Hitler made no mention of the human tragedy when he met his military leaders at the midday conference on 1 February. What concerned him was the prestige lost through Paulus’s surrender. He found it impossible to comprehend, and impossible to forgive. ‘Here a man can look on while 50-60,000 of his soldiers die and defend themselves bravely to the last. How can he give himself up to the Bolsheviks?’ he asked, nearly speechless with anger at what he saw as a betrayal.370 He could have no respect for an officer who chose captivity to shooting himself.371 ‘How easy it is to do something like that. The pistol — that’s simple. What sort of cowardice does it take to pull back from it?’372 ‘No one else is being made field-marshal in this war,’ he avowed (though he did not keep to his word).373 He was certain — it proved an accurate presumption — that, in Soviet hands, Paulus and the other captured generals would within no time be promoting anti-German propaganda. Drawing on horror-stories of tortures in Russian prisons that had circulated in the
For the German people, Paulus’s missed chance to gain immortality was scarcely a central concern. Their thoughts, when they heard the dreaded announcement — false to the last — on 3 February that the officers and soldiers of the 6th Army had fought to the final shot and ‘died so that Germany might live’, were of the human tragedy and the scale of the military disaster.375 The ‘heroic sacrifice’ was no consolation to bereft relatives and friends.376 The women of Nuremberg were among those with many husbands, fathers, sons, or brothers in the 6th Army. As the news broke on 3 February they tore copies of newspapers out of the hands of sellers, shouting and wailing, beside themselves with grief. Men hurled abuse at the Nazi leadership. ‘Hitler has lied to us for three months,’ people raged. Gestapo men mingled in the crowds. But none of them intervened to arrest individuals from the distraught and angry crowds. It was rumoured that they had been instructed to hold back.377
The SD reported that the whole nation was ‘deeply shaken’ by the fate of the 6th Army. There was deep depression, and widespread anger that Stalingrad had not been evacuated or relieved while there was still time. People asked how such optimistic reports had been possible only a short time earlier. They were critical of the underestimation — as in the previous winter — of the Soviet forces. Many now thought the war could not be won, and were anxiously contemplating the consequences of defeat.378
Hitler had until Stalingrad been largely exempted from whatever criticisms people had of the regime. That now altered sharply.379 His responsibility for the debacle was evident. ‘For the first time,’ as Ulrich von Hassell noted, ‘the critical murmurings relate directly to him. To this extent there is a genuine leadership crisis… The sacrifice of most precious blood for the sake of pointless or criminal prestige is again plain to see.’380 People had expected Hitler to give an explanation in his speech on 30 January.381 His obvious reluctance to speak to the nation only heightened the criticism. The regime’s opponents were encouraged. Graffiti chalked on walls attacking Hitler, ‘the Stalingrad Murderer’, were a sign that underground resistance was not extinct.382 Appalled at what had happened, a number of army officers and highly-placed civil servants revived conspiratorial plans largely dormant since 1938-9.383
