1943.02.10 “Vot Iss Dis…”
By Corporal Charles Millbern (1924-2011)
6.5 x 7.5 in., ink on heavy paper
Coppola Collection
Millbern started his career as a printing pressman before becoming a commercial artist. He was a Corporal during WW2 and drew cartoons for the Army Times. He served in the European Theatre and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, drew editorial, business, & sports illustrations for the Wichita World & Wichita Eagle-Beacon.
The full caption reads: “Vot Iss Dis Business About to See Der Chaplain?”
And the note on the desk reads: “Defeat. Setback.”
Hitler had a prayer-inducing beginning to 1943 when he went after Stalingrad (less for its strategic value and more for its name value).
Once more the battle degenerated into a hand-to-hand street fight. But time was running out for Wehrmacht. Food and ammunition supplies were critically low and the exhausted troops had been reduced to two narrow pockets. On January 24th, the Russians offered another chance for surrender. This time Paulus, the field commander, sent a personal plea to Hitler: “Army requests immediate permission to surrender in order to save lives of remaining troops.”
Hitler responded: “Surrender is forbidden. Sixth Army will hold their position to the last man and the last round and by their heroic endurance will make an unforgettable contribution toward the establishment of a defensive front and the salvation of the Western World.”
Hitler followed this by bestowing over a hundred field promotions, hoping it would inspire Paulus and his command staff to go down in a blaze of glory. Paulus himself was elevated to Field Marshal by Hitler, knowing that no German Field Marshal had ever been captured alive.
But Paulus had other ideas. As the Russians approached Sixth Army’s command bunker (the cellar of a wrecked department store) Field Marshal Paulus and his surviving staff officers simply came out and quietly surrendered, ignoring Hitler’s order that they fight to the last man, as well as his implied desire that they commit suicide rather than capitulate. Thus the Battle of Stalingrad ended on a sullen, anticlimactic note, Sunday, January 31, 1943.
After his surrender, an embittered Paulus turned against Hitler and Nazism. He collaborated with the Russians, forming a National Committee for Free Germany and made radio broadcasts from Moscow urging German troops to give up fighting for Hitler.
The refusal of Paulus to die honorably in battle, or by his own hand had enraged Hitler, who exclaimed: “How can one be so cowardly? I don’t understand it… What is life? Life is the Nation. The individual must die anyway. Beyond the life of the individual is the life of the Nation…So many people have had to die, and then a man like that besmirches the heroism of so many others at the last minute. He could have freed himself from all sorrow and ascended into eternity and national immortality, but he prefers to go to Moscow!”
On Wednesday, February 3, 1943, a special radio announcement informed the German people they had lost the Battle of Stalingrad. The news had a devastating impact on morale, casting an undeniable shadow of doubt on the Führer personally, and the future of Nazi Germany itself.
