Christian name was

.Frederick, and his age was 52. He answered these questions briefly and without a sign of interest or emotion. ■Standing with von (Paulus was his Chief or Staff, Lieut.-General .Schmitt, and his adjutant, Colonel Adam.

Schmitt, a large, bull-necked man, with small eyes and thin mouth, wore a cap with long ear mittens lined with

leopard There was a slightly contemptuous smile on his face as he looked at the correspondents. Von Paulus, Schmitt and Adam were quartered in a house separate from the other generals, and had a special guard living with them, a slant-eyed grinning Kazak Red Army sergeant. At all points outside the house were Red Army men with Thompson submachine guns. The temperature was such that icicles had formed on the guards’ eyejashes and eyebrows. Other German generals were quartered in houses similar to that of von Paulus. The first room I entered was that occupied by Lieut.-General Schlemmer, commander of the 14th. Tank Corps, ■ Lieut.-General Otto, Surgeon-General Rinaldi, surgeon of the Sixth Army; Lieut.-General von Daniel, commander of the 376th Infantry Division; Lieut.General Dubois, commander of the 44th. Infantry Division. They rose to their feet as the correspondents en-

teyed but did not come to attention. Schlemmer, a sharp-featured, hook-nosed man, asked to what he attributed his defeat, said: “We had to fight.” Asked whether he thought the Red Army soldiers were now better fighters, von Daniel said: “The Red Army always fights, well.” All the generals said that they had fought in the German Army in the

last war. In an adjacent room were Lieut.General Maurice von Drebber, commander of the 297th. Infantry Division; Major-General Heinz Wolz, commander of artillery of the Fourth Army Corps; Brigadier-General Romulus Dimitriu, commander of the 20th. Rumanian Division; and Lieut .-Colonel Artur Weber, Chief of Staff to Drebber. Drebber was the first German General to surrender. Asked-'why, he gestured with his hands, and said. “The Red Army came from the south, the Red Army came from the north. We were cut off. We had no food, no munitions. We had lost our aerodromes.” “Why did you continue fighting after the ultimatum?” I asked. “Hitler would not give pennis-

sion to surrender,” Drebber said. “Field-Marshal von Paulus ordered us to hold a certain line. After that, well ...” Drebber gestured with his hand. ‘How was our division?” he said, turning to his Chief of Staff, Lieut.-Colonel Weber, a youngish balding man, with a shrill voice. “ They were cut to pieces,” said Weber.

In another house there was a more representative group. Entering this house was like .coming on to a movie set. Here were dozens of German and Rumanian officers of the type you would expect to see in Hollywood. One wore a monocle, and carried himself as though he had studied acting under Eric von Stroheim/ Others had sabre scars on their cheeks. More wore Iron Croses on the necks of their field grey tunics, and. some had other decorations. Their uniforms were unpressed and showed signs of battle wear. But the red collor tabs and gold' braid stood out. They looked at the correspondents with assumed indifference, but not a little curiosity. Some had not shaved since their capture.

The centre of this group was a lieutgeneral, commander of the 113th. Infantry Division. He was a tall, thin man, with long hatchet face, closecropped hair except for a tuft forward of the crown, and worm-like veins on his temples. He lounged against the table and smiled sneeringly at the correspondents. In his carriage and bearing he resembled closely the Crown 'Prince of Germany in the 1914-18 war. He was wearing the Iron Cross and other decorations.

Someone asked him what he had got them for. He replied with a curl in his lip, “For war.”

“What war?” “I was in France during both wars, ’ The Rumanian generals were in striking contrast to the Germans. Their uniforms were of the plainest khaki, without decorations or any special rank markings. They were subdued, and remained in the background. However, the Germans maintained their attitude of arrogance. But one had the'impression that in tkis respect they were the victims of theii own propaganda. Their sabre scars, ,their monocles, their ramrod backs, their loud voices were a caricature of the old Prussian idea. They looked like toughs who had found in the Prussian tradition a style in which to cast -their toughness. Or they looked like gamblers. But now their gamble was finished, their game was over and they amounted to nothing. Their arrogance rang hollow.