Flyers falling from the sky were scattered in the depth of the German army's defense. More German officers and soldiers learned through the flyers that their situation was very bad, which had a negative impact on the morale and morale.
After obtaining this information, Schmidt immediately reported to Paulus: "His commander, the Russians are spreading leaflets everywhere, trying to dismantle our army's morale in this way. It seems that we must take measures to deal with this propaganda offensive by the Russians."
"Do you have any good solutions?" Paulus asked.
"There is a solution, Commander." Schmidt took out two documents from the briefcase under his armpit and handed them to Paulus, saying respectfully: "This is General Hort's battle report a few days ago. If it is announced to the entire army, it should play a role in boosting morale and stabilizing the morale of the army."
Paulus took it and saw that it was the 6th, 23rd and 17th Armored Divisions under Hort, who successfully broke through the Soviet defense and moved closer to the besieged troops. After reading it, he handed the war report back to Schmidt and said with praise: "Yes, Chief of Staff, immediately announce the war report of General Hort to all the officers and soldiers of the army, so that they know that our people are coming to rescue us to strengthen their confidence in continuing to fight."
After Schmidt and Paulus unified the propaganda caliber, they continued to talk about another major event that concerns the life and death of the troops: "His Excellency Commander, in addition to the Russian propaganda offensive, there are also supply issues that affect our army's morale and morale."
"According to our initial vision, the Air Force should replenish us 1,000 tons of supplies every day. But Goring said that the Air Force could not complete such a huge transportation volume, so we could only reduce the amount of supplies to 600 tons per day." Paulus said unhappily: "Why, can't the Air Force even guarantee such a quantity?"
"Yes, Commander, the Air Force cannot provide us with sufficient supplies through temporary airports in the severe winter." Schmidt reported: "The Air Force does not have enough transport aircraft, so it can only be replaced by some bombers. However, the weight of the materials carried by these bombers is far from comparable to that of transport aircraft. Moreover, as these bombers are changed to transport aircraft, we have lost our local air superiority..."
"Okay, don't talk about these." Paulus interrupted Schmidt before he finished speaking, and said impatiently: "You just need to tell me the current supply of supplies."
"The situation is bad, Commander," Schmidt sighed and said in frustration: "So far, the 8th Air Force responsible for air transport missions has delivered only two supplies that have been delivered close to three hundred tons. The first time was on December 7, 188 aircraft landed at Pitomnic Airport, delivering 282 tons of supplies; on December 20, aircraft transporting a large amount of Christmas supplies, delivering 291 tons of supplies at the airport. Yesterday, 154 aircraft landed delivered 289 tons of supplies and transporting 1,300 wounded people."
Before Schmidt finished speaking, the phone ringing on the table rang. Schmidt grabbed the microphone and put it in his ear and said, "I am Chief of Staff Schmidt, where are you?"
"His Excellency Chief of Staff," the caller reported to Schmidt: "I am the head of Pitomnik Airport, and a transport plane has just landed at the airport..."
When I heard that a transport plane landed, Schmidt said disapprovingly: "Is it a plane that transports supplies? You can just deal with such a thing, and there is no need to call to harass the commander."
"No, Your Excellency Chief of Staff." The other party replied timidly: "There was a special envoy sent by Head of Manstein on the plane, saying that he was ordered to meet the commander."
Schmidt quickly covered the microphone with his hands and lowered his voice to Paulus, "His Excellency Commander, the person in charge of Pitomnik Airport called and said that a special envoy of Marshal Manstein came."
"The Marshal's Special Envoy?" Paulus couldn't help but frowned slightly, "What did he send an envoy to do at this time? Is it a persuasion to us to break through?"
"What should we do?" Schmidt asked Paulus for advice: "Let him come?"
"Let him come over." Paulus said helplessly: "No matter what, he is the Marshal's envoy. Let's hear what he is going to say."
"The Commander has an order," Schmidt let go of his hand covering the microphone and said to the officer on the other end of the phone: "Send someone to send the envoy to the headquarters immediately."
"Yes." The officer agreed: "I will send someone to send him over immediately."
After about half an hour, a young major appeared in front of Paulus and Schmidt. He raised his hand and reported to his home, saying, "Mr. Commander, I am Major Eisman, the intelligence officer of the Don River Army Group. Now, as the special envoy of Marshal Manstein, I am here to see you."
Paulus nodded at the other party and said coldly: "I wonder what order does the marshal have to give 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 from the Marshal to give me to you."
Paulus took the briefcase, untied the rope wrapped around it, pulled out a letter from the bag, and looked carefully. Schmidt was eager to know what was on the letter, so he leaned over and tilted his head, and looked with Paulus.
Major Eisman stood in front of the two men like a telephone pole. As they thought the two men had read the letter, they asked for the letter from Paulus, took out the lighter from their pockets, and lit the letter. Not only Paulus or Schmidt said anything about his rude behavior, because they saw the words "burn after reading" at the bottom of the letter. Eisman burned this top-secret letter, and did not want more people to see it.
"Major," Schmidt asked after exchanging a look with Paulus, "So, is Mr. Marshal ready to evacuate the Stalingrad region without authorization, contrary to the orders of the Supreme Command of Berlin?"
"Yes, Your Excellency Chief of Staff." Eisman replied respectfully: "Our troops were stubbornly blocked by the Russians, and it is difficult to advance further, so the Marshal decided to retreat. General Hot, who was operating in your southwest, is now being attacked by more and more Russians. If you do not retreat, you will face the danger of being surrounded. The Marshal gives you two choices: one is to violate the orders of the Supreme Command and break out of the Russian encirclement; the other is to obey the orders of the Supreme Command and the Head of State, and continue to stay in Stalingrad until it is completely annihilated."
"Major, although you were sent by His Excellency the Marshal, I need to contact the Marshal myself for safety." 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 contact the Marshal." Perhaps seeing the puzzled eyes of the two, he explained, "This teletype transmitter is similar to the Russian Hado newsletter, and cannot be intercepted. Although it is not convenient to operate, it has excellent confidentiality."
"Major, please install this machine immediately." Schmidt said to Eisman in an orderly tone: "We need to talk to His Excellency Marshal as soon as possible."
Five minutes later, the teletype transmitter was ready to be installed. Eisman kept sending signals: "Is anyone? Is anyone?"
Not long after, the transmitter clattered and a long list of notes were spit out: "Martin 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 were also next to the transmitter, asking the marshal to give instructions."
"You should have read my orders, what should you do? Should you stick to it or break through."
"Breakthrough."
“Is there a specific plan?”
Although Paulus kept saying that he would obey the orders of the Berlin Supreme Command and insisted on stubbornly in the Stalingrad area, in private, he and Schmidt still formulated several plans for breakthrough. Seeing Manstein ask, he quickly replied: "Yes, Mr. Marshal."
"Report it to me now."
"Chief of Staff," Paulus turned to Schmidt, "report our breakout plan immediately to Marshal Manstein."
Schmidt hurriedly ran to come up with a breakthrough plan and began to dictate to Eisman: "We currently have three plans. The first plan is that the infantry stays to serve as cover, and only uses armored troops to break through the southwest, and rushes to join General Hort.
The second plan is that the entire army will break through. In order to break through the Russian encirclement as soon as possible, we will choose a weak environment and may not necessarily meet with General Hort. This plan has the highest success rate, but the disadvantage is that it will lead to serious losses in technical equipment.
The third option is to obey the orders of the Supreme Command and continue to defend in the existing areas. However, based on the current supply conditions, it may not be long before continuing to stick to it."
After Eisman sent Schmidt's plan to read, he waited for a few minutes, and then Manstein's reply arrived: "There is no need to stick to the Stalingrad region, so it is necessary to take decisive breakthrough action. How long will it take for you to start the second plan?"
After seeing Manstein's question, Paulus did not answer immediately, but looked at Schmidt with his face sideways and waited for his reply. After Schmidt understood Paulus's meaning, he quickly replied: "It will take as long as three to four days."
“How much fuel, ammunition and food is needed?”
"There are about 270,000 troops surrounded by Russians. There are about 270,000 to 80,000 people. At least ten days of food ration is required before we can successfully break through the Russian siege."
After the message was sent, I waited for half an hour before Manstein came up with a new reply: "To ensure that your breakthrough is successful, I can order Hort to continue to stick to the existing area. You should immediately concentrate all the technical equipment in the southwest direction to ensure that when breaking through, you can take away more useful technical equipment, rather than leaving them to the Russians or destroying them on the spot."
When finishing the final contact, Paulus asked cautiously: "Mr. Marshal, I think the breakthrough plan should be reported to Berlin, otherwise the head of state will blame you in the future. Neither you nor me will be able to bear this responsibility."
After a long time, Manstein finally recovered a sentence: "As you wish, I will report this to Berlin."
After the communication with Manstein, Paulus called his adjutant and asked him to arrange for Eisman to rest. After only himself and Schmidt were left in the room, Paulus spoke again: "Chief of Staff, do you think the Head of State will agree to our retreat from the Stalingrad area?"
"I don't think it's possible." Schmidt said his thoughts in his heart. "Not only do we feel that the Head of State will not agree, but even Marshal Manstein also feels that the Head of State will not agree. Therefore, in his secret letter to us, he asked us to withdraw the troops trapped in the Stalingrad region in stages, so as not to be noticed by the Head of State."
"Chief of Staff, you are right." Paulus nodded and said, "If the Head of Manstein ordered our entire army to break through at the beginning, the Head of State would likely cancel the order he issued immediately. If we adopt the method of retreating in batches, when the Head of State knew that we were retreating, we could only pinch our noses and admit our actions."
"What should our armored division do?" Schmidt asked Paulus for advice: "You know, they were still attacking the positions that Sokov troops held not long ago."
"Let them take them down," Paulus ordered without saying a word: "In our next breakout battle, these armored divisions will play a crucial role without consuming unnecessary direction."
"I understand, Commander, I immediately give the order to the armored division to withdraw from the battle immediately." Schmidt said: "And rush to the southwest as soon as possible and prepare to carry out a breakthrough there."
After the order was issued, the two German armored divisions that had been staying near Mamayevgang began to reassemble and prepare to depart southwest.
The enemy's actions were soon noticed by the scouts sent by Sokov. The scouts captured a German staff officer and learned from the seized documents that the German armored division would move to the southwest. The scouts felt that this situation was very important, and immediately sent the enemy's situation back to the division command through the radio station.
"No, the Germans are going to run away." Sokov immediately judged Paulus's intention after seeing the information sent by the scouts, and quickly ordered Cydolin: "Chief of Staff, call the Army Command immediately and report the enemy's new movements to the commander, and ask them to decide what to do next."
"Don't worry, comrades-in-chief, they can't escape." The Cydollin Alliance nodded and replied, "I will report this information to the commander immediately."