The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: Episode 32 - Goebbels declares “Total War” as crows peck at the eyeballs of the dead

   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.

   January 24, 2021·23min
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   Number 2: Episode 31 - Pitomnik Airfield overrun and Major Thiel talks to dead men at Gumrak

   The Russians had launched Operation Koltso or Ring on the 10th January which was aimed at ending the saga, but the Germans were still determined to fight on despite running out of ammunition, food and reinforcements. Zhukov’s plan was to punch a hole through the Kessel and to split the Stalingrad city area from those German units out on the Steppe. While they drove the Germans from the nose of the Kessel as we heard last episode, they stalled initially in the main aim of splitting up the pocket. This sounds counter-intuitive doesn’t it? After all, the Sixth Army was on the run eastwards towards the city and scenes of utter chaos were reported across the Steppe. Yet the Russians also found the going difficult at times as German defences were unbroken in some sectors. Many thousands of Germans and Romanians, Italians, Hungarians and other axis troops, fell to the Russians after the 10th January. 25 000 in all. But the number of German prisoners taken by the Russians was actually quite small, around 7 000, the rest of the divisions managed to withdraw to the East. However, other units had disappeared – the German 297th Infantry Division for example which was smashed beyond regrouping. By the early hours of the 11th January a message came through from the German High Command or OKH which demonstrated only too clearly how ignorant they were of conditions in the pocket. “Every possible step,” read the OKH coded message “were to be taken to prevent Pitomkin from falling into Russian hands..” On January 12th, a single Russian T-34 tank had somehow pierced the Pitomnik airfield defences and was ambling about around the runway, firing at will at medical tents, aircraft and men who were running in all directions. Before the Germans could recover, the tank disappeared into the morning mist. The airfield had no chance of fighting off a single tank, as soon as the Russians gathered their force once more to launch a proper assault, it was doomed. At 09h40 on the same day Army Group Radio reported that the enemy had broken through on a wide portion of the line. That night at 7pm Sixth Army reported to Manstein that “deep penetration east of Zybenko more than six kilometers wide. Our own losses were considerable. Resistance of the troops is diminishing quickly because of insufficient ammunition, extreme frost and a lack of coverage against heaviest enemy fire…” Missing from these reports were the number of desertions. German soldiers were running over to the other side in large numbers. Many officers in the field had now lost their will to lead and men had blankets over their heads as they slept in sentry posts. Worse, the mighty Wehrmacht had no tanks to fight off the T-34s.

   January 17, 2021·20min
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   Number 3: Episode 30 - Voronov’s “God of War” turns the melody of the front into a real-world Goya nightmare

   This is episode 30 and we’re dealing with the events starting in the first week of January 1943, through to the end of the second week. The Sixth Army is surrounded in Stalingrad and faces another major assault planned by the Russians. Before they go ahead, however, Joseph Stalin wants to give the Germans a chance to surrender. There is no escape for the 249 000 men despite their prayers for a miracle and Stalin and Stalin’s generals want done with the Sixth Army so they can focus on the south where the German 1st Panzer Army is trying to escape from the Caucuses. West of the Mamaev Kurgan or hill, at Gumrak Airfield, General Paulus was in his HQ when heard that three Red Army representatives were asking for permission to enter German lines. They had an ultimatum for the Sixth Army. While a rendezvous was called for 10am Moscow Time on January 8th, Paulus refused to attend. But he did send Captain Willig from his HQ. At the appointed hour three Russian parliamentarians walked under white flag into German lines and delivered General Rokossovsky’s offer to the Captain Willig. What was being offered was certainly enticing. Rokossovsky said there would be guarantees of safety to all who ceased to resist, and they would be returned to Germany at the end of the war. The Russians said all personnel could keep their belongings and valuables. But probably the most tempting argument was food. The Germans were starving to death and General Rokossovsky said in his personal message that all officers and men who surrender would immediately receive normal rations. Even if that was true, the Russians had no idea about the exact number of Germans in the Kessel. They estimated it was around 86 000 whereas as we know it was around 249 000. There would not have been enough food available at that very moment to honour the offer of normal rations.

   January 10, 2021·20min
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   Number 4: Episode 26 - Operation Winter Storm begins but Zhukov has other plans

   This is episode 26 and Field Marshal Manstein is saddling up with a view to saving the Sixth Army and General Paulus trapped inside the Kessel or cauldron in an operation called Winter Storm. Russian General Zhukov has a surprise of his own and its called Operation little Saturn. With all these operations going on, we’ll need to do a little historical surgery to make sure it’s not too confusing. What was apparent to Field Marshal Manstein as he took charge of the remnants of the Axis forces outside the Kessel was that there were none capable of serious resistance if the Russians decided to change direction and focus their attention westwards instead of the trapped Sixth Army. Still more perilous was the situation in the south towards the Sea of Azov and across the communications of the extended Army Group A. The notion of “recapturing positions previously held by us” which was Hitler’s order was an absurdity. The German units outside the Kessel were little more than the fighting strength of a corps, and they were spread over two hundred miles. Manstein’s first task was to collect sufficient strength to give him tactical options. The disorganized state of the railway system and the fact that Partisan activity had made large stretches of the line unusable prolonged any journey. By now the Russians had moved 34 divisions across the Don River – twelve from Beketonskaya bridgehead and 22 divisions from Kremenskaya. The 48th panzer corps had been defeated by Russian tank units, and now the Red Army infantry turned eastwards and began building an iron-clad ring around the trapped Sixth Army.

   December 13, 2020·19min
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   Number 5: Episode 23 - Trumpets herald the start of Operation Uranus

   This episode is all about the Russian’s fighting back as they launch Operation Uranus. Remember the Germans have been battering away at the Barrikady and Mamaev Kurgan and still have not managed to chase the 62nd Army off the West bank of the Volga river. The Red Army is clinging onto tiny bits of land, despite General Paulus and the Sixth Army throwing everything they have at the isolated Russian troops. The Rattenkrieg has shredded the Germans – and back in Berlin Goebbels has just published an editorial which effectively was preparing the population for a possible defeat in Russia. General Zhukov has been building two powerful armies preparing for a counter-offensive and some German’s are aware that its imminent – such as von Richthofen of the Luftwaffe. But military intelligence has missed the formation of five new armies in the East – and Hitler doesn’t believe the Russians can pull together large forces anymore. Paulus’ final attack before this counter-offensive began on the 11th November 1942 and was as misguided and hopeless as had been the last winter offensive of Army Group Centre against Moscow twelve months before. Within 48 hours it had degenerated into a series of violent personal subterranean battles without central direction. Even the much-vaunted Pioneer Engineering battalions failed to make a real dent in the Russian defences. Many small groups of Germans managed to cover the last three hundred yards to the Volga but having arrived there, they found Russians in their rear who appeared from their cleverly camouflaged foxholes and cut them off. The battalions narrow corridors to retreat were blocked leading to four more days of desperate and ferocious fighting between the combatants in isolated pockets – where they could smell the other at night they were so close. Prisoners were no longer being taken and soldiers had little hope of personal survival. Filled with alcohol and Benzedrine or speed, a drug which the Germans issued to their troops, these Landsers were bearded, exhausted from no sleep, they had lost all sense of motive and purpose. The only thing that mattered was cutting the throat of their individual enemy lying a few feet away. By the 18th November the shortage of ammunition and food led to a lull in fighting. That night there was only a small fraction of the usual crackle of small arms and the head numbing thud of the mortars and artillery. Both sides took the opportunity to try and deal with their wounded. North of Stalingrad, in fact over 100 miles north, a large army was preparing to cross the Don River near Serafimovich (SERA-FIMO-VEECH) and it wasn’t the Germans. And to the south, closer to the city, another army was awaiting orders – they were to launch their attack a day after the northern action and the overall plan was for both armies to meet way behind the Sixth Army at a place called Kalach.

   November 22, 2020·22min
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