Barbarossa: The Russian German Conflict (CASSELL MILITARY PAPERBACKS) by Alan Clark

Author:Alan Clark [Clark, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780224855
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2012-07-04T23:00:00+00:00

Hitler was still in daily touch with Paulus by short-wave radio, and the army commander would not consider surrender without the Führer’s permission. Nor is there evidence that any but a tiny proportion of the rank and file thought seriously of taking advantage of the Russian offer. “We did not have much faith in Russian promises.” “Anything was better than Siberia.” “We all knew ‘Ivan’ too well; one never knew what he would do next, promises or no promises.” This was the typical reaction, although by that time the beleaguered army was suffering miseries which would have impelled any Allied commander to surrender, on humanitarian grounds alone. Some German authorities even attribute to the 6th Army more altruistic motives: “. . . we were surrounded by three Russian armies which would be free for other operations if we capitulated . . .” And there was always the hope—for man must have hope, however slender—that they would be relieved.

Until 10th January the Russians had mounted no serious attacks against Paulus’ perimeter, but had been content to maintain harassing fire from their immensely superior artillery and conduct local operations aimed at paving the way for the final assault. Throughout December and the first week in January conditions within the perimeter got worse and worse.

Only twenty to thirty cartridges were distributed daily to each man, with the order to use them solely to repulse an attack. The ration of bread was reduced to 120 and then 70 grams—a slice only! Water came from melted snow. Because of a lack of potatoes a kilogram box had to make do for fifteen men. There was no meat; we ate our horses at Christmas.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.