The most famous Hitlerite military leader in Russia is still the Field Marshal.
Friedrich Paulus. First, because he brought his 6th Army to the Volga. Secondly, because there, in the Stalingrad "cauldron", he left her
Alexander ZVYAGINTSEV, Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia, a writer, tells about the strange fate of this man.
Empty coffin
For Soviet law enforcement agencies, this story began at the end of January 1942, when Germany celebrated the tenth anniversary of the Nazis in power. This is what Joachim Wieder, an officer of the reconnaissance department of the VIII Army Corps of the 6th Army of Paulus, recalled: “On January 30, the broadcast brought us the bravura music of the march … Among the ruins of Stalingrad, this festive music sharply discordant with our funeral mood. Goering's voice was soon heard. In his long speech, which was now and then drowned out by the roar of bombs and shells falling around us, the Reichsmarschall … compared the unparalleled heroism and valor of the 6th Army soldiers with the unfading feat of the Nibelungs, who quenched their thirst with their own blood in their fire-engulfed palace and stood to death with their own blood …
Throughout this pompous and thoroughly deceitful speech, the reaction of deeply disappointed and outraged officers became more and more hostile. In their looks, gestures and words, anger was clearly breaking through. Those who, perhaps, until the very last moment, had hoped for the promised salvation, now realized with growing horror that in their homeland … the 6th Army was completely written off."
… At 7 am a German with a white flag crawled out of the basement of the department store, where Paulus's headquarters was located. The commander of the reconnaissance group, Senior Lieutenant Fyodor Ilchenko, who was the first of the Soviet officers to visit there, recalled: “There was a terrible smell in the basement - the Germans relieved themselves right there, as they were afraid of artillery fire and for several days in a row did not go out … After passing a large corridor, we got into a kind of office - this was the headquarters … Paulus was lying on the trestle bed in the corner. His uniform hung on a chair. Seeing me, he slowly got up. It can be seen that Paulus was very bad - haggard, haggard, unshaven, in dirty clothes. Unlike his officers, he tried not to look me in the eye and did not shake hands. He only said quietly: "I want a representative of your front headquarters to come here, I no longer command the 6th Army."
Early in the morning of February 2, the northern "cauldron" surrendered, and at noon of the same day, the southern one. On February 3, a muffled rumble of drums was heard on German radio, then the announcer in a grave tone read the message of the Wehrmacht High Command about the death of the 6th Army. The announcer fell silent, the sounds of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounded. For the first and only time in the entire war, national mourning was declared in the Reich. The Fuhrer personally took part in the symbolic funeral of Field Marshal Paulus, who "fell on the field of honor along with the heroic soldiers of the 6th Army," and placed a field marshal's rod with diamonds on the empty coffin.
200 grams
At about the same time, the living Paulus with his generals was taken first to Beketovka, the southern region of Stalingrad, almost unharmed during the battle, and then to the small steppe farm of Zavarygino. A battalion of the NKVD was allocated for protection. Having barely moved there, Paulus demanded a meeting with a representative of the Soviet command. The head of the Stalingrad department of the NKVD, Alexander Voronin, later recalled: “When he saw me (Paulus - Ed.) He didn't get up, didn't even say hello, but laid out his complaints straight away. They consisted in the following: one breakfast is served to the prisoners, while they are used to the second one - this time, secondly, there has never been dry wine, and, thirdly, there is no information about the situation at the front."
The outraged officer replied that dry wine in the USSR was made in the Crimea, but it is now captured by the Germans. He recommended drinking vodka, which was released daily to the field marshal in an amount of 200 grams. Later, however, Voronin relented and promised the prisoner to regularly deliver newspapers (albeit Soviet ones) and get some coffee. But a letter from his wife finally persuaded Paulus to cooperate with the Soviets. Soviet intelligence officers, whose names have not been preserved in history, at the risk of their lives, smuggled these handwritten sheets of paper from
Germany …
On August 8, 1944, Friedrich Paulus spoke on a radio broadcasting to Germany, calling on the German people to renounce the Fuhrer and save the country - to end the lost war. Later, as a witness for the prosecution, he testified at the Nuremberg trials in favor of the USSR.
Cemetery in Baden
What did Paulus do in Soviet captivity? Only many years later it turned out that he was being kept near Moscow, and his wife lived with him for a long time. According to some reports, they even rested together in sanatoriums on the Black Sea, but under different names, like German anti-fascists.
One of the archives found a letter from the then Minister of Internal Affairs Kruglov to Stalin dated February 29, 1952. “On the night of February 26, 1952, the former Field Marshal of the German Army Paulus Friedrich fainted with a short loss of consciousness … about his repatriation, the field marshal began to show nervous anxiety. For my part, I would consider it expedient to raise the question of the possibility of Paulus' repatriation to the GDR."
… In the GDR, Paulus lived in Dresden, at one time worked as a consultant in the Ministry of the Interior. The Germans, especially those who had lost relatives on the Eastern Front, cursed Paulus: he did not save his army, while he himself remained alive. He carried this cross for the rest of his life. Exactly fourteen years after his capture, 66-year-old Friedrich Paulus fell asleep in his bed in the evening so as not to wake up in the morning. The modest funeral ceremony in Dresden was attended by several high party officials and generals.
I had an idea for a long time to find the real grave of Friedrich Paulus. And in January this year, during Christmas, the bell rang. This was my friend from Germany. He said that he knew where the field marshal was buried, and was expecting me to visit. On a day off, I urgently flew to Frankfurt am Main, and from there I reached Baden-Baden by car. The city cemetery was buried in snow, and it was impossible to find the grave without the help of the caretaker. And here I am standing in front of a slab, on which, under a layer of snow, it was possible to make out the words: "Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, born September 23, 1890, died February 1, 1957".
