Chapter 48 fight for decision

Needless to say, in this tense situation I was in close telephone contact with the Chief of the Army General Staff.General Zeisler was in full agreement with my deliberations and plans, but whether he could get Hitler to take the appropriate (and timely) action is another matter entirely. In addition to our frequent demands for increased airlift to Sixth Army, two other important disputes deserve mention. The first is that even if the Sixth Army can be rescued, it must not stay in the Stalingrad area no matter what.But Hitler himself still wanted to hang on to that city, just as he had done to Jansk the previous winter, and he hoped to use a ground corridor to keep the army supplied.

On the contrary, the Don Army Group believed that this idea was completely wrong. Once the catastrophe survived, the Army Group must immediately restore its mobility in combat.This kind of ideological tug-of-war has never stopped, until the last chance to rescue the Sixth Army was lost. The second debate is the reinforcement of reinforcements.Since it was discovered that out of the seven divisions originally assigned to Holliday's Army, we still had hope of using at most two divisions of the 48th Army, it became extremely important to increase the strength of the Fourth Panzer Army.It is obvious that the 4th Panzer Army could never reach Stalingrad with the strength of the 6th and 23rd Panzer Divisions alone.

To get reinforcements, there are only two possible ways. Army Group Don repeatedly asked to borrow two armored divisions from the Third Panzer Corps of Army Group A because they were useless in the mountains, but the request was always refused because Army Group A requested It withdrew deep into a salient area in the Caucasus region, otherwise it would not give up the army, and this measure was absolutely rejected by Hitler.Efforts to second a regiment from Army Group A to replace the 16th Motorized Division at Irista were also unsuccessful.The 16th Motorized Division was covering the deep flank of the 1st Panzer Army.By the time anything can be done on this front, it will be too late, and nothing can be done about the situation in Stalingrad.

The second possible way is to provide new troops from the Army Headquarters to strengthen the Fourth Panzer Army's assault on Stalingrad.At this time, the 17th Armored Division and the newly formed 306th Infantry Division were also sending to Army Group Don in sequence. Since the concentration of the 57th Armored Army in Kotnikov had been delayed, So the 17th Panzer Division might be just in time for the attack on Stalingrad.Unfortunately, Army Headquarters decided to keep the division as its own reserve, deploying it behind the left flank of the Army Group.This is of course not without reason, because it is afraid that the enemy will launch a large-scale attack there.But Army Headquarters should recognize that both are not available at the same time.The success of the 4th Panzer Army and its security against this crisis, in fact, should this crisis occur, it is beyond the control of the 17th Panzer Division.While we look forward to the success of the 4th Panzer Army, Hitler wants to keep the 17th Panzer Division for security reasons.In fact, Hitler did not release the Panzer Division until the 306th Infantry Division was deeply involved in the battle, but it was too late to catch up with the first stage of the rescue operation, and perhaps just missed the decisive opportunity!

To enhance the effectiveness of my telephone calls to Zeisler, and at the same time to enhance his strength in his daily arguments with Hitler, I also had to make frequent use of the electric typewriter to report the situation to him, and even directly to Hitler. One of these, dated December 9, 1942 and now appended to this book as Appendix II, demonstrates how difficult it was to keep Hitler and Army Headquarters informed.It can also serve as a strong evidence of the strength of the enemy forces encountered by our army group, and what kind of forces we used when we fought outside the Stalingrad pocket except for a few newly arrived divisions.Finally, it can also show how an army group can bring the truth to the Supreme Command about the whole operational problem.

In order to enable readers to understand further, two additional paragraphs of comments on this judgment should be added as follows: Some may object that we include in this study the question of what means should be used to continue fighting, assuming that the Sixth Army remains at Stalingrad once the corridor is opened.In this regard, it must be recognized that Hitler was extremely difficult to persuade.Only by making him understand the difficulty of keeping the Army Group at Stalingrad can he hope to find it necessary to withdraw.Unfortunately, even these reasons could not persuade him because of the problem of face.At the time, we still hoped that Hitler would bow to the inevitable.

Second, it seems surprising that we should continue to believe in the possibility of rescuing the Sixth Army in the face of such a formidable enemy force.Some may accuse us of underestimating the enemy.But for us, the crux of the problem is that as long as we can give the Sixth Army's Pao Ze a chance to be rescued, even if we take the greatest risk, we will not hesitate.As it turns out, we've almost reached our goal.As for the reason why we failed in the end, I will analyze it later.