Chapter 938: Paulus' choice

  Chapter 938 Paulus' Choice

  Leaflets dropped from the sky, scattered in the depths of the German defense. More German officers and soldiers learned that their situation was very bad through leaflets, which had a negative impact on the morale and morale of the army.

After receiving this information, Schmidt immediately reported to Paulus: "Your Excellency, the Russians are spreading leaflets everywhere, trying to undermine the morale of our army in this way. It seems that we must take measures, To deal with this Russian propaganda offensive."

   "Do you have any good ideas?" Paulus asked.

"There is a way, Your Excellency Commander." Schmidt took out two documents from the briefcase under his arm, handed them to Paulus, and said respectfully: "This is General Holt's report a few days ago." The battle report, if announced to the entire army, should be able to boost morale and stabilize the morale of the army."

  Paulus took it over and saw that it turned out to be the battle report of the 6th, 23rd and 17th Armored Divisions under the command of Huot, which successfully broke through the Soviet defense and moved closer to the besieged troops. After reading it, he handed the battle report back to Schmidt, and said approvingly: "Yes, Chief of Staff, immediately announce this battle report of General Huot to all officers and soldiers in the army, and let them know that our people are coming to rescue us." , so as to strengthen their confidence to continue fighting."

After Schmidt and Paulus unified their propaganda caliber, they went on to talk about another major event related to the life and death of the troops: "Your Excellency, apart from the Russian propaganda offensive, what affects the morale and morale of our army is also the supplies." question."

"According to our original idea, the air force should replenish us with 1,000 tons of supplies every day. But Goering said that the air force cannot complete such a huge transportation volume, so we can only reduce the amount of supplies to 600 tons per day." Paulu Si said displeasedly: "Why, the Air Force can't even guarantee such a quantity?"

"Yes, Commander, the Air Force cannot provide us with sufficient supplies through temporary airfields in severe winter." Schmidt reported: "The Air Force does not have enough transport aircraft, so it can only be replaced by some bombers. But these bombers The weight of the materials carried is far from being comparable to that of a transport plane. And as these bombers were changed to transport planes, we lost some of our air superiority..."

   "Okay, don't talk about this." Paulus interrupted Schmidt before he finished speaking, and said impatiently: "You just need to tell me the current supply situation."

"The situation is terrible, Commander." Schmidt sighed and said in frustration: "So far, the 8th Air Force responsible for the airlift mission has only delivered two times of materials close to 300 tons. The first time was On December 7, 188 planes that landed at Pitomnik Airport delivered 282 tons of supplies; on December 20, planes that delivered a large amount of Christmas supplies delivered 291 tons of supplies at the airport. Yesterday, 154 planes that landed Aircraft delivered 289 tons of supplies and evacuated 1,300 wounded."

   Before Schmidt finished speaking, the phone on the table rang. Schmidt grabbed the microphone casually, put it close to his ear and said, "I am Chief of Staff Schmidt, where are you?"

   "Your Excellency Chief of Staff," the caller reported to Schmidt: "I am the person in charge of Pitomnik Airport. A transport plane has just landed at the airport..."

  Hearing that a transport plane landed, Schmidt said disapprovingly, "Is it a plane transporting supplies? You can handle this kind of thing. There is no need to call to harass Your Excellency the Commander."

   "No, Your Excellency the Chief of Staff." The other party replied timidly: "There is a special envoy sent by the Führer Manstein on the plane, saying that he was ordered to see His Excellency the Commander."

  Schmidt hastily covered the receiver with his hands, and said to Paulus in a low voice: "Your Excellency, the person in charge of Pitomnik Airport has called and said that a special envoy of Marshal Manstein is here."

   "Marshal's special envoy?" Paulus couldn't help but frowned slightly, "What is he sending the special envoy to do at this time? Is it to persuade us to break through?"

   "Then what should we do?" Schmidt asked Paulus: "Let him come over?"

   "Let him come here." Paulus said helplessly: "In any case, he is the special envoy of the Marshal. Let's hear what he has to say."

   "Your Excellency, Commander, has an order," Schmidt let go of his hand covering the receiver, and said to the officer on the other end of the phone, "Send someone to send the special envoy to the headquarters immediately."

   "Yes." The officer agreed, "I'll send someone to take him there immediately."

About half an hour later, a young major appeared in front of Paulus and Schmidt. He raised his hands and reported himself, "Your Excellency, I am the intelligence officer of the Don Army Group." Major Eisman, now as Marshal Manstein's special envoy, is here to see you."

  Paulus nodded at the other party, and said with a cold expression: "I wonder if Mr. Marshal has any orders for me?"

  Major Eisman quickly took out a tightly sealed briefcase from his briefcase, and handed it to Paulus: "Your Excellency, Commander, this is a secret letter that the Marshal asked me to give you."

  Paulus took the briefcase, untied the rope wrapped around it, pulled out a letter from the bag, and read it carefully. And Schmidt was eager to know the content of the letter, so he leaned over and tilted his head to read it with Paulus.

Major Eisman stood in front of the two of them like a telegraph pole. Guessing that they had finished reading the letter, he took the letter from Paulus, took out a lighter from his pocket, and lit it. letters. Regarding his rude behavior, not only Paulus but also Schmidt did not speak, because they saw the words "burn after reading" at the bottom of the letter. Eisman burned this top-secret letter because he didn't want more people to see it.

   "Major," Schmidt and Paulus exchanged glances, and asked, "So, Mr. Marshal is planning to let us evacuate the Stalingrad area without authorization, contrary to the orders of the Berlin Supreme Command?"

"That's right, Your Excellency the Chief of Staff." Eisman replied respectfully: "Our troops have been stubbornly blocked by the Russians, and it is difficult to advance forward. Therefore, the marshal decided to retreat. Huo, who is operating in the southwest of you, General Special, you are now being attacked by more and more Russians. If you don’t retreat, you will face the danger of being surrounded. The marshal has two options for you: one is to violate the order of the Supreme Command and receive from the Russians. Break out of the encirclement; the second is to obey the orders of the Supreme Command and the head of state and stay in Stalingrad until it is completely annihilated."

   "Major, although you were sent by His Majesty the Marshal, to be on the safe side, I need to contact the Marshal in person." Paulus said after pondering for a long time, "Can you do it?"

"No problem." Major Eisman nodded, kicked a box he had just brought in, and said to Paulus and Schmidt: "We can use this teletype transmitter to communicate with the Marshal. Contact." Maybe seeing the puzzled eyes of the two, he explained, "This teletype transmitter is similar to the Russian Bodo transmitter, and the signal cannot be intercepted, although the operation is not very convenient. , but with excellent secrecy."

   "Major, please install this machine immediately." Schmidt said to Eisman in an orderly tone: "We need to talk to Your Excellency the Marshal as soon as possible."

  Five minutes later, the teletype transmitter was installed. Eisman kept signaling: "Anybody? Anybody?"

   Not long after, the transmitter clicked and spit out a long series of notes: "Marshal Manstein is next to the transmitter, where is General Paulus?"

   "Major, please reply." Paulus said to Eisman: "Just say that Paulus and Chief of Staff Schmidt are also at the transmitter, please give instructions to the Marshal."

   "You should have read my order, what are you going to do? Hold on or break through."

   "Breakout."

   "Is there a specific plan?"

  Don’t look at Paulus who kept saying that he would obey the orders of the Supreme Command in Berlin and stick to it tenaciously in the Stalingrad area, but in private, he and Schmidt still formulated several sets of breakout plans. Seeing Manstein's question, he quickly replied, "Yes, Your Excellency the Marshal."

   "Report to me immediately."

   "Chief of Staff," Paulus turned to Schmidt and said, "immediately report our breakout plan to Marshal Manstein."

Schmidt hurried to come up with a breakout plan, and began to dictate to Eisman: "We currently have three plans. In the first plan, the infantry will stay behind as a cover, and only the armored forces will break out to the southwest, rushing to meet Huo The special generals meet.

  The second plan, the whole army implements a breakout. In order to break through the encirclement of the Russians as soon as possible, we will choose a weak environment, and we may not necessarily meet with General Huot. This scheme has the highest success rate, but the disadvantage is that it will cause serious loss of technical equipment.

  The third option is to obey the order of the Supreme Command and continue to defend in the existing area. However, according to the current supply situation, it may not last long to continue to hold on. "

After Eisman sent Schmidt's plan without change, it took a few minutes for Manstein's reply to arrive: "It is no longer necessary to hold on to the Stalingrad area, so we must take decisive action to break out of the encirclement. .How long will it take you to start the second plan."

  After seeing Manstein's question, Paulus did not answer immediately, but looked sideways at Schmidt, waiting for his reply. After Schmidt understood what Paulus meant, he quickly replied, "It will take three to four days at the earliest."

   "How much fuel, ammo and food do you need?"

   "There are still about 2.78 million troops in the Russian encirclement. We need to prepare at least ten days' rations before we can successfully break through the Russian siege."

After the telegram was sent, it took half an hour for Manstein to reply: "In order to ensure the success of your breakout, I can order Huot to continue to stick to the existing area. You should immediately put all the technical The equipment is concentrated in the southwest direction to ensure that more useful technical equipment can be taken away when breaking out, instead of leaving them to the Russians or destroying them on the spot."

   At the end of the final contact, Paulus asked cautiously: "Mr. Marshal, I think the breakout plan should be reported to the Berlin side, otherwise the head of state will blame it in the future. Neither you nor I can bear this responsibility."

   After a long time, Manstein finally recovered a paragraph: "As you wish, I will report this matter to Berlin."

   After finishing the communication with Manstein, Paulus called his adjutant and asked him to arrange for Eisman to rest. After he and Schmidt were left alone in the room, Paulus spoke again: "Chief of Staff, do you think the Fuhrer will agree to our retreat from the Stalingrad area?"

"I don't think it's possible." Schmidt expressed his thoughts in this way, "Not only do we think that the Führer will not agree, even Marshal Manstein also thinks that the Führer will not agree. That's why he will give us In the secret letter, let us withdraw the troops trapped in the Stalingrad area in stages, so as not to be detected by the Führer."

"Chief of Staff, you are right." Paulus nodded and said, "If Führer Manstein ordered our entire army to break out of the encirclement at the very beginning, then the Führer will most likely cancel his order immediately. And we If we adopt the method of withdrawing in batches, when the head of state knows that we are retreating, he can only hold his nose and admit our approach."

   "Then what should our armored division do?" Schmidt asked Paulus for instructions: "You know, not long ago, they were still attacking the positions held by Sokov's troops."

   "Let them withdraw." Paulus ordered involuntarily: "In our next breakout battle, these armored divisions will play a vital role, and there is no need to consume unnecessary directions."

   "Understood, Your Excellency Commander, I will immediately give the armored division an order to withdraw from the battle immediately." Schmidt said: "And rush to the southwest as soon as possible, preparing to implement a breakout operation there."

  After the order was issued, the two German armored divisions that had been staying near Mamayev Post began to regroup and prepare to move southwest.

  The enemy's actions were quickly detected by the scouts sent by Sokov. The scouts captured a German staff officer, and from the seized documents, they learned that the German armored division would move to the southwest. The scouts felt that this situation was very important, and immediately sent the enemy situation back to the division headquarters through the radio.

"No, the Germans are going to run away." As soon as Sokov read the information sent by the scouts, he immediately judged Paulus' intentions, and quickly told Sidolin: "Chief of Staff, you immediately report to the Army Group Command. Call and report the enemy's new movements to the commanders, and ask them to decide what to do next."

   "Don't worry, Comrade Commander, they can't run away." Sidolin Union nodded and replied, "I will immediately report this information to Comrade Commander."

  (end of this chapter)