Branch: Heer
Born: 23 September 1890 in Hesse-Nassau. near Breitenau,
Guxhagen, Germany.
Died: 1 February 1957 in Dresden, East Germany.
Ranks:
Generalfeldmarschall 30 January
1943
Generaloberst
General der Infanterie
Generalleutnant
Generalmajor
Oberst 1 June 1935
Oberstleutnant
Major
Hauptmann
Oberleutnant 18 December 1915
Leutnant 18 August 1911
Fähnrich 18 October 1911
Decorations:
Commands:
Other: Personnel
Articles:
Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus was born on 23 September 1890
and became a officer in the German military from 1910 to 1945.
He attained the rank of Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal)
during World War II, and is best known for having commanded
the 6. Armee (6th Army's) assault on Stalingrad during Operation
Blue in 1942. The battle ended in disaster for Nazi Germany
when approximately 270,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht, Axis
allies and Hilfswillige were encircled and defeated in a massive
Soviet counterattack in November 1942, with casualties reaching
as high as 740,000.
Friedrich Paulus surrendered to Soviet forces in Stalingrad
on 31 January 1943, a day after he was promoted to the rank
of Generalfeldmarschall by
Adolf
Hitler.
Adolf
Hitler expected Friedrich Paulus to commit suicide, citing
the fact that there was no record of a German field marshal
ever surrendering to enemy forces. While in Soviet captivity
during the war Friedrich Paulus became a vocal critic of the
National Socialist Regime and joined the Russian-sponsored
National Committee for a Free Germany. He was not released
until
Friedrich Paulus was born in Breitenau, Hesse-Nassau, the
son of a school teacher.
He tried, unsuccessfully, to secure a cadetship in the Kaiserliche
Marine and briefly studied law at Marburg University.
After leaving the university without a degree, he joined the
111th Infantry Regiment as an officer cadet in February 1910.
He married Elena Rosetti-Solescu on 4 July, 1912.
When World War I began, Friedrich Paulus's regiment was part
of the thrust into France, and he saw action in the Vosges
and around Arras in the autumn of 1914. After a leave of absence
due to illness, he joined the Alpenkorps as a staff officer,
serving in Macedonia, France and Serbia. By the end of the
war, he was a captain.
After the Armistice, Friedrich Paulus fought with the Freikorps
in the east as a brigade adjutant. He remained in the scaled-down
Reichswehr that came into being after the Treaty of Versailles
and was assigned to the 13th Infantry Regiment at Stuttgart
as a company commander. He served in various staff positions
for over a decade 1921 to 1933 and then briefly commanded
a motorised battalion 1934 to 1935 before being named chief
of staff for the Panzer headquarters in October 1935, a new
formation under Lutz that directed the training and development
of the army's three panzer divisions.
In February 1938 Friedrich Paulus was appointed Chef des Generalstabes
to
Heinz
Guderian's new XVI Armeekorps (Motorisiert), which replaced
Lutz's command.
Heinz
Guderian described him as ‘brilliantly clever, conscientious,
hard working, original and talented' but already had doubts
about his decisiveness, toughness and lack of command experience.
He remained in that post until May 1939, when he was promoted
to Major General and became Chief of Staff for the German
Tenth Army, with which he saw service in Poland, the Netherlands
and Belgium (by the latter two campaigns, the army had been
renumbered as the Sixth Army).
Friedrich Paulus was promoted to Lieutenant General in August
1940 and the following month he was named deputy chief of
the German General Staff (OQu I). In that role he helped draft
the plans for the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Friedrich Paulus was promoted to General of the Armoured Troops
and became commander of the German Sixth Army in January 1942
and led the drive on Stalingrad during that summer. Friedrich
Paulus' troops fought the defending Soviet troops holding
Stalingrad over three months in increasingly brutal urban
warfare. In November 1942, when the Soviet Red Army launched
a massive counter offensive, code named Operation Uranus,
Friedrich Paulus found himself surrounded by an entire Soviet
Army Group.
Friedrich Paulus followed
Adolf
Hitler's orders to hold the Army's position in Stalingrad
under all circumstances, despite the fact that he was completely
surrounded by strong Russian formations. A relief effort by
Heeresgruppe Don (Army Group Don) under Field Marshal
Erich
von Manstein failed in December, inevitably: insufficient
force was available to challenge the Soviet forces encircling
the German 6th Army, and
Adolf
Hitler refused to allow Friedrich Paulus to break out
of Stalingrad despite
Erich
von Manstein telling him it was the only way the effort
would succeed. By this time, Friedrich Paulus' remaining armour
had only sufficient fuel for a 12-mile advance anyway. In
any event, Friedrich Paulus was refused permission to break
out of the encirclement Kurt Zeitzler, the newly appointed
chief of the Army General Staff, eventually got
Adolf
Hitler to allow Friedrich Paulus to break out provided
they held onto Stalingrad, an impossible task.
For the next two months, Friedrich Paulus and his men fought
on. However, the lack of ammunition, equipment attrition and
deteriorating physical condition of the German troops prevented
them from defending effectively against the Red Army. The
battle was fought with terrible losses on both sides and great
suffering.
On 8 January 1943, General Konstantin Rokossovsky, commander
of the Red Army on the Don front, called a cease fire and
offered Friedrich Paulus' men generous surrender terms normal
rations, medical treatment for the ill and wounded, permission
to retain their badges, decorations, uniforms and personal
effects, and repatriation to any country they wished after
the war. Rokossovsky also noted that Friedrich Paulus was
in a nearly impossible situation. By this time, there was
no hope for Friedrich Paulus to be relieved or supplied by
air, and most of his men had no winter clothing. However,
when Friedrich Paulus asked
Adolf
Hitler for permission to surrender,
Adolf
Hitler rejected this request almost out of hand and ordered
him to hold Stalingrad to the last man.
After a heavy Soviet offensive overran the last emergency
airstrip in Stalingrad on 25 January, the Russians again offered
Friedrich Paulus a chance to surrender. Once again,
Adolf
Hitler ordered Friedrich Paulus to hold Stalingrad to
the death. On 30 January, Friedrich Paulus informed
Adolf
Hitler that his men were hours from collapse and that
he was no longer able to command them.
Adolf
Hitler responded by showering a raft of field promotions
by radio on Friedrich Paulus' officers to build up their spirits
and steel their will to hold their ground. Most significantly,
he promoted Friedrich Paulus to field marshal. In deciding
to promote Friedrich Paulus,
Adolf
Hitler noted that there was no known record of a Prussian
or German field marshal ever having surrendered. The implication
was clear: Friedrich Paulus was to commit suicide. If Friedrich
Paulus surrendered, he would shame Germany's military history.
Despite this, and to the disgust of
Adolf
Hitler, Friedrich Paulus and his staff surrendered the
next day, 31 January. On the 2 February 1943 the remainder
of the Sixth Army capitulated. Upon finding out about Friedrich
Paulus' surrender,
Adolf
Hitler flew into a rage, and vowed never to appoint another
field marshal again, though he would in fact go on to appoint
another seven field marshals during the last two years of
the war. Speaking about the surrender of Friedrich Paulus,
Adolf Hitler
told his staff:
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?
Friedrich Paulus, a Roman Catholic, was opposed to suicide.
During his captivity, according to General Pfeffer, Friedrich
Paulus said of
Adolf
Hitler's expectation: I have no intention of shooting
myself for this Bohemian corporal.Another general told the
NKVD that Friedrich Paulus had told him about his promotion
to field marshal and said: It looks like an invitation to
commit suicide, but I will not do this favour for him. Friedrich
Paulus also forbade his soldiers from standing on top of their
trenches in order to be shot by the enemy.
Although he at first refused to collaborate with the Soviets,
after the attempted assassination of
Adolf
Hitler on 20 July 1944, Friedrich Paulus became a vocal
critic of the National Socialist Regime while in Soviet captivity,
joining the Russian-sponsored National Committee for a Free
Germany and appealing to Germans to surrender. He later acted
as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials.
He was released in 1953, two years before the repatriation
of the remaining German POWs (mostly other Stalingrad veterans)
who had been designated war criminals by the Soviets. Friedrich
Paulus settled in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
During the Nuremberg Trials, Friedrich Paulus was asked about
the Stalingrad prisoners by a journalist. Friedrich Paulus
told the journalist to tell the wives and mothers that their
husbands and sons were well. Of the 91,000 German prisoners
taken at Stalingrad, half had died on the march to Siberian
prison camps, nearly as many died in captivity only about
6,000 returned home.
From 1953 to 1956, he lived in Dresden, East Germany, where
he worked as the civilian chief of the East German Military
History Research Institute and not, as often wrongly described,
as an inspector of police. In late 1956, he developed motor
neuron disease and was eventually left paralysed He died in
Dresden on 1 February 1957, exactly 14 years after he surrendered
at Stalingrad. His body was brought for burial in Baden next
to that of his wife, who had died in 1949 having not seen
her husband since his surrender.
For a complete list of
wikipedia
