Although Captain Guchakov, who gave Paulus an ultimatum, was unable to enter the German position due to the obstruction of German soldiers, the ultimatum he left in front of the position was still handed over to Paulus by the German officers and soldiers.
After reading Rokosovsky's ultimatum, Paulus was silent for a long time, and then asked Schmidt: "Chief of Staff, we are now facing a bad situation of insufficient fuel, insufficient ammunition, and insufficient food. Without fuel and ammunition, our soldiers can continue to fight with the Russians; but if there is no food, it will starve people to death. If the food is out of stock, the Russians do not even have to launch an attack. They just need to adopt a siege to starve us all to death."
"Your Excellency Commander, you are right." Schmidt echoed: "Before Christmas, the rations of the officers and soldiers were 100 grams of bread per person per day; but after Christmas, due to the shortage of food, the rations had been reduced to 50 grams. If it continues to develop, I estimate that in a while, even the last rations can only be sent to the troops who are directly fighting."
"Chief of Staff," Paulus looked at Schmidt, asking with a weird look: "How long do you think we can stay in the Russian encirclement?"
"It's hard to say." Schmidt said with a wry smile and shook his head. "We lost 80,000 people throughout December, and the army was reduced to 250,000. If Marshal Manstein and General Hort had not launched an attack from the rear of the Russians and restrained their large amount of troops, I would have guessed that our army would have suffered greater losses."
"The loss of 80,000 in a month, and the remaining 250,000 people can only last for three months." Paulus said this and immediately denied it: "No, right, in December, when 80,000 people were annihilated, the combat effectiveness of our troops was far higher than that of the Russians. At the same time, there were Marshal Manstein and General Hort who came to rescue. Now they were repelled by the Russians, and the combat effectiveness of our troops was greatly weakened due to insufficient ammunition and food. In other words, we could not support it for three months at all, and at best we could hold on until the end of February."
Schmidt judged from Paulus's tone that his commander was not optimistic about the future of continuing to fight, so he asked tentatively: "Master Commander, if we surrender to the Russians at this moment, we can save at least 200,000 soldiers' lives. You should think about it carefully."
"Let me think about it again." Paulus glanced at the deadline specified above, sighed softly, and then ordered Schmidt: "Wait until the Ninth, call the commanders of the army to see what they mean."
On the morning of January 9, Paulus summoned several of his commanders to his command center for a meeting. After circulating Rokosovsky's ultimatum to the commanders, he asked, "Sir, what do you think?"
"His Excellency Commander," the first speaker was the commander of the 51st Army, Kurtzbach, who stood up and said, "If the Air Force can provide us with enough supplies and provide us with necessary air cover, then it is still possible for us to stick to the Stalingrad region.
However, the current situation is that the supplies we supply every day are not enough to maintain basic survival, let alone combat. In addition, in order to ensure the safety of transport aircraft, the Air Force has used a large number of fighter jets to escort, so that the overhead of the Stalingrad region has been controlled by the Russian Air Force.
Therefore, I strongly suggest that the Commander can agree to this ultimatum of the Russians and surrender to them.”
If anyone dared to surrender to the Russians at such an important military meeting, he would definitely be unanimously condemned by other colleagues. But after Kurtzbach expressed his opinion, the whole room was extremely quiet. Everyone frowned and thought hard. Should they obey Berlin's orders and continue to fight with the Russians? Or should they judge the situation, accept the advice of this ultimatum, and surrender to the Russians?
Seeing that no one was talking in the room, Schmidt was a little anxious. He stood up and said to everyone, "Generals and gentlemen, the commander, called you here today, not to let you go in a daze, but to let you come up with ideas. Tell me, what do you think in your heart?"
"I'll say a few words." After Schmidt finished speaking, General Max Pfeiffer, commander of the 7th Infantry Army, stood up and said in a serious tone: "The weather is now more than minus thirty degrees below zero, and what about the tens of thousands of winter clothes provided by Berlin? At Morozovsk and Tachinskaya stations, as well as some of the rear bases in the town, these winter clothes, including leather coats, felt boots, cotton hats and ear cups, have fallen into the hands of the Russians. Therefore, most of our officers and soldiers will survive this unbearable Russian winter without winter clothes."
"I want to ask," said Commander Pfeiffer, and Commander of the 11th Infantry Army, Strekel, also raised his own question: "I remember that before the Russian counterattack began, most of our troops were equipped with winter clothes. But where have the military coats on the soldiers now gone?"
When Schmidt heard Straker ask this question, he secretly complained that the soldiers' military coats were thrown into the fire when they were ordered to retreat. This order was issued by Paulus himself. Seeing anger appearing on Paulus's face, he quickly stood up to smooth things out: "General Straker, where did the military coats on the soldiers go? It is not the key. What we are going to discuss now is how to treat the Russians' ultimatum?"
"Is this a matter of saying that in our current state, can we continue to fight with the Russians?" Strakel said angrily: "I think it's better to surrender to the Russians. In this way, at least the names of more than 200,000 people can be saved."
After several days of repeated consideration, Paulus realized that the best way out was to surrender to the Soviet army. However, he did not know the opinions of his subordinates, so he specially held this military meeting. At this moment, he saw several commanders who spoke, all advocated surrendering to the Russians, and he chose to assume that the huge rock in his heart fell to the ground. He stood up and said, "I ask for the last time, please raise your hand if you oppose surrender to the Russians."
But after he finished speaking, the commanders just looked at him, but none of them raised their hands. Even though one or two people wanted to raise their hands, they changed their minds when they saw their colleagues sitting there as steady as Mount Tai.
"Okay, since everyone is not opposed," Paulus continued to say, seeing that everyone was still silent, "Then I will officially announce now: We accept the Russian ultimatum and send Kurtzbach to negotiate with the Russians..."
Before he could finish his words, the phone ringing on the table next to him suddenly rang, interrupting the words behind him. Schmidt walked over and picked up the microphone and listened for a while, then handed the microphone to Paulus: "Hisser Commander, General Hubei, the commander of the 14th Tank Army, has arrived outside the headquarters. He said that there is something important and I will inform you immediately."
Paulus was very keen to discover that when Schmidt mentioned Hubei, he used "notice" instead of "report". He immediately realized the seriousness of the problem and hurriedly ordered Schmidt: "Chief of Staff, please invite General Hubei here."
Not long after, Hubei walked into the side outside with Schmidt. He saluted Paulus quickly and put his hand down. After scanning the people who attended the meeting indoors, he said to Paulus: "Mr. Commander, I came to see you today, and I brought you a warrant for the Head of State."
Paulus, who was about to arrange for Kurtzbach to negotiate with the Soviet army, heard Hubei say that he had brought the warrant from the head of state, and was immediately scared and sweated. He hurriedly asked, "Where is the warrant?"
Hubei took out an envelope from his briefcase and handed it to Paulus. Paulus opened it and saw it. It was a handwritten order by Hitler: "Paulus, I order you not to surrender. Every day your army holds on, it will support the entire front line. You can restrain the forces of at least a few Russian army."
After reading the warrant, Paulus knew his intention to surrender, and had already guessed it by Hitler, so he had such a warrant. He handed the warrant to Schmidt and ordered the other party: "Chief of Staff, read the warrant of the Head of State to everyone."
After Schmidt read Hitler's warrant, the commanders collectively lost their voices again. The most disappointing thing was Kurtzbach. He thought Paulus would send him to contact the Soviet army, but everything was disrupted by Hitler's warrant. What he could do next was to continue fighting with the Soviet army until the entire army was destroyed.
Chapter completed!