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Escape from Stalingrad: SovietNationals with the GermanSixth ArmyTimothy P. Mulligan aa National Archives and Records Administration,(Retired)

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Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 20: 739–748, 2007Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN 1351-8046 printDOI: 10.1080/13518040701703203

FSLV1351-80461556-3006Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 20, No. 4, Oct 2007: pp. 0–0Journal of Slavic Military Studies

ESCAPE FROM STALINGRAD: SOVIET NATIONALS WITH THE GERMAN SIXTH ARMY

Escape from StalingradT.P. Mulligan Timothy P. Mulligan

National Archives and Records Administration, (Retired)

This article specifically documents the experiences of a number of Ukrainiansand Russian ethnic Germans who served with the German Sixth Armyduring the Stalingrad campaign and encirclement and who eventuallyreturned to German lines during the spring and summer of 1943. Theircollective narrative is placed in the context of the increasing reliance ofthe Wehrmacht, and of the Sixth Army in particular, on Soviet nationalsin a variety of noncombatant and combat roles.

The saga of Stalingrad has generated a massive amount of literature befit-ting a decisive campaign that sealed the fates of over a million Germans,Russians, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians, Croatians, and others. Someof the most recent studies particularly give voice to ordinary soldiers onboth sides caught up in the battle.1 Yet history has largely ignored thehandful of individuals who escaped in the final days of that cauldron ofdeath and destruction on the Volga, and who did so precisely becausethey had served in both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht. Their storymoreover highlights a significant but neglected characteristic of theGerman Sixth Army at Stalingrad—the increasing reliance on theconquered population to fill its ever-thinning ranks.

The first four months of the German invasion of the U.S.S.R. resultedin the capture of several million Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), the

1Examples include Antony Beevor, Stalingrad. The Fateful Siege: 1942–1943 (New Yorkand London: Viking, 1998); Jens Ebert, ed., Feldpostbriefe aus Stalingrad, November 1942 bisJanuar 1943 (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch, 2006); and Jonathan Bastable, Voices fromStalingrad (Cincinnati, OH: David & Charles, 2006). Additional accounts with criticalcommentaries are found in Wolfram Wette and Gerd R. Ueberschär, eds., Stalingrad. Mythosund Wirklichkeit einer Schlacht (Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch, 1992).

Address correspondence to Timothy P. Mulligan, 700 Kingfisher Lane, Lanham, MD20706. E-mail: KGrTim1@aol.com

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majority of whom would perish from starvation, disease, and mistreat-ment. Confronted by mounting casualties and a protracted campaign, theWehrmacht in the autumn of 1941 began the ad hoc employment ofSoviet POWs and others from the occupied population to fulfill a varietyof support roles and free German personnel for front-line duties. By thespring of 1942 the use of Eastern nationals had assumed a more regularpattern. Hilfswillige (noncombatant auxiliaries, usually abbreviatedHiwis) constituted the most common category, serving as drivers, cooks,stretcher-bearers, orderlies and other noncombatant personnel incorpo-rated within German combat formations. Others were organized into rear-area security units, some with their own officers. Motivations amongthese men ranged from the basic self-preservation to anti-Stalinist convic-tions, but whatever the reason thousands of these men found themselvestrapped when the German Sixth Army was surrounded at Stalingrad.2

Standard treatments of the battle usually acknowledge one or twoGerman soldiers who managed to break out of the Soviet encirclement orescape their captors and reach German lines by March 1943.3 Records ofthe German Army High Command, however, document the cases ofseveral nominal Soviet nationals who had served with German forcesinside Stalingrad and eventually returned to the Wehrmacht between thesummer of 1943 and early 1944. A special headquarters staff, designatedthe Abwicklungsstab, assumed responsibility for determining the fates ofindividuals in German units destroyed in action. The staff initially inter-viewed German survivors evacuated from the Stalingrad pocket in the lastdays, but unexpectedly encountered Soviet nationals who had served inboth armies, survived Stalingrad, and furnished vital information on thefates of the men and commands with whom they had fought.4

One such survivor was Piskov Franzovich, a native of the westernUkraine who provided his account five months after the Stalingrad battleended. After evading conscription by the Red Army, he entered Germanservice in late June 1942 as a Hilfswilliger to assist the supply train of a

2On these general developments see Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia 1941–1945: AStudy of Occupation Policies (London and New York: Macmillan/St. Martin’s, 1957; JürgenThorwald, The Illusion: Soviet Soldiers in Hitler’s Armies, trans. by Richard and Clara Winston(New York and London: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1975); Joachim Hoffmann, DieGeschichte der Wlassow-Armee (Freiburg: Rombach, 1984); and Catherine Andreyev, Vlasovand the Russian Liberation Movement. Soviet Reality and Émigré Theories (London and NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Specialized studies are noted in note 11, below.

3See, e.g., Heinz Schröter, Stalingrad “…bis zur letzten Patrone” (Wolfsburg: Eduard Kaiser,1954), 239–43, and William Craig, Enemy at the Gates, Ballantine Books (New York: E.P.Dutton, 1973), 367.

4The records of the Abwicklungsstab are reproduced on National Archives Microfilm Publi-cation T-78, Records of the German Army High Command, roll 140, frame nos. 6069741ff.(hereafter cited in the format T-78/140/606974ff.)

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Sixth Army unit in the advance from Kharkov to the Volga. Trapped inthe western segment of the encirclement, Franzovich witnessed the deaththroes of his unit during the first half of January 1943. He donned aRussian uniform to pose as a Soviet POW compelled to work for theenemy, but still served time in a detention camp near his erstwhileGerman comrades before being returned to Soviet forces. In July 1943 hisunit manned part of the thick Soviet defenses on the southern rim of theKursk salient, whence he deserted to elements of the German FourthPanzer Army. To them he related details of the mistreatment of GermanPOWs he observed in the aftermath of Stalingrad.5

Most of the escapees, however, represented ethnic Germans born in theU.S.S.R. who had switched uniforms more than once during the Soviet-German war. Sometimes collectively referred to as “Volga Germans,”this ethnic group in fact resided throughout the Ukraine and along theBlack Sea coast as well as on the Volga River. This community hadretained its German cultural and linguistic identity despite severalcenturies’ existence in Russia, and had already suffered greatly during theforced collectivization of private farms by Stalin in the 1930s. TheGerman invasion caused further upheaval, as a suspicious Stalin orderedthe dissolution of the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republicin August-September 1941 and the deportation of its inhabitants eastward.

The Wehrmacht’s southern offensive in the summer of 1942, however,brought large numbers of ethnic Germans under German control, where Nazioccupation policy favored their recruitment and resettlement. At least 4,000recruits enlisted for military and SS service, in addition to Hilfswillige. Thenation-state of their birth, however, still commanded the loyalty of other eth-nic Germans, at least five of whom would eventually earn the U.S.S.R.’shighest decoration, “Hero of the Soviet Union.”6 At Stalingrad, ethnicGermans may well have fought each other in a bizarre variant of a civil war.

For those who wore Wehrmacht field-gray, Friedrich Simon’s storyprovided a typical example. As a 34-year-old draftee in the Red Army inApril 1942, Simon found himself in combat only three months later withthe 118th Rifle Division near Millerovo. When his unit retreated, Simonremained behind and was picked up by members of the 14th PanzerDivision. Simon went to work for the division headquarters staff as acook, and had already received his first pay as an auxiliary before Sovietforces encircled the division with the rest of Sixth Army.

5Franzovich ’s account is reproduced on T-78/140/6069935.6See Meir Buchsweiler, Volksdeutsche in der Ukraine am Vorabend und Beginn des Zweiten

Weltkrieges – ein Fall Doppelter Loyalität? (Schriftenreihe des Instituts für deutsche GeschichteUniversität Tel Aviv; West Germany, Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1984), 354–64; Ingeborg Fleis-chhauer, Das Dritte Reich und die Deutschen in der Sowjetunion (Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahr-eshefte für Zeitgeschichte; Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), 138–46.

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On 27 January 1943 Simon suffered wounds to his face, hands and legsfrom shellfire that sent him to an improvised field hospital, overrun bySoviet forces three days later. Simon surprised the Abwicklungsstab withhis observations of proper Soviet treatment of German wounded, whocontinued to be treated by German medics and received daily rations ofcoffee, tea, soup, and 200 grams of bread. He also related how heexplained his situation to Soviet officers:

As I was a Hilfswilliger I had continued to wear, for the most part, myold Russian uniform, therefore I explained I had been captured by theGermans and forced to work for them. Because two other Soviet sol-diers who had been wounded and captured were also in the hospital,my statements were believed. On 18 February the three of us weretransferred to a Russian hospital at Krasnoarmeysk… (where) wereceived much harsher treatment than in Stalingrad. We were beingpunished for having allowed ourselves to be taken prisoner. Foodrations were much worse than in Stalingrad (daily bread rations of 300grams, soup once every three days, and only water to drink).

Simon and many other recovered POWs were combined with recentSiberian recruits into the 669th Rifle Regiment, and committed to action inthe Orel sector of central Russia in August 1943. The unit suffered suchheavy casualties in its attack that Simon estimated only about 70 menremained, which facilitated his re-desertion to the Germans on the nightof 4/5 August. Simon later acquired German citizenship and by October1943 was serving as a translator.7

Eduard Schell, born almost literally on the banks of the Volga in 1919,had been drafted into the Red Army in January 1940 but seized an earlyopportunity to desert to the Germans in July 1941. Since then he hadremained with the 29th Motorized Infantry Division, serving as a transla-tor with the staff of the II. Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, during theadvance on Moscow, the heavy winter fighting in 1941/42, and thesubsequent march to Stalingrad.

When Sixth Army was encircled, Schell’s division shifted from south-west of the city to the western corner of the pocket, where it surrenderedon 2 February 1943. Schell with 400 of his German comrades marchedfirst to a small POW camp south of Stalingrad, then returned to the cityfor further processing. While there Schell encountered a familiar face, aRussian civilian who had worked at the battalion field kitchen during theGerman siege of the city. The latter provided him a Russian uniform

7Simon’s story is reproduced on T-78/140/6070050–055; Karsnoarmeysk is located southof the city of Saratov.

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removed from a slain Soviet soldier; the civilian’s daughter, employed asa secretary for a Soviet military staff, forged travel papers for him to aparticular regiment for Russians who had lived under German occupation.Schell posed as a convict whose prison had been destroyed by bombing, aplausible excuse for the lack of identity papers, and consistent with thepersonnel assigned to his particular regiment. Concealing anything thatmight reveal his ethnic German background, Schell remained with hisnew Soviet unit until the opportunity to desert to German forces occurredon 4 August 1943. Sometime later a staff officer evacuated from Stalin-grad recognized Schell and confirmed his German service.8

Perhaps the most interesting story among the ethnic Germans belongedto Richard Trollmann. He claimed Gdansk (then Danzig) as his birth-place, although a cousin contacted by the German Army for verificationbelieved he had actually been born in St. Petersburg in 1920, four yearsbefore the city was renamed Leningrad. His father Willy Trollmannworked as an accountant before Soviet authorities arrested him in 1934for listening to German radio broadcasts, never to be seen by his sonagain. Richard Trollman entered the Red Army in April 1939 and rose tothe rank of sergeant before deserting to the German 79th Infantry Divisionon 9 July 1942 during the advance to Stalingrad. He apparently provedhimself as a translator to his superiors, who permitted Trollmann anactive combat role as a machine-gunner with the 5th Company of the212th Infantry Regiment. In this capacity he participated in some of thecampaign’s heaviest fighting near the “Red October” Factory, where hereceived his second wound in German service on 29 October.

He returned to duty just as Soviet forces completed encircling the SixthArmy, and recounted the final days in Stalingrad:

My battalion (the IInd), under the command of Major H. Petsch,was deployed two kilometers west of the “Red October” Factory. Iled a machine-gun section for the protection of the battalion staff.During the last few days we beat off Soviet attacks with heavy losses,but our ammunition gradually ran out. On 1 February we fired ourlast rounds and had to withdraw into our bunker. About two p.m.the Russians came, and we had to surrender … As we were assem-bled and searched, we came under fire from other Germans stillholding out near the “Red Barricade.” We suffered few casualtiesfrom 30 January to 1 February, our battalion still numbered about100 men. The wounded tried to defend their position to the last,those badly wounded were shot by the Russians (I observed thismyself).

8Schell’s story is reproduced on T-78/140/6070109–141.

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Eventually Trollmann succeeded in mingling among a group of recov-ered Soviet POWs in the Stalingrad area who began a painful period of‘reeducation’ in one of the special camps reserved for such personnel,enduring mistreatment, poor rations, and hard labor.9 In late March heslipped away from a wood-cutting detail in the forest, and began his trekwestward. Near the Don River, however, Soviet military police arrestedhim as a likely deserter. Possibly Trollmann’s story that he had justescaped German captivity spared him, as he joined 30 other new recruitsbound for a Red Army camp at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky (on the DonetsRiver, southeast of Voroshilovgrad).

By May 1943 Trollmann found himself assigned as a replacement tothe 72nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 24th Guards Rifle Division alongthe Mius River sector, ironically opposite the newly-reconstitutedGerman Sixth Army. Trollmann later related that his regiment consistedmostly of poorly-trained 16- and 17-year-old conscripts who mistakenlyfired on their own tanks in their first action. When the division attacked astrong German position on 1 August, Trollmann estimated their losses at40% for his regiment alone. At a propitious moment, the ethnic Germantook cover in a bunker and surrendered to German soldiers when theyappeared.

The luck that had accompanied Trollmann throughout his odyssey,however, finally deserted him. At the battalion headquarters where he wasbrought for questioning, a Soviet artillery round struck nearby, severelywounding him in both legs and the right hand and leaving him deaf in theright ear. Brought to Stalino (now Donetsk) for treatment, Trollmann suf-fered an amputation of his right leg above the knee. He related hisremarkable story while convalescing at a military hospital in Silesia. Forhis efforts, Trollmann received the Wound Badge in Gold and the IronCross Second Class.10

With the completion of their reports, Trollmann and his fellow escap-ees from Stalingrad disappear from history. The information they hadprovided assisted German authorities in resolving the fates of individualGerman personnel in Stalingrad, as well as descriptions of the variationsin Soviet treatment of survivors. More significantly, however, the facilitywith which these men moved between the lines as veterans of both armiesreflects an even greater reality at Stalingrad: the increasing Germandependence on former Soviet soldiers as their own losses mounted.

The Wehrmacht’s employment of Eastern nationals expanded consid-erably throughout 1942. As German forces advanced into the Caucasus,

9On this subject see Igor Mangazeev, “A ‘Penal’ Corps on the Kalinin Front,” The Journalof Slavic Military Studies, Vol. No. 15, 3 (September 2002): 115–145.

10Trollmann’s story and accompanying documentation is located on T-78/140/6069800–830.

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disaffection with Soviet rule there yielded a new source of Germanrecruits among the mixed ethnic groups inhabiting the region. Theemployment of Hiwis and armed rear-area security units became moreregularized, and the capture of former Soviet General Andrei Vlasov inAugust 1942 would eventually provide a potential leader and politicaldimension to anti-Stalinist sentiments that arguably representedGermany’s best chance to avoid defeat in the East.11

Yet for the Sixth Army the reliance on indigenous personnel assumedimmediate significance as its German strength bled out in the Stalingradmeatgrinder. From September to mid-November 1942 the Germanssuffered almost 39,000 casualties in and around the city. As of 13 November,however, over 51,000 Hiwis were already serving in the Sixth Army,approximately 25% of the army’s ration strength.12 In late OctoberGeneral Friedrich von Paulus ordered further reductions in the Germanpersonnel of all headquarters staffs and their replacement by Hiwis. On 8November, Army headquarters appealed to Army Group B for the trans-fer of an additional 11,000 Soviet POWs to be employed as auxiliaries atStalingrad.13 Supplementing these numbers were least 4,000 able-bodiedmale civilians of Stalingrad pressed into German labor and logisticalduties as of early November.14

In addition to Russians serving within German formations, 16 specialunits of indigenous personnel provided security for Sixth Army rear areainstallations and supply columns, and participated in anti-partisan opera-tions. Armed with captured Soviet weapons, these units varied in sizefrom platoons to battalions and included nearly 3,000 Ukrainians,

11See the works by Joachim Hoffmann, Kaukasien 1942/43. Das deutsche Heer und dieOrientvölker der Sowjetunion (Freiburg: Rombach, 1991) and Die Ostlegionen 1941–1943(Freiburg: Rombach, 1976), and the author’s own The Politics of Illusion and Empire: GermanOccupation Policy in the Soviet Union 1942–1943 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1988).

12Casualty figures are provided in the Sixth Army (AOK 6/Ia) report, “Bericht OKW überKämpfe zwischen Don und Volga,” 16 November 1942, among the Anlagen zum Kriegstage-buch des Armeeoberkommandos (AOK) 6, reproduced with records of German Army fieldcommands: armies, on T312/1454/000170–76. The figures on Hiwi ration strength are pub-lished in Manfred Kehrig, Stalingrad. Analyse und Dokumentation einer Schlacht (Stuttgart:Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1974), 662–63.

13Sixth Army (AOK 6/Ia) report, “Hebung der Gefechtsstärke Anforderung von Kgf.,” 8November 1942, reproduced on T-312/1453/1290–91.

14Gert C. Lübbers, “Die 6. Armee und die Zivilbevölkerung von Stalingrad,” Vierteljahresheftefür Zeitgeschichte, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Januar 2006): 87–123, esp. pp. 117–18. This article details thetreatment and evacuation of Stalingrad civilians to the German rear areas for labor duties, andrefutes the argument that the Sixth Army initiated a policy of extermination toward the localpopulation (cf. Christian Gerlach, “Militärische ‘Versorgungszwänge,’ Besatzungspolitik undMassenverbrechen: Die Rolle des Generalquartiermeisters des Heeres und seiner Dienststellenim Krieg gegen die Sowjetunion,” in Norbert Frei et al., eds., Ausbeutung, Vernichtung, Öffentli-chkeit. Neue Studie zur nationalsozialistischen Lagerpolitik (Munich: Sauer, 2000), pp. 175–208).

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Cossacks, Russians, and Crimean Tatars. These units served underGerman commanding officers and cadres, but at least five former RedArmy officers were acknowledged as unit leaders by the Germans. Theformations served under the direct control of the individual German corpsor Army headquarters; their fate during the last days in Stalingrad remainslost to history.15

How well did these Russians in feldgrau fight? Gen. Erwin Jaenecke, thecommander the IV. Army Corps who escaped Stalingrad in one of the lastaircraft to fly out of the pocket, commented less than a week after SixthArmy’s capitulation: “The Russians who fought in our ranks made a goodshowing and proved their loyalty.” He cited the examples of a woundedGerman sergeant rescued from Soviet captivity by two Hiwis, and the per-formance of Crimean antitank gunners proud of their record against T-34s.Above all, he related his own experience in directing the attack against theDzerzhinsky Tractor Works the previous October: “When I led the attackagainst the factory, my command vehicle was knocked out. I transferred tothe closest captured Soviet tank and its captured Russian crew, and contin-ued the attack. Those fellows were fantastic.”16

But for the Soviet counterattack that overwhelmed Sixth Army, theratio of nominal Soviet nationals in its ranks would have grown evenlarger by the beginning of 1943. After losing so many infantrymen in overtwo months’ street fighting, Paulus announced plans in early Novemberto furnish each of his infantry divisions with a new field battalion com-posed of soldiers drawn from the Turkic nationalities of the occupiedCaucasus. In contrast to the improvised employment of Hiwis and reararea units, the Turkic battalions represented a systematic effort by theGerman Army High Command begun in early 1942 to exploit disaffectionwith the Soviet regime among the minority nationalities in the Caucasusregion. Each battalion consisted of 926 native personnel, composed ofessentially homogenous formations of Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Geor-gians, Turkestanis, Crimean Tatars, and general “North Caucasians”(including Chechens), and led by 37-man German command and cadrestaffs. These units were scheduled to join Sixth Army divisions inNovember-December 1942.17

The difficulties posed by these units – abbreviated training,shortages of qualified liaison staff, and inadequate armament in heavy

15These units are described in detail in the Sixth Army (AOK 6/Ia) report, “LandeseigeneHilfskräfte,” 25 September 1942, T-312/1686/0510–14.

16“Aus Besprechung mit General d.Pi. Jaenecke über Kämpfe im Südabschnitt vom Stalingrad[‘Cäsar’],” 8 February 1943, records of the German Armed Forces High Command, T-77/1036/6608181–183.

17Sixth Army (AOK 6/Ia) report, “Überblick über Zustand und Verwendungsmöglichkeitder Turkbtle.,” Anlage vom 6. November 1942, T-312/1453/1244–63.

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weapons—rendered their combat value problematical at best. Yet, had theanticipated reduction of operations in Sixth Army’s sector actuallyoccurred, there might have been a real opportunity to more effectivelyintegrate these units within regular Wehrmacht formations. The “TurkicBattalions” intended for the German 76th, 94th, and 113th Infantry Divi-sions were already en route to their destinations when the Soviet offensiveforestalled the effort. A similar unit, Turkestani Infantry Battalion 781,performed creditably in combat while attached to the German 101. Jager-division in the Caucasus, suffering 232 killed and wounded during theperiod January–April 1943.18

Before the war ended, approximately one million Eastern nationalsserved with German forces.19 Their role remains unrecognized, their sto-ries unknown and anonymous. By the autumn of 1943, with the beginningof the Red Army’s inexorable advance toward Germany, large numberstook the opportunity to return to the Soviet side. In the sector of theGerman Second Army alone, over 2,500 Hiwis deserted during the periodSeptember-December 1943, while desertions among the legions recruitedfrom the Caucasus ethnic regions were estimated at between eight to tenpercent during the same period.20 By January 1944 the majority ofEastern units had been transferred to western Europe to remove tempta-tion and prepare for the anticipated Allied invasion.21

As with the ethnic Germans whose stories have been recounted, ordi-nary Russians and members of the Turkic minorities changed uniformsseveral times between the fronts. It would prove relatively easy for Sovietauthorities, and some historians, to pretend that they never existed. Butthe handful of individuals who survived and escaped Stalingrad leftbehind a documentary trail that, however incomplete, reveals in part theconfused and desperate struggle of those caught in a deadly crossfire.

18See Hoffmann, Kaukasien 1942/43, pp. 166–70.19For a discussion of this figure and the general phenomenon of former Soviet soldiers in

German service, see Mulligan, Politics, pp. 147–58.20Second Army (AOK/Ic) report, “Bericht über Abwehrlage bei landeseignen

Hilfskräften,” 31 October 1943, T312/1284/1015; Ralph von Heygendorff, Hans Seraphim,and Ernst Köstring, “Eastern Nationals as Volunteers in the German Army,” Foreign MilitaryStudies Mss. #C-043 (U.S. Army Europe Historical Division, 1949), p. 96.

21Andreyev, Vlasov, 56–57.

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Members of the German Turkistan Legion (taken in France in 1944). Withpermission of the Bundesarchiv (Item 295/1560/22).

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