These are the last days of the men trapped inside the frozen city, starving and out of ammunition.

General Paulus had finally realized the futility of trusting Goering and Hitler – far too late for his men. While the initial figure trapped had been close to 250 000, many had died or been taken prisoner – by the 25th January there were more like 100 000 men inside the final tomb of the Sixth Army.

The wounded alone numbered more than 20 000 and most were not being treated at all, they lay in the cold until hyperthermia killed them.

IF there ever was an advertisement for ending war, the last days of Stalingrad would be the opening and closing scenes. Some of the stories I’m going to relate are beyond comprehension, beyond anything dreamed up by the most creative sadists or the most bloody-minded novelists.

There is something of the inhuman, the monster, about this saga. After Pitomnik Airfield had been abandoned by the Germans, great suffering took place. The wounded had been concentrated there awaiting airlifts but those who could not walk or missed the last truck out of the airfield. The Red Army was upon them.

A single doctor and medical orderly joined them. Most of these would be killed by the Russians out of hand. An eye for an eye.

The rest limped or crawled away, others were placed in large sledges and dragged behind the few trucks that had a few litres of fuel. All were on their way to Gumrak Airfield which was a scant eight miles east through the ice and snow.

Then the clouds cleared at times, blinding the men, at night the shadows turned steel blue while the sun itself set in an abnormal orange glow. It was as though they had already arrived at Hades with the conditions of a nightmare prevailing.

The condition of all the men, not just the wounded, was pitiful in the extreme. Their hands, feet and faces frostbitten, lips cracked open, faces pale and waxy and corpse-like. Hundreds slumped in the snow never to rise again. As they died, others would strip them as frozen corpses were impossible to undress.

And of course, stalking these dying figures were the Russians. A soviet journalist by the name of Grossman who I mentioned before was in the vanguard of the units approaching Pitomnik.

“There are frozen Germans their bodies undamaged along the road we follow. It wasn’t us who killed them, it was the cold. They have bad boots and bad coats. Their tunics are thin and look like paper..”

The crows circled then landed and then pecked out the eyes of the corpses as Grossman watched. The Russian infantry approached Pitomnik following the T34s – but just before they arrived Soviet officers were confused by what looked like a village.