Friedrich Paulus(1890-1957)
Fredrich von Paulus was born in Germany in 1890 and joined the military
academy in Berlin when he was around 18. He rose through the ranks from
private to officer within 20 years. When World War II broke out in
1939, he was a member of the German general staff, a position he held
during the 1940 invasion of France. In September 1940 he was appointed
Quartermaster General of the General Staff. In 1942 he was promoted to
Colonel-General and given command of the German 6th Army for the summer
drive in the south of Russia, which started in June. Von Paulus was an
experienced and capable staff officer, but only an average field
commander who was intimidated by his superiors, and who fatally
underestimated the Russian strength at Stalingrad, where his men were
drawn into savage and costly street fighting by defending Russian
troops. On November 19, 1942, the Soviets began a counteroffensive
aimed at recapturing Stalingrad and trapping the 6th Army--about
270,000 strong--within the city. Von Paulus followed orders to stay put
rather than to break out of the encirclement. For over two months he
and his men were forced further and further back into the city by the
rapidly increasing numbers of Soviet troops, while their supply lines
were slowly being cut off, resulting in severe shortages of everything
from food to clothes to ammunition. During the siege Adolf Hitler promoted
von Paulus to General and announced that he was awarding him the Iron
Cross for his stubborn defense. He also ordered von Paulus to fight to
the last man and not to surrender one German soldier or piece of
equipment to the Russians. On January 30, 1943, with the imminent
defeat of the 6th Army at hand, Hitler promoted von Paulus to Field
Marshal, stating that no German commander of that rank had ever
surrendered. However, the very next day von Paulus surrendered the
remnants of the once powerful 6th Army, now reduced to demoralized,
starving, freezing, ill and half-clothed soldiers, to the Russians. He
spent the remainder of the war under house arrest near Moscow while his
men were marched off to harsh Soviet POW camps, from which only a very
few survived. After the war ended von Paulus remained for a few years
as a prisoner in the USSR until his release in 1947. Prior to his
release he was brought to Germany to testify in the Nuremberg war
crimes tribunal, and gave testimony against many of the Nazi officials
on trial there. After his release from Russian custody von Paulus, by
now sympathetic to communism, retired to East Germany, where he died in
1957.
