German general field marshal who surrendered. What was the fate of Field Marshal Paulus after the Battle of Stalingrad? Other biographical material

First, let's clarify: Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus (Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus) and his wife, the Romanian aristocrat Constance Elena Rosetti-Solescu, had three children. Daughter Olga (Olga von Kutzschenbach), married von Kutzschenbach, and twins Friedrich (Friedrich) and Ernst-Alexander (Ernst Alexander). Both sons fought. Friedrich died in February 1944 in Italy during the Anzio-Nettun military operation US and UK vs. German troops. And the captain of the Wehrmacht, Ernst-Alexander Paulus, fought in tank units, but after being seriously wounded, he became unfit for military service and was in Berlin from September 1942. Where a few months later he married Laura Dinzingen.

Here are all of them, including the 3-year-old son of Baroness von Kutzschenbach (by this time a widow: Achim von Kutzschenbach, who served in the army as an interpreter, including near Stalingrad, died in Romania on September 18, 1944) and 3-month-old baby Ernst and Laura, were arrested in early November 1944. Until that time, the Paulus family did not tolerate any harassment: they were informed from Hitler's headquarters that the field marshal had shot himself.

Members of the Paulus family became Sippenhäftlinge - such a legal term (“arrested relatives”) in the Third Reich designated “traitors to the interests of the German people” (similar hostages existed in Stalin times, their lives and fate were stigmatized "CHSIR" - members of the family of traitors to the Motherland). Sippenhaftung was organized to put pressure on the "traitors", and also, of course, for "prevention".

Ernst-Alexander was imprisoned in Berlin by the Gestapo, and then transferred to the Küstrin prison, where he was held along with the participants in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944. At the beginning of 1945, they were all transferred to the Bavarian city of Immenstadt. In April of the same year, on the orders of Hitler, the prisoners were to be shot, but they did not have time: Immenstadt was soon occupied by French troops.

Until February 1945, the women and children of the Paulus family were kept under arrest in Upper Silesia, along with the families of some other captured generals, in particular von Seydlitz and von Lensky. The daughter and daughter-in-law of Paulus wrote a petition for release in connection with young children, but when the Red Army approached, they were transferred first to Buchenwald, and a little later to Dachau. On April 29, 1945, Dachau was liberated by the Americans. In October of the same year, Constance Paulus, Olga and her young son Achim returned to Baden-Baden, to their former home on the Zeppelinstrasse. And even thanks to the assistance of the French occupation authorities, they were able to obtain the status of victims of Nazism. True, the field marshal never saw his wife, although until the last he hoped that he would be allowed to go to her, seriously ill. On November 10, 1949, Constance died of a severe relapse of jaundice.

And Ernst Paulus, his wife Laura and young son Friedrich Alexander, after being released, went to the wife's parents in the city of Viersen (today North Rhine-Westphalia).

Friedrich Paulus returned to Germany, to Dresden, only after the death of Stalin. After some time, he met his family there. But neither son nor daughter decided to reunite with their father - this required a move to the GDR, so they preferred only to visit him from time to time. However, such meetings were short-lived: on February 1, 1957, the former field marshal died.

You represent happy days

And sometimes good memories are born.

The pain returns and repeats

Life's complaint about its confusing path.

(F. Paulus, 1953)

As can be seen from the questionnaire filled out by Paulus himself on February 24, 1943 in the NKVD USSR prisoner of war camp No. 27 (Krasnogorsk), his family consisted of his wife, Elena-Constance Paulus, daughter, Olga-Constance, sons Friedrich and Ernst.

Wife, Elena-Constance, nee Rosetti-Solescu, was born in Bucharest on April 25, 1889 and came from a noble Romanian family. Paulus met her thanks to the fact that, together with her brother, he passed military service. She never worked, doing only housework.

Daughter - Olga von Kutzschenbach, born January 5, 1914. After World War II, she worked as a secretary at the Red Cross branch in Baden-Baden.

In the spring of 1941, she married Achim von Kutzschenbach, born in 1905, who was born near the city of Tiflis and in the early 1920s, as a German subject, left for permanent residence in Germany. Before the war, he worked as a sales clerk in the Rhineland, and then, as head of department, in Vienna, in one of the soap factories of the same company.

During the war years, he served in the army as an interpreter at the headquarters of the chief quartermaster, including near Stalingrad. Achim von Kutzschenbach died on Eastern Front, in Romania, September 18, 1944.

Paulus' son, Ernst Alexander, was born on April 11, 1918. He fought in tank units, where he rose to the rank of captain. From September 1942 he was in Berlin, as a result of a severe wound he became unfit for military service. At the end of March 1943, Ernst Paulus married in Berlin Laura Dinzingen, daughter of the owner of a heating appliance factory, and from 1945 worked in a heating appliance factory owned by his father-in-law.

The second twin son, Friedrich Ephraim, also served in tank units and was also a captain. He died on February 29, 1944 in Italy.

The field marshal's brother, Ernst Paulus, was born on January 3, 1897. During the First World War, he had the rank of lieutenant, and after its completion he was a sports teacher for 20 years in Giesen, then in Wetzlar and at the cavalry school in Hannover.

In 1933-1935, Ernst Paulus was a sports teacher at the Hitler Youth in Berlin. He was a member of the National Socialist Party. In September 1939, he was drafted into the army as a reserve officer. With the rank of captain of the reserve, he served in the rear automobile units, first in Düsseldorf, and then in Prague and Klegenfurt.

Paulus' sister, Cornelia Paulus, was born on April 26, 1899. From 1926 to 1936 she served in the administration of the 5th military district in Stuttgart. Since 1936, she worked in Berlin, in the engineering and technical inspection of the administrative and economic department.

Field Marshal's cousins:

Arnold Paulus, aged 63-65, architect in Kassel;

Karl Paulus, 60 years old, engineer in Laichingen;

Ernst Paulus, 60 years old, priest in Hessisch Lichtenau, near Kassel. Another cousin, for whom there are no exact data, was a doctor in Mühlhausen (Thuringia).

Through his wife, Paulus had the following relatives:

Her brother - Constantine Rosetti, 54 years old, until the end of the First World War - an army officer. He retired with the rank of senior lieutenant; later worked as an insurance agent in Constanta on the Bodezea (Romania);

sister - Alexandra Bazer, nee Rosetti, 56 years old, housewife;

her husband, Eduard Bazer, a freight forwarder living in Baden-Baden;

sister - Maria Shpis, nee Rosetti, 52 years old;

her husband, Colonel Otto Spies, who was retired from the summer of 1940 due to the amputation of his leg. He and his wife lived in Stuttgart.

In early March 1943, rumors began to circulate among the prisoners of war that Paulus' daughter was imprisoned in a concentration camp for an attempt to assassinate Hitler, and according to some allegations, she was even shot. In fact, such statements are completely untrue.

In the same year, Helena-Constance Paulus, her daughter Olga and two grandchildren left for Baden-Baden, where a small house was bought.

After the capture, Paulus received some information about his wife and family members only through the generals who were captured.

After the Stalingrad group capitulated, Paulus's relatives were informed from Hitler's headquarters that Field Marshal Paulus himself had shot himself. Until 1944, the Paulus family did not tolerate any harassment. As already noted, the war itself made adjustments to its composition.

So, in addition to the son and son-in-law who died at the front, in the spring of 1944, the little granddaughter of the field marshal, Alexander von Kutzschenbach, died in Baden-Baden.

October 28, 1944, in response to the extensive Nazi propaganda accusing the Union German officers and its president von Seydlitz1 in treachery, Friedrich Paulus once again spoke on the radio2.

A small speech, addressed to all Germans, was repeatedly broadcast on the radio on various waves. It contained direct accusations of betraying the interests of the country by both Hitler and Himmler3, which, apparently, was the very drop that overflowed the cup of their Aryan patience. The conclusions were drawn quickly and scrupulously in German.

Already in early November 1944, Hitler ordered the arrest of Paulus's wife, the wife of Paulus's son, Laura, with a 3-month-old child, and Paulus's daughter, Baroness von Kutzschenbach, with a 3-year-old son. On November 15 of the same year, Ernst Alexander Paulus himself was imprisoned by the Gestapo in Berlin, who was kept in an underground cell in one of the Berlin prisons.

On December 25, he was summoned for interrogation by the head of the 4th Directorate1 RSHA2 Müller3. Müller told the young Paulus that his father was engaged in criminal anti-Hitler, anti-German work and led an army made up of German prisoners of war. Therefore, he instructed to arrest the entire Paulus family and bring this to the attention of the field marshal through German agents in order to put pressure on him. Müller went on to say that until Paulus ceased his anti-Hitler activities, the entire family would remain imprisoned. After that, Ernst Paulus was transferred to the Küstrin prison, where he was held together with the participants in the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944.

At the beginning of 1945, all those held in the prison were transferred to the city of Immenstadt (Bavaria). In April of the same year, all these prisoners were told that they would be shot on Hitler's orders, but this order was not carried out, since Immenstadt was soon occupied by French troops.

The fate of the rest of the family of the disgraced field marshal was somewhat different. By that time, a new legal term was introduced into the everyday life of the German “justice” - “zippenheftlinge” - “arrested relatives”, a kind of hostage institution (in the USSR, this corresponded to the abbreviation ChSIR1), which was organized to put pressure on the “traitors” of the interests of the German people, and also for the prevention of possible betrayal of the interests of the Fuhrer of other people.

These arrested persons were registered with the RSHA, which also provided bodyguards. Mostly they were women with small children.

The first "Zippenheftlinge" arrived in exile in the resort town of Schirlichmülle already at the beginning of November 1944. The exiles arrived in groups of 2-3 people, sometimes more, and sometimes they brought only one person. Most of them were delivered via Breslau, some via Görlitz.

Schirlichmülle is a small town in the Sudetenland, Troppau district. It is located 120-130 kilometers from Breslau, near the Grunwald winter sports station. There are only a few buildings and a hotel-restaurant. Usually in this hotel there were tourists who came to ski. Now the RSHA had booked it specifically for the accommodation of repressed relatives and paid the owner of the hotel all the expenses for their maintenance.

Exiles traveling from Berlin stopped in Breslau to change trains to Glatz, then to Reinerz, in the direction of Schirlichmüll.

In mid-December 1944, they arrived in Breslau from Berlin on their way to Schirlichmüll as repressed relatives Constance Paulus, the wife of Field Marshal Paulus, their married daughter Olga von Kutzschenbach with their 2-year-old son Axel and daughter-in-law, Laura Paulus, with a baby, accompanied by official and security. They were brought from Berlin with "special comfort" - in a freight car.

Constance Paulus, due to her poor health, could not immediately be placed in Schirlichmüll, which lies at an altitude of 800 meters. The mountain air was bad for her. Therefore, with the permission of Berlin, the whole family was placed for 10-14 days for adaptation in the valley, in the village of Altheude-Bad, near Schirlichmülle, and subsequently she was also provided with medical assistance.

After they had somewhat recovered from the shocks, on January 7, 1945, Olga von Kutzschenbach was delivered first to Schirlichmüll; then Laura Paulus with her children was brought there by one of the officials. And only then was Constance Paulus transported on a sleigh. They had already booked three rooms in one of the houses.

The head of the Gestapo of Breslau, who was instructed to “patronize” the family of the captured field marshal, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Scharpwinkel later told during interrogation: “... I talked ... with Olga von Kutzschenbach. She seems to have said that she lived with her mother in Baden-Baden, whether she was arrested there, I do not know. It is only certain that they were all imprisoned in Berlin.

The son of the field marshal, Captain Paulus, was also under arrest and was imprisoned in the fortress in Kustrin. I learned about the arrest of Captain Paulus from his wife. That he was imprisoned in the fortress, I learned from her letters to him, which, as usual, were forwarded through me to Berlin and which I read.

Conversations with young ladies were reduced to discussions about their fate. Olga talked about her depressed mood due to the death of her husband and child, and that she lives solely for the sake of her child Axel. Laura Paulus said that they were not going to arrest her because of the baby, but out of solidarity with her husband and because he wanted it, she "foolishly" insisted on her exile along with her whole family. Both women asked me for help. I promised and kept my promise.

I advised them to write a request for release from arrest, and justify it by the fact that they have small children, and send this request directly to me. Although I had nothing to do with this issue either on official or territorial lines, I nevertheless promised to send a request with my petition to Berlin. They gratefully accepted this advice. When I was already in the army (at the end of January or at the beginning of February 1945), I received from them these applications for release from arrest, about which I spoke with them, and also personal letters of their gratitude to me. I immediately sent these statements with my petition to Berlin for the speediest resolution to the SS-Gruppenführer Müller in the RSHA.

I don’t know how Berlin reacted to my appeals, since Breslavl was surrounded by Russian troops on February 13. With an immediate military threat to Schirlichmülle, they would have been evacuated. Judging by the radio reports, there was no such threat until April 30. Given the critical situation on all fronts that developed after April 30, the evacuation lost its meaning. I think they had to be released. My petition was so clearly motivated that I believe that as a result of it, these women were soon released.

To help the ladies prompted me purely human feeling. Nothing was published about Paulus in Germany. I did not believe the article in the Swiss newspaper about him, written very vaguely.

I had a brief conversation with the Field Marshal's wife only in Breslau. She lived in seclusion. None of them openly spoke to me about the behavior of the field marshal. The young women hinted only that they could not imagine any action by Paulus against Germany or against Hitler.

Not long before this, I had made the acquaintance of the ex-wife of the captured General von Seydlitz, who was in Schirlichmüll with her two daughters. I spoke to her not as an official, but as an ordinary person, about her fate. Also in this case, I, without being authorized to do so, proposed to the RSHA to release them, since this woman could not know what her husband was doing in Russia.

When I brought the Paulus family to Schirlichmüll, Frau von Seydlitz and her two daughters had just been released. Whether this was the result of my intercession, I do not know.

As far as I remember, the former wives of General von Lenski1 and General Dammermann2 (or Dammann) were also in Schirlichmüll. I spoke politely and correctly with these ladies, offered them my services, but, in connection with my transfer to the army, to the fortress of Breslavl, nothing came of this, since the mail from these persons could not reach me, due to the encirclement of Breslavl " .

Scharpwinkel's commendable diligence, however, was not crowned with success. At least Olga von Kutzschenbach and her son Achim were sent to concentration camps, and Constance Paulus, first to Buchenwald and then to Dachau3, from where she was released only in April 1945, as well as all other family members.

In October of the same year, Constance Paulus, Olga and Achim von Kutzschenbach returned to Baden-Baden, in their house at 6 Zeppelinstrasse, which by that time was occupied by strangers.

Only thanks to the support and assistance of the French occupation authorities, the field marshal's relatives were able to settle in their house and receive the status of victims of Nazism, which is absolutely necessary in order to survive in this difficult period, in conditions of devastation, lack of work and money. In addition, after some time they began to rent out some of the rooms to French officers, as well as to Germans who did not have housing. All this allowed them to stay afloat for some time, although, in the figurative expression of Constance Paulus, “after a year spent in prison, you can’t bear much, and life here, in the house, is very unpleasant, but this cannot be changed.”

Ernst Paulus, his wife Laura and young son Friedrich Alexander went to his wife's parents in the city of Viersen, where they lived at the address: Bismarckstrasse, 67. In the autumn of 1945, Ernst began working at a heating appliance factory owned by his father-in-law, Mr. Dinzing.

Finally, contact with family members was established only in February 1946, after the appearance of Paulus at the Nuremberg trials. Then he managed to get a letter from his son, which indicated the new addresses of his wife and himself. In addition, an attempt was made to arrange a short meeting between father and son, but it did not take place, since on February 12 the field marshal was supposed to leave for the USSR. There was also no meeting with his own sister, Cornelia Paulus, who had specially arrived in Nuremberg.

Prior to this, individual letters had reached Paulus through the International Red Cross or from his cousin, Konstantin M. Sturts-Bokhotin, who lived in Romania. The field marshal also wrote letters, but, probably, many of them were simply lost in the military cycle or confiscated for known reasons by the German special services.

It must be said that for the entire period of his stay in captivity, only a few letters from Paulus were detained by Soviet censorship, and after the well-known events of August 1944, they, if necessary, were corrected and rewritten again.

So, in 1946-1947, another channel for receiving letters arose - they came through a fellow countryman and an acquaintance of the field marshal, Dr. Haderman, who lived in Berlin, who managed to forward letters to the USSR and back, not only for members of the Paulus family, but also for many other German generals in Soviet captivity. Among them are Generals Lattman1, Korfes2, Weinknecht3, Heinrici4 and many others. Only the relatives of the last general managed to avoid the sad fate of the Zippenheft Linge. There is only one reason for this - this general was captured on May 9, 1945 - on Victory Day.

It is not entirely clear what motives Dr. Haderman was guided by when providing assistance. He simply could not receive any special funds, especially from such a specific category of the population - prisoners of war and their relatives, since, as a rule, the wives and relatives of captured generals, especially those recently released from prisons and concentration camps, did not have any funds. Most likely, Haderman liked to communicate with relatives of people whose names had recently commanded respect in German society. In addition, the whole nation was ahead of the unknown - those who were so recently called traitors could once again be on the crest of life. But soon the mediation of the doctor became unnecessary - the delivery of mail was streamlined.

* * *

At a certain point, it might seem that the head of the family himself, having become an enemy of the Reich, contributed to the use of repressions against his loved ones, which could push them away from him. But this did not happen. As already noted, Friedrich Paulus, in connection with his constant desire to make a successful military career, common for people from the lower classes of society, could not devote much time to the family. However, despite the fact that the wife was mainly involved in raising the children, he also tried to participate in this process.

Being in captivity for many years, having adult children and four grandchildren, he always tried to give helpful tips on their upbringing, education and other aspects of life. The grandchildren, and those who were born after his captivity, having barely learned to write, will subsequently write in uneven children's handwriting about their love for him:

“Dear grandfather!

Christmas is coming soon, and since you, unfortunately, are not with us, I am writing you a letter. When you open our package on the eve of the holiday, you will definitely be happy with it. We will think a lot about you.

Maybe we'll go to Allgäu for the holidays. If it snows, I will go skiing. I'm doing well at school and I'm thinking of enrolling in a craft school by Easter.

So, dear grandfather, your boy wishes you all the best for Christmas from the bottom of his heart.

This is how the eldest grandson Burshi, who had never seen his grandfather, expressed his attitude. These are the secrets of correspondence education.

In the family, it was customary to call each other by diminutive names known only to its members and close relatives. Constance Paulus was called Koka, the daughter of Olga - Pussi, the son of Ernst - Zussi, the son of Fritz Puffy, the grandson of Achim von Kutzschenbach - Bursha, the granddaughter of Sylvia - Burke, the grandson of Friedrich Alexander - Axel, the sister of Cornelia Paulus - Nelli, the sister-in-law of Alexandra Bazer - Ponyon, her husband Edward Bazer - Teddy.

As far as possible, they tried to support the field marshal with all kinds of parcels, despite the fact that this entailed certain expenses.

Members of the Paulus family were constantly under the pressure of all kinds of speculation, rumors and slander, spread over the radio and through newspapers. So, for example, in the autumn of 1947, newspapers around the world, including American ones, reported on the imminent invasion of Germany by a hundred thousandth army, made up of German prisoners of war, led by Paulus and Seidlitz. Nobody in the Paulus family ever believed this nonsense.

On the contrary, the son of the field marshal, Ernst Paulus, tried to achieve a fair attitude towards his father, trying to publish letters from his father in the press of the English zone of occupation, calling all the speculations around his activities in the USSR nonsense. But this did not stop the flow of lies in the atmosphere of delimitation of interests of the three victorious countries and the Soviet Union.

On February 3, 1948, Ernst Paulus spoke on the Cologne radio, stating that all the rumors about the existence of the “Paulus army” in the USSR were a complete fiction. As confirmation of this information, he referred to the testimony of former Lieutenant Colonel Fritz Kaiser, who had recently returned from Soviet captivity.

On July 11, 1948, he once again made an attempt to tell the truth about his father's activities, this time in the newspaper Berliner Zeitung1. This note was highly appreciated by the field marshal himself, but he recommended that his son subsequently refrain from contacts with any journalists, since, in the context of the upcoming division of Germany, this would be pointless. He was right, since in the middle of the next year they began to write about Field Marshal Paulus, commander of the Chinese army.

In such an environment, the next blow for the family followed - on November 10, 1949, at 1 hour 5 minutes in Baden-Baden, Constance Paulus died from a severe relapse of jaundice. Friedrich Paulus knew about her illness and until recently he hoped that he would be allowed to go to her. But this did not happen.

Constance Paulus was buried in the cemetery of Baden-Baden, where by that time her granddaughter Alexandra, several other close relatives had already been buried, and a small tetrahedral stone with the names of Achim von Kutzschenbach and Fritz Paulus lay, although they were buried far outside Germany .

The question of the repatriation of Paulus was decided on the high level, but was not resolved positively during this period. On December 9, he was handed the delayed letters from his relatives, in which there was news of the death of his wife. He took this news very sadly and, having listened to condolences, went to his room, where he wept for a long time.

Koki's death made a disastrous impression on him; only on December 31, he sends two telegrams to the children, in which he announces his imminent return home. But these hopes soon, like a mirage, melted away.

Having lost their mother, the children and close relatives of the field marshal concentrated all their attention on caring for him. For lack of another possibility, all this was expressed in an ever-increasing flow of letters, postcards and parcels. To account for their receipt, Paulus developed a special system that made it possible to identify letters that did not reach the addressees in order to subsequently duplicate the information contained in them. He also taught his close relatives the same system for registering and accounting for letters.

Having a huge amount of free time at their disposal, Paulus occupied them with several hobbies: he wrote letters to relatives and friends, often up to 5 pieces a day, and drew a lot, sending them his watercolors, oil paintings, drawings for birthdays and holidays, accompanying their witty wishes, in which he achieved considerable success.

Among the objects of his artistic embodiment were paintings by famous Russian painters, such as "Morning in a Pine Forest" by Shishkin1. He was often inspired by the postcards he received from Cornelia Paulus (Nellie). Knowing well her brother's tastes, she tried to pick up for him such postcards that would accurately reflect this or that state of nature, as a rule, during the transition period from one season to another; still lifes, with close-ups of garden flowers, which often contained unique combinations of a riot of colors and shades; finally, reproductions of paintings by German artists, invalids of the World War, written in a form and technique that is unique for a normal, healthy person - with the help of teeth and preserved left hands.

He appreciated the last works most highly - he could not imagine how these people with such talent and skill could create masterpieces, having suffered so hard during the war years. Paulus constantly drew parallels with the disabled, eventually coming to the conclusion that he, in comparison with them, was simply in the best position. This helped him overcome critical moments in his life, when he to some extent lost his fortitude.

In November 1951, after a holiday in the Alps, Ernst Paulus, on his way back to Viersen, stopped by Bavaria, where he visited one of his father's good friends, Guderian2, who at one time did a lot in the future field marshal's professional development, and conveyed heartfelt greetings to him.

Before her death, Constance Paulus wrote a will, in which she named her husband the sole heir to the property belonging to both of them. The family did not have special wealth; The war made quite significant adjustments to its well-being. The only thing that Constance Paulus was able to do in the absence of her husband was to buy a small house in Baden-Baden, where she moved from Berlin in 1943.

In addition, Ernst Paulus, who came on vacation, managed to send almost all the family property that was in their state-owned apartment in the capital to Baden-Baden. It was thanks to this circumstance that after the end of the war, his mother, sister and nephew could, by selling any of their property, live for some time without work, which was very difficult to find at that time.

Then there was the renting of rooms to foreigners and Germans in need of housing, which helped Constance Paulus to make some savings. First of all, she wanted to properly prepare for the return of her husband. But after the monetary reform, these savings simply disappeared.

Now Friedrich Paulus also took over the economic duties of his property. At the request of the children, he gave them some of the furniture and clothes, and having received a loan from the authorities of Baden-Baden secured by his house, he presented most of it to Olga - to build a new house, which she planned to build on a plot of land bought in November 1951 in Lichtenfeld. The old house, acquired in 1943, was no longer good for anything and was destined for scrapping.

As far as possible, Paulus tried to help his sister, who did not have her own family. In addition, every time he received parcels from children and relatives, he tried to reimburse their expenses from his account. He did this with the help of Eduard Bazer (Teddy), who had his power of attorney to withdraw money from the account, and also kept all the remaining property of the Friedrich Paulus family in the warehouse.

Ernst Paulus had by that time a family with three children. The last daughter, Claudia, was born in May 1950. Having awakened the talent of an entrepreneur in himself, he passionately set to work and achieved some success in this matter. The post-war confusion that reigned, among other things, in the economy and business, was gradually overcome.

Experiencing certain health problems undermined during the war (frostbitten lungs, shot through his left hand), Ernst Paulus, on the advice of his father, began to actively engage in hardening and swimming, and other sports. In addition, he continued to study at various economic courses, including courses French, taking part in various meetings of industrialists in West Germany and beyond. Fortunately, the fortune of his family constantly grew; purchased soon enough private car.

The family could afford to rest several times a year in Switzerland, France, Italy, Austria. Ernst Paulus did not need any financial assistance from his father. The only thing that did not suit Friedrich Paulus in any way was that his son did not help his sister in any way - relations between them had deteriorated for some time. Therefore, the field marshal was constantly tormented by the thought of consolidating the family, of establishing normal family relations between children. In the end, he succeeded to a large extent by the summer of 1953 - brother and sister resumed normal family relations.

“Choosing a school for Axel is, of course, an important and serious topic, and I want to express my point of view as far as possible from here.

First of all, I want to highlight the purpose and means of teaching individual educational institutions.

The gymnasium contributes to the harmonious development of all the mental abilities of students, thanks to a deep study of the great Greco-Roman era in the history of mankind. They teach Latin and Greek. Study of Latin, with its logical construction, disciplines thoughts. Study of Greek contributes to the introduction to Greek literature, which is the source of European science (philosophy, the doctrine of the state) and art. Thus, the gymnasium lays a solid foundation for general education.

But for many modern professions educational material a humanitarian gymnasium does not provide the necessary training, for example, for all branches of engineering and for specialties where modern knowledge comes to the fore, modern languages. This task is performed by real schools. They study new languages, mathematics and science.

The real gymnasium differs from the gymnasium in that it does not contain Greek, and from the higher real school in that it has Latin, it, as it were, combines the goals and means of gymnasiums and real schools.

Here, in my opinion, there is a danger in the sense that too much educational material is taken from the higher real school, which can lead to an overstrain of young forces. But suppose the curriculum is kept within the bounds of prudence, then for everything you write about Axel, the most appropriate educational institution for him, in my opinion, is a real gymnasium. On the one hand, he will be spared from the Greek and thus avoid the pitfall that he might encounter. On the other hand, knowledge of Latin will help him learn modern Western European languages ​​and will make it easier to understand technical terms and common foreign words, the roots of which are mostly of Latin origin.

Only I don't know if you have a real gymnasium there, but there certainly is in the neighborhood in Gladbach-Reidt, with which there is probably a tram or bus connection.

I would like to advise you to quickly get acquainted with the curriculum of a real gymnasium. Pay special attention to the requirements in mathematics and natural science, in comparison with the requirements of the gymnasium, on the one hand, and the requirements of the higher real school, on the other hand.

As far as I know, there are 2 types of real gymnasiums, in some the foundation is Latin (i.e., like in a gymnasium), in others - new languages, and Latin begins later (reformist real gymnasium?). Once you know about the situation with the schools, we can talk about it further.

You ask if I would send my sons to the gymnasium now. I will answer from my own experience and from experience with you. I have a good liberal arts education, which I got from the gymnasium, but often I really lack a better knowledge of new languages ​​(despite good marks in these subjects; the requirements were too low). I think you feel it too.

I remember the time of the 1936 Olympic Games. As a reward for more good knowledge French and English, I could give up the knowledge of Greek, but not the knowledge of Latin. Therefore, I now prefer a real gymnasium, provided that the requirements for mathematics are not very high. In the gymnasium, I successfully coped with them, but this was the limit of my abilities in this respect.

The fact that we once sent you to the gymnasium had the following reasons: your successes at school showed that you have grown up to the requirements of the gymnasium. On the other hand, you did not have any special inclinations towards mathematics and technical specialties. Consequently, the question of a higher real school was dropped. There was a choice between a gymnasium and a real gymnasium. In this choice, not only the educational material played a role. I was of such an age that I had to count on a frequent change of garrison, as it actually turned out. And although there were gymnasiums in all garrison towns, there were no real gymnasiums in many cities. Based on this, my mother and I decided to send you to the gymnasium, although we hesitated for a long time. But it must be assumed that Axel will study at school from beginning to end, in the same place, so the decision that played a role when you studied is no longer. It seems to me that later he will follow in the footsteps of his father, in his current specialty.

This is perhaps the most important thing that I can say regarding this topic, being here. Maybe there are other opinions worth thinking about, but which I do not know.

Such is the lecture. And so - with almost all the difficulties that arise in children.

After Olga's decision to build a new house, Paulus gave a number of valuable tips on designing rooms and organizing construction. The daughter herself also did not sit idle, gardening on the old site, breaking flower beds, making and painting benches. In the summer of 1953, she celebrated a housewarming party in a newly built house.

In addition to construction, work and housekeeping, she constantly experienced problems with raising her son. Burshi, in the absence of a male part of education, grew up as a rather naughty child. Olga constantly wrote to her father that she was looking forward to his return home, as she hoped for his help in re-educating his grandson. Not wanting to be left behind by her son, she also studied - however, driving a car. Deciding to avoid theoretical studies, she took up practice, using the car of the Baser family for this. But the very first attempt to enter the garage ended in failure - she drove through the door, after which she decided to study with an instructor.

Burshi studied at a folk school rather averagely, without much success, but after a while Olga decided to transfer him to a classical gymnasium. Having passed the translation exams, the younger Achim began to "fight" with foreign languages ​​- Greek and Latin. But on the first day of visiting new school he was hit by a motorcyclist rushing along the road, however, without special problems for health.

He had problems in his studies. If with the study of the Greek language his results were more or less satisfactory, then with Latin he immediately did not work out. Neither Olga herself, nor several tutors with him helped. However, he had success in sports. He was quite good at skiing and swimming. He was especially fond of horse racing and car racing.

On the advice of his father, Olga transferred her son to a higher real school, where the languages ​​of the ancient peoples were not studied, and the main subject was mathematics, in which Bursha had some success. In the event of her departures, she left her son in the Bazer family, who had no children and therefore, with pleasure, not only did lessons with him, but also cleaned his knees and hands of dirt after he once again visited a coal warehouse with friends or at the sawmill.

The constant waiting, in which Paulus's family spent several years, in the turmoil of days, finally came to its logical conclusion. The next parcels for the field marshal were packed, letters were sent by mail, and in the meantime his fate was decided.

On October 24, 1953, he left Moscow and two days later got off at the platform of one of the Berlin railway stations. He was greeted by old friends Soviet captivity, joint work in the "Union of German Officers"1 and the National Committee "Free Germany"2, who by that time occupied very responsible positions in the government of the GDR and in the governing bodies of large cities in East Germany.

By decision of the government, Friedrich Paulus was given a villa in the vicinity of the city of Dresden, as well as a responsible position in the people's police, which at that time was led by his close friend and colleague Vincenz Müller.

Being in close proximity to his relatives, he met with them after a while. Neither son nor daughter decided to reunite with their father - this required a move to the GDR - they preferred to visit him from time to time. However, this need soon disappeared. On February 1, 1957, three and a half years after returning from the USSR, the former field marshal of the former Wehrmacht died.

On January 30, 1943, Hitler promoted Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th German army that fought in Stalingrad, to the highest military rank - field marshal. In a radiogram sent by Hitler to Paulus, among other things, it was said that “not a single German field marshal has been captured yet,” and the very next day Paulus surrendered. We bring to your attention the diary-report of the detective of the counterintelligence department of the special department of the NKVD of the Don Front, Senior Lieutenant of State Security E.A. Tarabrin about finding and communicating with German generals taken prisoner near Stalingrad.

Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus (Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus), commander of the Wehrmacht 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad, chief of staff Lieutenant General Arthur Schmidt and adjutant Colonel Wilhelm Adam near Stalingrad after surrendering. Shooting time: 01/31/1943,

Diary-report of the detective of the counterintelligence department of the special department of the NKVD of the Don Front, senior lieutenant of state security E.A. Tarabrin 1 about finding and communicating with the generals of the German army who were taken prisoner by the troops of the 64th Army in the city of Stalingrad

Received an order to stay with the German generals prisoners of war. Do not show knowledge of the German language.
At 21.20, as a representative of the front headquarters, he arrived at his destination - in one of the huts with. Zavarygino.
In addition to me, there is security - sentries on the street, art. lieutenant Levonenko - from the commandant's office of the headquarters and the detective of our 7th department Nesterov 2.
"Will there be dinner?" - life was the first phrase I heard on German when I entered the house in which the commander of the 6th German Army, General Field Marshal Paulus, his chief of staff, Lieutenant General Schmidt 3 and adjutant Colonel Adam 4, taken prisoner on January 31, 1943, were accommodated.
Paulus is tall, about 190 cm, thin, with sunken cheeks, a hooked nose and thin lips. His left eye is twitching all the time.
The commandant of the headquarters, Colonel Yakimovich, who arrived with me, through the translator of the reconnaissance department, Bezymensky 5, politely suggested that they hand over the available pocket knives, a razor, and other cutting objects.

Without saying a word, Paulus calmly took two penknives out of his pocket and put them on the table.
The interpreter looked at Schmidt expectantly. At first he turned pale, then the color rushed into his face, he took out a small white penknife from his pocket, threw it on the table and immediately began to shout in a shrill, unpleasant voice: “Don't you think that we are simple soldiers? Before you is a field marshal, he demands a different attitude towards himself. Ugliness! Other conditions were set for us, we are guests of Colonel-General Rokossovsky 6 and Marshal Voronov 7 here.
"Calm down, Schmidt. Paulus said. “So this is the order.”
"It doesn't matter what order means when dealing with a field marshal." And, seizing his knife from the table, he put it back into his pocket.
A few minutes after the telephone conversation between Yakimovich and Malinin 8, the incident was over, the knives were returned to them.
Dinner arrived and everyone sat down at the table. There was silence for about 15 minutes, interrupted by separate phrases - “pass the fork, another glass of tea”, etc.

They smoked cigars. “And the dinner was not bad at all,” Paulus noted.
“In Russia, in general, they cook quite well,” Schmidt replied.
After some time, Paulus was called to command. "Are you going alone? Schmidt asked. - And I?"
“I was called alone,” Paulus replied calmly.
"I won't sleep until he comes back," said Adam, lit a new cigar and lay down on the bed in his boots. Schmidt followed suit. Paulus returned about an hour later.
“Well, how is the marshal?” Schmidt asked.
"Marshal as Marshal".
"What were they talking about?"
"They offered to order the rest to surrender, I refused."
"And what's next?"
“I asked for our wounded soldiers. I was told that your doctors had fled, and now we must take care of your wounded.”
After a while, Paulus remarked: “Do you remember this one from the NKVD with three distinctions that accompanied us? What terrible eyes he has!”
Adam replied: "It's scary, like everyone else in the NKVD."
This ended the conversation. The bedtime process began. Paulus, the orderly, has not yet been brought in. He opened the bed he had made himself, put his two blankets on top, undressed and lay down.
Schmidt stirred up the whole bed with a flashlight, carefully examined the sheets (they were new, completely clean), grimaced in disgust, closed the blanket, said: “The pleasure begins”, covered the bed with his blanket, lay down on it, covered himself with another and said in a sharp tone: “ Put out the light." There were no people in the room who understood the language, no one paid attention. Then he sat up in bed and began to explain with gestures what he wanted. The lamp was wrapped in newsprint.
“I wonder until what time we can sleep tomorrow?” Paulus asked.
"I will sleep until they wake me up," Schmidt replied.
The night passed quietly, except for the fact that Schmidt said loudly several times: "Don't shake the bed."
Nobody shook the bed. He had bad dreams.

Morning. We started to shave. Schmidt looked in the mirror for a long time and categorically declared: "It's cold, I'll leave the beard."
"That's your business, Schmidt," Paulus remarked.
Colonel Adam, who was in the next room, hissed through his teeth: "Another originality."
After breakfast, they remembered yesterday's dinner at the commander of the 64th Army 9 .
“Did you notice how amazing the vodka was?” Paulus said.
For a long time they were silent. The soldiers brought Art. lieutenant of the newspaper "Red Army" with the release "In the last hour." Revival. They wonder if their names are listed. Having heard the given list, they studied the newspaper for a long time, on a piece of paper they wrote their names in Russian letters. Particularly interested in the numbers of trophies. Pay attention to the number of tanks. “The figure is incorrect, we had no more than 150,” Paulus noted. “Perhaps they also consider the Russians,” 10 Adam replied. "It still wasn't that much." They were silent for a while.

“And he seems to have shot himself,” said Schmidt (it was about one of the generals).
Adam, furrowing his brows and staring at the ceiling: “I don’t know what is better, is it a mistake, captured?”
Paulus: We'll see about that.
Schmidt: The whole history of these four months 11 can be characterized by one phrase - you can't jump above your head.
Adam: Houses will think we're lost.
Paulus: In war - as in war (in French).
Look at the numbers again. Pay attention to the total number of people in the environment. Paulus said: Perhaps, because we did not know anything. Schmidt tries to explain to me - he draws a front line, a breakthrough, an encirclement, he says: There are a lot of convoys, other parts, they themselves did not know exactly how many.
They are silent for half an hour, smoking cigars.
Schmidt: And in Germany, a military leadership crisis is possible.
Nobody is answering.
Schmidt: Until mid-March they will probably advance.
Paulus: Probably longer.
Schmidt: Will they stop at the former borders?
Paulus: Yes, all this will be included in military history as a brilliant example of enemy operational art.

At dinner, every dish served was incessantly praised. Adam, who ate the most, was especially zealous. Paulus left half and gave it to the orderly.
After dinner, the orderly tries to explain to Nesterov that the penknife that was left with their staff doctor should be returned to him. Paulus addresses me, supplementing the German words with gestures: “The knife is a memory from Field Marshal Reichenau 12, for whom Hein was an orderly before moving on to me. He was with the field marshal until his last moments. The conversation was interrupted again. The prisoners went to bed.
Dinner. Among the dishes served on the table are coffee biscuits.
Schmidt: Good biscuits, probably French?
Adam: Very good, in my opinion, Dutch.
They put on glasses, carefully examine the cookies.
Adam surprised: Look, Russian.
Paulus: At least stop looking. Ugly.
Schmidt: Pay attention, every time there are new waitresses.
Adam: And pretty girls.
The rest of the evening they smoked in silence. The orderly prepared the bed and went to bed. Schmidt did not cry at night.

Adam takes out a razor: “We will shave every day, the view should be decent.”
Paulus: Exactly. I will shave after you.
After breakfast they smoke cigars. Paulus looks out the window.
“Pay attention, Russian soldiers drop in, they are interested in what the German field marshal looks like, and he differs from other prisoners only in insignia.”
Schmidt: Have you noticed what kind of security is here? Lots of people, but you don't feel like you're in a prison. But I remember when at the headquarters of Field Marshal Bush 13 there were captured Russian generals, there was no one in the room with them, the posts were on the street, and only the colonel had the right to enter them.
Paulus: It's better that way. It's good that it doesn't feel like a prison, but it's still a prison.
All three are in a somewhat depressed mood. They talk little, smoke a lot, think. Adam took out photographs of his wife and children, looked with Paulus.
Paulus Schmidt and Adam are treated with respect, especially Adam.
Schmidt is reserved and selfish. He even tries not to smoke his own cigars, but to take other people's.
In the afternoon I went to another house, where there are generals Daniel 14, Drebber 15, Wulz 16 and others.
Completely different environment and mood. Lots of laughs, Daniel tells jokes. It was not possible to hide the knowledge of the German language here, since there was a lieutenant colonel with whom I had spoken earlier.
They began to ask: “What is the situation, who else is in captivity, ha, ha, ha,” he said for about five minutes.
Rumanian general Dimitriu 17 was sitting in the corner looking gloomy. Finally, he raised his head and asked in broken German: “In captivity of Popescu 18?” - apparently, this is the most exciting question for him today.
After staying there for a few more minutes, I returned to Paulus' house. All three were in bed. Adam learned Russian by repeating aloud the Russian words he had written down on a piece of paper.

Today at 11 o'clock in the morning again at Paulus, Schmidt and Adam.
When I entered they were still asleep. Paulus woke up, nodded his head. Schmidt woke up.
Schmidt: Good morning, what did you see in your dream?
Paulus: What kind of dreams can a captured field marshal have? Adam, have you started shaving yet? Leave me hot water.
The procedure of morning washing, shaving and so on begins. Then breakfast and regular cigars.
Paulus was summoned for interrogation yesterday, he is still under his impression.
Paulus: Strange people. A captured soldier is asked about operational matters.
Schmidt: Useless thing. None of us will speak. This is not 1918, when they shouted that Germany is one thing, the government is another, and the army is a third. We will not make this mistake now.
Paulus: I fully agree with you, Schmidt.
Again they are silent for a long time. Schmidt lies down on the bed. Falls asleep. Paulus follows suit. Adam takes out a notepad with written down Russian aftertaves, reads it, whispers something. Then he also goes to bed.
Suddenly Yakimovich's car arrives. The generals are offered to go to the bathhouse. Paulus and Adam happily agree. Schmidt (he is afraid of catching a cold) after some hesitation also. Paulus' statement that Russian baths are very good and always warm had a decisive influence.
All four went to the bath. Generals and Adam in a car. Hine in the back on a lorry. Representatives of the headquarters guards went with them.

About an hour and a half later they all returned. An excellent impression. They exchange lively opinions about the qualities and advantages of the Russian bath over others. They are waiting for dinner in order to immediately go to bed after it.
At this time, several cars drive up to the house. The head of the RO enters - Major General Vinogradov 19 with an interpreter, through whom he tells Paulus that he will now see all his generals who are in our captivity.
While the translator is explaining, I manage to find out from Vinogradov that filming is planned for the chronicle of the entire “captured generals”.
Despite some displeasure caused by the prospect of going out into the cold after the bath, everyone hastily dresses. A meeting with other generals is coming! They don't know anything about filming. But operators are already waiting near the house. Schmidt and Paulus exit. The first shots are taken.
Paulus: All this is already superfluous.
Schmidt: Not superfluous, but simply disgraceful (they turn away from the lenses).
They get into the car, go to the neighboring house, where there are other generals. At the same time, from the other side, the rest drive up in several cars - Colonel-General Geyts 20 and others.

Meeting. Operators are filming feverishly. Paulus shakes hands with all his generals in turn, exchanging a few phrases: Hello, my friends, more cheerfulness and dignity.
Filming continues. The generals are divided into groups, talking animatedly. The conversation turns mainly on questions - who is here and who is not.
Central group - Paulus, Geyts, Schmidt The attention of operators is directed there. Paulus is calm. Looks into the lens. Schmidt is nervous, tries to turn away. When the most active operator approached him almost closely, he smiled caustically and covered the lens with his hand.
The rest of the generals almost do not react to the filming. But some seem to deliberately try to get on film, and especially next to Paulus.
Some kind of colonel constantly walks between everyone and repeats the same phrase: “Nothing, nothing! No need to be nervous. The main thing is that everyone is alive.” No one pays attention to him.
Shooting ends. The departure begins. Paulus, Schmidt and Adam return home.
Schmidt: Wow pleasure, after the bath we will probably catch a cold. Everything is done on purpose to make us sick.
Paulus: This shoot is even worse! Shame! Marshal (Voronov) probably doesn't know anything! But there's nothing to be done - captivity.

Schmidt: I can't stomach German journalists, and then there are Russians! Disgusting!
The conversation is interrupted by the appearance of dinner. Eat, praise the kitchen. The mood rises. After dinner, they sleep almost until dinner. Dinner is praised again. They light up. Silently follow the smoke rings.
The sound of broken dishes is heard in the room nearby. Hine broke the sugar bowl.
Paulus: This is Hein. Here's a teddy bear!
Schmidt: Everything is falling apart. I wonder how he held the steering wheel. Hine! Have you ever lost your steering wheel?
Hine: No, lieutenant general. Then I had a different mood.
Schmidt: Mood - mood, dishes - dishes, especially someone else's
Paulus: He was a favorite of Field Marshal Reichenau. He died in his arms.
Schmidt By the way, what are the circumstances of his death?
Paulus From a heart attack after a hunt and breakfast with him. Hein, please elaborate.
Hein: That day the field marshal and I went hunting. He was in a great mood and felt good. Sat down for breakfast. I served coffee. At that moment, he had a heart attack. The staff doctor said that we must immediately take him to Leipzig to some professor. The plane was quickly arranged. The field marshal, I, the doctor and the pilot flew off. Heading for Lvov.
The field marshal was getting worse and worse. An hour later, he died on the plane.
In the future, we were generally accompanied by failures. The pilot had already landed over the Lvov airfield, but took off again. We made two more circles over the airfield. Landing the plane for the second time, for some reason, neglecting the basic rules, he came in for a landing on a black man. As a result, we crashed into one of the airfield buildings. I was the only one who got out of this operation.
Again there is almost an hour of silence. Smoke, think. Paulus raises his head.
Paulus: I wonder what news?
Adam: Probably further advance of the Russians. Now they can do it.
Schmidt: And what's next? All the same sore point! In my opinion, this war will end even more abruptly than it began, and its end will not be military, but political. It is clear that we cannot defeat Russia, and she cannot defeat us.
Paulus: But politics is not our business. We are soldiers. The marshal asked yesterday why we, without ammunition, food, offered resistance in a hopeless situation. I answered him - an order! Whatever the situation, an order remains an order. We are soldiers! Discipline, order, obedience - the basis of the army. He agreed with me. And in general it is ridiculous, as if it was in my will to change anything.
By the way, the marshal leaves an excellent impression. Cultural, educated person. Knows the situation very well. At Schleferer, he was interested in the 29th regiment, from which no one was captured. Remembers even such trifles.
Schmidt: Yes, fortune always has two sides.
Paulus: And the good thing is that you can't predict your fate. If I knew that I would be a field marshal and then a prisoner! In the theater about such a play, I would say nonsense!
Starts to go to sleep.

Morning. Paulus and Schmidt are still in bed. Enter Adam. He's already shaved and cleaned himself up. Stretches out left hand, says: "Hail!"
Paulus: If you remember the Roman greeting, it means that you, Adam, have nothing against me. You don't have a weapon.
Adam and Schmidt laugh.
Schmidt: In Latin, it sounds like "morituri tea salutam" ("those going to death greet you").
Paulus: Just like us.
He takes out a cigarette and lights up.
Schmidt: Don't smoke before meals, it's bad.
Paulus: Nothing, captivity is even more harmful.
Schmidt: You have to be patient.
Get up. Morning toilet, breakfast.
Major Ozeryansky 21 arrives from the RO for Schmidt. He is summoned for interrogation.
Schmidt: Finally, they became interested in me too (he was somewhat hurt that he had not been called before).
Schmidt leaves. Paulus and Adam lie down. They smoke, then they sleep. Then they wait for dinner. Schmidt returns a couple of hours later.
Schmidt: All the same - why they resisted, did not agree to surrender, and so on. It was very difficult to speak - a bad translator. Didn't understand me. She translated questions in such a way that I did not understand her.
And finally, the question is my assessment of the operational art of the Russians and us. Of course, I refused to answer, saying that this was a question that could harm my homeland.
Any conversation on this topic after the war.
Paulus: That's right, I answered the same.
Schmidt: In general, all this is already tired. How can they not understand that not a single German officer will go against his homeland.
Paulus: It's simply tactless to put such questions before us, soldiers. Now no one will answer them.
Schmidt: And always these pieces of propaganda are not against the motherland, but for it, against the government, etc. I already somehow noticed that it was only the camels of 1918 that separated the government and the people.
Paulus: Propaganda remains propaganda! Even the course is not objective.
Schmidt: Is an objective interpretation of history possible at all? Of course not. Take, for example, the question of the beginning of the war. Who started? Who is guilty? Why? Who can answer this?
Adam: Only archives after many years.
Paulus: Soldiers were and will remain soldiers. They fight, fulfilling their duty, not thinking about the reasons, faithful to the oath. And the beginning and end of the war is the business of politicians, to whom the situation at the front prompts certain decisions.
Then the conversation turns to the history of Greece, Rome, etc. They talk about painting and archeology. Adam talks about his participation in excavation expeditions. Schmidt, speaking of painting, authoritatively declares that the German is the first in the world and the best artist in Germany is ... Rembrandt 21 (supposedly because the Netherlands, Holland and Flanders are the "old" German provinces).
This continues until dinner, after which they go to bed.
On the morning of February 5, I receive an order to return back to the department in connection with the redeployment. The stay with the generals is over.

Detective KRO OO NKVD Donfront
senior lieutenant of state security Tarabrin
Right: Lieutenant Colonel P. Gapochko
AP RF, f. 52, on. 1, d. 134, m. 23-33. Copy

During Battle of Stalingrad not only the generals mentioned in the text of the document were taken prisoner. As you know, from January 10 to February 2, 1943, the troops of the Don Front captured 24 generals, including Max Preffer, commander of the 4th Infantry Corps, von Seidlitz-Kurbach Walter, commander of the 51st Infantry Corps, Alfred Strezcius - commander of the 11th infantry corps, Erich Magnus - commander of the 389th infantry division, Otto Renoldi - head of the medical service of the 6th army, Ulrich Vossol - head of artillery of the 6th German army, etc.
The document is interesting for live sketches, non-fictional judgments of captured German generals, captured within five days by the operative officer of the NKVD OO of the Don Front, Senior Lieutenant of State Security E.A. Tarabrin.

1 Tarabrin Evgeny Anatolyevich (1918-?) - Colonel (19%). From August 1941 - detective of the OO NKVD of the South-Western Stalingrad Don and Central Fronts. From December 1942 - translator of the OO NKVD of the Don Front. From May 1943 - senior detective of the 2nd department of the 4th department of the Main Directorate of the Kyrgyz Republic "Smersh" of the Central Front From June 1946 - senior detective of the 1st department of Department 1-B
1st Main Directorate. From August 1947 - assistant to the head of the 2nd department of the 1st Directorate of the Information Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR From December 1953 - deputy head of the sector of the 2nd Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR From August 1954 - senior assistant to the head of the 1st Main Directorate of the KGB under SM USSR. Since January 1955 he was enrolled in the active reserve of the 1st Main Directorate. From August 1956 - Head of the 2nd Department of the 1st Main Directorate of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the USSR From February 1963 - Deputy Head of Service No. 2.
On May 18, 1965, by order of the KGB No. 237, he was dismissed under Art. 59 p. "d" (for official non-compliance).
2 Nesterov Vsevolod Viktorovich (1922-?) - senior lieutenant (1943). Since January 1943, he was the operative officer of the reserve of the NKVD of the Don Front, then the ROC "Smersh" of the Central Front. Since September 1943, he was an operative officer of the Smersh ROC of the 4th Artillery Corps of the Central Front. Since April 1944, he was the detective of the Smersh ROC of the Belorussian Front. Since August 1945, he was an operative officer of the Smersh ROC of the 4th artillery corps of the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces in Germany. Since April 1946, he was the detective of the Smersh ROC of the 12th artillery battalion of the 1st Military District, then the Moscow Military District.
By order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR No. 366 of August 24, 1946, he was dismissed at his personal request with transfer to the registration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
3 Schmidt Arthur (1895-?) - lieutenant general. Chief of Staff of the 6th Army.
4 Adam Wilhelm (? -?) - adjutant F. Paulus, colonel.
5 Lev Alexandrovich Bezymensky, born in 1920, captain (1945). In the Red Army since August 1941, he began serving as a private of the 6th reserve engineering regiment, then a cadet of the courses of military translators of the Red Army (Orsk) and the Military Institute foreign languages(Stavropol). Since May 1942 - at the front, officer of the 394th separate special-purpose radio division (South-Western Front). In January 1943 he was transferred to the intelligence department of the headquarters of the Don Front, where he acted as an interpreter, senior front interpreter, deputy head of the information department. Subsequently, he served in the intelligence departments of the headquarters of the Central, Belorussian, 1st Belorussian fronts, the intelligence department of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In October 1946 he was demobilized. After he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University (1948). Worked in the magazine "New time". Author of several books, candidate historical sciences. Professor of the Academy of Military Sciences. He was awarded 6 orders and 22 medals of the USSR.
6 Rokossovsky Konstantin Konstantinovich (1896-1968) - Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944), twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1944 1945). In September 1942 - January 1943 he commanded the Don Front.
7 Voronov Nikolai Nikolaevich (1899-1968) - Chief Marshal of Artillery (1944), Hero of the Soviet Union (1965) From July 1941 - Chief of Artillery of the Red Army, at the same time from September 1941 - Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, representative of the headquarters of the Supreme High Command near Stalingrad from March 1943 - commander of the artillery of the Red Army.
8 Malinin Mikhail Sergeevich (1899-1960) - General of the Army (1953), Hero of the Soviet Union (1945). In the Red Army since 1919. Since 1940 - Chief of Staff of the 7th MK. During the war - chief of staff of the 7th MK on the Western Front, 16th Army (1941-1942), Bryansk, Don, Central, Belorussian and 1st Belorussian Fronts (1942-1945). In the future - at the staff work in the Soviet Army.
9 The commander of the 64th Army from August 1942 was Shumilov Mikhail Stepanovich (1895-1975) - Colonel General (1943), Hero of the Soviet Union (1943). The 64th Army, together with the 62nd Army, heroically defended Stalingrad. In April 1943 - May 1945 - Commander of the 7th Guards Army. After the war, in command positions in the Soviet Army.
10 Apparently, the press published data not only on the trophies of the 6th Army, but also on a number of other armies. In particular, the 4th German tank, 3rd and 4th Romanian, 8th Italian armies.
11 Most likely, the chief of staff of the 6th Army A. Schmidt has in mind the period when the counteroffensive in the Stalingrad direction of the troops of three fronts began. South-Western, Don and Stalingrad and completed the encirclement of the 6th Army and part of the 4th Panzer Army.
12 Reichenau Walther von (1884-1942) - Field Marshal General (1940). He commanded the 6th Army in 1939-1941. From December 1941 - Commander of Army Group "South" on the Soviet-German front. Died of a heart attack.
13 Busch Ernst Von (1885-1945) - Field Marshal General (1943). In 1941 he commanded the 16th Army on the Soviet-German front. In 1943-1944. - Commander of the Army Group "Center".
14 Daniels Alexander Fon (1891-?) - lieutenant general (1942), commander of the 376th division.
15 Drebber Moritz Fon (1892-?) - Major General of the Infantry (1943), commander of the 297th Infantry Division.
16 Wulz Hans (1893-?) - major general of artillery (1942).
17 Dimitriu - Commander of the 2nd Romanian Infantry Division, Major General.
18 Apparently, we are talking about Popescu Dimitar, a general, commander of the 5th cavalry division.
19 Vinogradov Ilya Vasilievich (1906-1978) - lieutenant general (1968) (see vol. 2 of this collection, document No. 961).
20 Geitz (Heitz) Walter (1878-?) - Colonel General (1943).
21 Ozeryansky Yevsey (Eugene) (1911-?), Colonel (1944). In the Red Army from December 1933 to March 1937 and from August 10, 1939. In June 1941 - battalion commissar, senior instructor of the organizational instructor department of the political administration of the Kiev Special Military District. From July 1, 1941 - in the same position in the political department of the South Western Front. From November 22, 1941 - head of the organizational instructor department of the political department of the 21st Army; from December 1941 - deputy head of the political department of the 21st Army. On April 14, 1942, he was transferred to the post of military commissar - deputy chief for political affairs of the intelligence department of the headquarters of the South-Western, then until the end of the Great Patriotic War-Don Central, 1st Belorussian fronts. IN post-war years- in political work in the Carpathian and Odessa military districts.
Transferred to the reserve on March 19, 1958. He was awarded three orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree, the Red Star, and other orders and medals.
22 Rembrandt Harmensz van Ryn (1606-1669) - Dutch painter, draftsman, etcher.

The rank of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus received the day before he was taken prisoner. For the Soviet command, Paulus was a valuable trophy, they managed to "reforge" it and use it in geopolitics. Former field marshal and commander of the 6th SS Army, read Chekhov and praised the courage of Soviet soldiers ...

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By early 1943, Paulus' 6th Army was a pitiful sight. On January 8, the Soviet command turned to Paulus with an ultimatum: if the marshal did not surrender by 10 o'clock the next day, all the Germans surrounded would be destroyed. Paulus did not react to the ultimatum in any way.

The 6th Army was crushed, Paulus lost tanks, ammunition and fuel. By January 22, the last airfield was occupied. January 23 with hands up from the building former prison The commander of the 4th Army Corps, General Max Karl Pfeffer, left the NKVD, along with the remnants of his 297th division, General Moritz von Drebber capitulated, in full dress with all the regalia, the commander of the 295th division, General Otto Korfes, surrendered.

The location of Paulus was still unknown, there were rumors that he managed to get out of the encirclement. On January 30, a radio message was intercepted about Paulus being awarded the rank of field marshal. In the radiogram, Hitler unobtrusively hinted: "Not a single German field marshal has yet been taken prisoner."

Finally, intelligence reported that German orders were coming from the building of the Central Department Store. Paulus was found there. "This is the end!" - said a dirty, haggard, stubble-grown old man, in whom it was difficult to guess Friedrich Paulus.

Disease

Paulus had a terrible disease - rectal cancer, vigilant control was established for him, and he was provided with proper care. Paulus was taken incognito to the hospital.

The German general was a pitiful sight: his emaciated, sallow-colored face was always gloomy, sometimes overgrown with stiff bristles. He was prescribed a diet: soups, vegetable and red caviar, smoked sausage, meatballs, fruits.

The field marshal ate reluctantly. In addition, his right arm was broken, which was unequivocally perceived by the hospital staff: the nameless patient was tortured.

Spring in the monastery

In the spring of 1943, Paulus met in the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal. Here he stayed for six months. After the revolution, military units were located in the monastery, there was a concentration camp, during the war - a prisoner of war camp.

The field marshal lived in a monastic cell. He was guarded vigilantly. For the Soviet command, he was the number one prisoner. Even then it was obvious that they wanted to play Paulus in a big political game.

The decision to abandon Nazi ideas began to mature in Paulus after the assassination attempt on Hitler. The participants in the conspiracy were brutally dealt with, among them were the friends of the field marshal. A huge achievement of Soviet intelligence was the operation to deliver a letter to Paulus from his wife.

In Germany, they were sure of the death of the field marshal. There was even a symbolic funeral for Paulus, at which Hitler personally laid a field marshal's baton with diamonds on an empty coffin that was not handed to the ex-commander.

A letter from his wife was the last straw that led Paulus to a very difficult decision. On August 8, 1944, he spoke on a radio broadcast to Germany, calling on the German people to renounce the Fuhrer and save the country, for which it is necessary to immediately end the war.

Paulus in the country

From 1946, Paulus lived in a dacha in Tomilino near Moscow as Stalin's "personal guest". Paulus was surrounded by attention, protection and care. He had a personal doctor, his own cook and adjutant. The field marshal, despite the honor shown to him, continued to rush home, but by Stalin's personal order, he was forbidden to leave.

Paulus for Stalin was a valuable personal trophy. The "leader of the peoples" could not lose him. In addition, it was not safe for him to let the field marshal go: in Germany, the attitude towards him was, to put it mildly, unfriendly, and the death of Paulus could seriously damage the reputation of the USSR. In 1947, Paulus was treated for two months in a sanatorium in the Crimea, but the field marshal was forbidden to visit the grave of his wife and communicate with the children.

Nuremberg

Paulus was one of the main witnesses for the prosecution at the Nuremberg trials. When Paulus entered the hall as a witness, Keitel, Jodl and Goering, who were sitting on the dock, had to be reassured.

As they say, nothing is forgotten, nothing is forgotten: Paulus was one of those who were directly involved in the development of the Barbarossa plan. Paulus' outright betrayal could not be forgiven even by inhuman Nazi criminals.

Interrogation of F. Paulus at the Nuremberg trials.

Participation in the Nuremberg Trials on the side of the Allies, in fact, saved the field marshal from a term behind bars. Most German generals, despite their cooperation during the war years, were still sentenced to 25 years.

Paulus, by the way, could not reach the courtroom. On the way to Germany, an assassination attempt was made on him, but the timely work of counterintelligence helped to avoid the loss of such an important witness.

Paulus at the Villa

On October 23, 1953, after Stalin's death, Paulus left Moscow. Before leaving, he made a statement: "I came to you as an enemy, but I leave as a friend."

The field marshal settled in the Dresden suburb of Oberloshwitz. He was provided with a villa, service and security, a car. Paulus was even allowed to carry weapons.

Paulus at his villa in Dresden in 1955. Photo from the State Archives of Germany.

According to the archives of the secret services of the GDR, Friedrich Paulus led a secluded life. His favorite pastime was taking apart and cleaning his service pistol. The field marshal could not sit still: he worked as the head of the Military Historical Center of Dresden, and also lectured at the Higher School of the People's Police of the GDR.

Practicing a benevolent attitude towards himself, in an interview he criticized West Germany, praised the socialist system and liked to repeat that "Russia cannot be defeated by anyone."

Since November 1956, Paulus did not leave the house, the doctors diagnosed him with "sclerosis of the brain", the field marshal was paralyzed in the left half of his body. On February 1, 1957, he died.

The paradoxes of history

When Paulus was captured, this was a serious bonus for anti-Hitler coalition and for Stalin personally. Paulus managed to be "reforged" and in his homeland he was dubbed a traitor.

Hitler and Paulus.

Many in Germany still consider Paulus a traitor, which is quite natural: he surrendered and began working for the propaganda machine of the social bloc. Strikingly different: modern Russia there is a cult of Field Marshal Paulus, on social networks - communities of his name, on forums - an active discussion of the "exploits" of the Nazi general.

There are two Paulus: one is a real, fascist criminal who caused the death of millions of people, and the other is mythological, created by the short-sighted "connoisseurs" of the German commander.

Awards and prizes

Biography

Childhood and youth

World War I

At the beginning of the war, Paulus's regiment was in France. Later he served as a staff officer in the units of the mountain infantry (chasseurs) in France, Serbia and Macedonia. Finished the war as a captain.

period between the wars

Soon, Paulus was introduced to the front commander, Colonel-General K. K. Rokossovsky, who suggested that he issue an order for the surrender of the remnants of the 6th Army in order to stop the senseless death of its soldiers and officers. The Field Marshal General refused to go for it, since he is now a prisoner, and his generals are now responsible for their troops themselves. On February 2, 1943, the last centers of German resistance in Stalingrad were crushed.

Forced to react to a Soviet official report that some 91,000 soldiers and officers had been taken prisoner, the Nazi government reluctantly informed the German people that the 6th Army was completely destroyed. For three days, all German radio stations broadcast funeral music, mourning reigned in thousands of houses of the Third Reich. Restaurants, theaters, cinemas, all places of entertainment were closed, and the population of the Reich experienced the defeat at Stalingrad.

In February, F. Paulus and his generals were brought to the Krasnogorsk operational transit camp No. 27 of the NKVD in the Moscow region, where they were to spend several months. The captured officers still perceived F. Paulus as their commander. If the first days after the surrender, the field marshal looked depressed and was more silent, then here he soon declared: “I am and will remain a National Socialist. No one can expect me to change my views, even if I am in danger of spending the rest of my life in captivity. F. Paulus still believed in the power of Germany and that "she would fight with success." And he secretly hoped that he would either be released or exchanged for some Soviet commander (the field marshal found out about A. Hitler's proposal to exchange F. Paulus for the son of I. V. Stalin, Yakov Dzhugashvili, only after the war).

In July 1943, the National Committee "Free Germany" was created in the Krasnogorsk camp. It consisted of 38 Germans, 13 of whom were emigrants (Walter Ulbricht, Wilhelm Pick, etc.). Soon the Main Political Directorate of the Red Army and the Directorate for Prisoners of War and Internees (UPVI) of the NKVD reported on their new success: in September of the same year, the founding congress of the new anti-fascist organization "Union of German Officers" was held. More than a hundred people took part in it, who elected General W. von Seydlitz as president of the SNO.

For Paulus and his comrades-in-arms, who had been transferred to the generals' camp in the Savior-Euthymius Monastery near Suzdal in the spring, this was a betrayal. Seventeen generals, led by the field marshal, sign a collective statement: “What officers and generals who have become members of the Union are doing is treason. We no longer consider them our comrades, and we resolutely refuse them. But a month later, Paulus unexpectedly withdraws his signature from the general's "protest". Soon he was transferred to the village of Cherntsy, 28 km from Ivanovo. The higher ranks of the NKVD feared that the field marshal could be kidnapped from Suzdal, so they sent him into the wilderness of the forests. In addition to him, 22 German, 6 Romanian and 3 Italian generals arrived at the former Voikov sanatorium.

In the former sanatorium, Paulus began to progress with an intestinal disease, for which he was repeatedly operated on. However, in spite of everything, he refused individual dietary nutrition, but only asked to deliver marjoram and tarragon herbs, which he always carried with him, but lost his suitcase with them in battles. In addition, he, like all prisoners of the "sanatorium", received meat, butter, all the necessary products, parcels from relatives from Germany, beer on holidays. The prisoners were engaged in creativity. To do this, they were given every opportunity: there was plenty of wood around, so many were engaged in wood carving (they even carved a baton from linden for the field marshal), canvases and paints were in any quantity, Paulus himself did this, wrote memoirs.

However, he still did not recognize the "Union of German Officers", did not agree to cooperate with the Soviet authorities, did not oppose A. Hitler. In the summer of 1944, the field marshal was transferred to a special facility in Lakes. Almost every day, reports are written from the UPVI addressed to L.P. Beria on the progress of the processing of the Satrap (such a nickname was given to him by the NKVD). Paulus is presented with an appeal by 16 generals. The intelligent, indecisive Paulus hesitated. As a former staff officer, he apparently got used to calculating all the pros and cons. But a number of events "help" him in this: the opening of the Second Front, the defeat on the Kursk Bulge and in Africa, the loss of allies, total mobilization in Germany, the entry into the "Union" of 16 new generals and best friend, Colonel V. Adam, as well as death in Italy in April 1944 of his son Friedrich. And, finally, the assassination attempt on A. Hitler by officers whom he knew well. He was shocked by the execution of the conspirators, among whom was his friend Field Marshal E. von Witzleben. Apparently, a letter from his wife, delivered from Berlin by Soviet intelligence, also played a role.

On August 8, Paulus finally did what they had been trying to achieve from him for a year and a half - he signed the appeal “To the prisoners of war of German soldiers and officers and to the German people”, which literally said the following: “I consider it my duty to declare that Germany must eliminate Adolf Hitler and establish a new state leadership that will end the war and create conditions that will ensure the continued existence of our people and the restoration of peaceful and friendly relations with the current enemy.” Four days later he joined the Union of German Officers. Then - to the National Committee "Free Germany". From that moment on, he became one of the most active propagandists in the fight against Nazism. He regularly speaks on the radio, puts his signatures on leaflets, urging Wehrmacht soldiers to go over to the side of the Russians. From now on, there was no going back for Paulus.

This also affected his family members. The Gestapo arrested his son, a captain in the Wehrmacht. They send into exile his wife, who refused to renounce her captive husband, daughter, daughter-in-law, grandson. Until February 1945, they were kept under house arrest in the mountain resort town of Schirlichmülle in Upper Silesia, along with the families of some other captured generals, in particular von Seydlitz and von Lensky. The son was under arrest in the Küstrin fortress. The daughter and daughter-in-law of Paulus wrote petitions for release, in connection with the presence of young children, but this played the opposite role of expectations - reminding the RSHA Main Directorate of themselves, they were transferred first to Thuringia, to Buchenwald, and a little later to Bavaria, in Dachau. In April 1945 they were released from the Dachau concentration camp. But the field marshal never saw his wife. On November 10, 1949, she died in Baden-Baden, in the American zone of occupation. Paulus found out about it only a month later.

Friedrich Paulus acted as a witness at the Nuremberg Trials.

post-war period

After the war, the "Stalingrad" generals were still held captive. Many of them were then convicted in the USSR, but all 23, except for one who died, later returned home (of the soldiers - about 6 thousand). True, F. Paulus visited his homeland already in February 1946 as a participant in the Nuremberg trials. His appearance there and his appearance at the trial as a witness came as a surprise even to the officers closest to F. Paulus. Not to mention V. Keitel, A. Jodl and G. Goering, who were sitting on the dock, who had to be reassured. Some of the captured generals accused their colleague of baseness and collaborationism.

After Nuremberg, the field marshal spent a month and a half in Thuringia, where he also met with his relatives. At the end of March, he was again brought to Moscow, and soon the “personal prisoner” of I.V. Stalin (he did not allow F. Paulus to be brought to trial) was settled in a dacha in Tomilino. There he quite seriously studied the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism, read party literature, and prepared for speeches to Soviet generals. He had his own doctor, cook and adjutant. F. Paulus was regularly delivered letters and parcels from relatives. When he fell ill, they took him to Yalta for treatment. But all his requests to return home, to visit his wife's grave, ran into a wall of polite refusal.

One morning in 1951, F. Paulus was found unconscious, but they managed to save him. He then fell into a severe depression, did not talk to anyone, refused to leave the bed and eat. Apparently, fearing that the famous prisoner might die in his “golden” cage, I. V. Stalin decides to release the field marshal, without giving a specific date for his repatriation.

As a result, on October 24, 1953, F. Paulus, accompanied by orderly E. Schulte and personal chef L. Georg, left for Berlin. A month before, he met with the leader of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, and assured him that he would live exclusively in East Germany. On the day of departure, Pravda published a statement by F. Paulus, which spoke, based on the terrible experience of the war against the USSR, about the need for peaceful coexistence of states with different systems, about the future united Germany. And more about his confession that he arrived in blind obedience to Soviet Union as an enemy, but leaves this country as a friend.

In the GDR, Paulus was given a guarded villa in an elite district of Dresden, a car, an adjutant and the right to have a personal weapon. As the head of the military-historical center being created, he began teaching in 1954. Lectures on the art of war high school barracks people's police (the forerunner of the GDR army), delivers reports on the Battle of Stalingrad.

All the years after his release, Paulus did not stop proving his loyalty to the socialist system. The leaders of the GDR praised his patriotism and did not mind if he signed his letters to them as "Field Marshal General of the former German Army." Paulus condemned "West German militarism", criticized the policy of Bonn, who did not want German neutrality. At meetings of former World War II veterans in East Berlin in 1955, he reminded veterans of their high responsibility for a democratic Germany.

F. Paulus died on February 1, 1957, just on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the death of his army at Stalingrad. The main cause of death, according to some sources, was lateral sclerosis of the brain - a disease in which clarity of thinking is preserved, but muscle paralysis occurs, and according to others - a malignant tumor.

A modest funeral ceremony in Dresden was attended by several high-ranking party functionaries and generals of the GDR. Five days later, the urn with the ashes of Paulus was buried near the grave of his wife in Baden-Baden.

In 1960, a memoir by Paulus appeared in Frankfurt am Main under the title "I stand here by order". In them, he claimed that he was a soldier and obeyed orders, believing that by doing so he was serving his people. The son of Paulus, Alexander, who released them, shot himself in 1970, without approving his father's transition to the communists. His life was saved by his father, who sent him by plane from the “boiler” to “ big land» a few days before the capture of the 6th Army. (This is a legend. In fact, Captain Ernst Alexander Paulus was in Berlin from September 1942, due to a serious wound, after which he was commissioned. See Field Marshal Paulus: from Hitler to Stalin, Vladimir Markovchin).

Quotes

Notes

Literature

• Poltorak A.I. Nuremberg epilogue. - M .: Military Publishing House, 1969.
• Pikul V.S. The area of ​​the fallen fighters. - M .: Voice, 1996. - 624 p.
• Mitcham S.