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August 10 - August 30, 2022
His remarks were met by deadly silence, and Kohler realized that no one was about to side with him against Sixth Army Headquarters, which had banned all mention of starvation as a factor contributing to death. Disgusted with his peers, Kohler stormed from the room.
Now, more than eighty miles southwest of the Kessel, General “Papa” Hoth’s original relief expedition was slowly being forced backward by Russian divisions pressing in close pursuit. Acting under Manstein’s order to protect the city of Rostov as long as possible, Hoth was conducting a masterful delaying action as he feinted, ambushed, and kept the Soviet units off balance. Hoth’s tactics exasperated not only the Red Army, but also Hitler, who began to complain to Manstein about this strategy of “elastic” withdrawal. When the Fuhrer finally insisted that Hoth stop and hold every foot of ground,
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Capt. Winrich Behr returned from a trip to the front lines and, in a hurried letter, described his impressions to Klaus von Below. Behr told his friend what Sixth Army Headquarters had not mentioned in any messages to the outside world. German soldiers had begun to desert in large numbers; many officers in the field had lost the will to lead. Blankets over their heads, the men slept at sentry posts; without tanks behind them as support, terrified Germans now ran in the face of enemy assaults.
With Pitomnik overrun, Sixth Army had suffered a mortal wound. The end was almost at hand.
The reality of the situation, however, was that neither Paulus nor Schmidt understood that there was an almost total operational breakdown at the airport. The so-called “fully competent ground organization,” which had performed admirably at Pitomnik, was no longer a cohesive group.
