Friedrich Paulus - Adolf Hitler - Hitler’s Generals TV -
Troops without ammunition or food. Effective command no longer possible. 18,000 wounded without any supplies or dressings or drugs. Further defence senseless. Collapse inevitable. Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops. Friedrich Paulus, radio message 24 January 1943, cited Bruce Bliven, The World Changers, 1965
In peacetime Germany about 18,000 or 20,000 people a year chose to commit suicide, even without being in such a position. Here is a man who sees 50,000 or 60,000 of his soldiers die defending themselves bravely to the end. How can he surrender himself to the Bolshevists? Adolf Hitler, re Paulus
What hurts me the most, personally, is that I still promoted him to field marshal. I wanted to give him this final satisfaction … a man like that besmirches the heroism of so many others at the last moment. He could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow. Adolf Hitler
Stalingrad, January 1943: an army in its death throes. 91,000 men were taken prisoner; barely 6,000 later returned home. The leader of the army surrendered though Hitler expected him to commit suicide. Hitler’s Generals: Paulus
Less than half the soldiers had winter clothing. ibid.
Photos of the captured Field Marshal went around the world. ibid.
He strongly incriminated his former superiors. ibid.
He lived in a Moscow suburb ... He never returned to a free Germany. ibid.