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Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus (23 September 1890 – 1 February 1957) was a German Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) during World War II who is best known for his surrender of the German 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad (July 1942 to February 1943). The battle ended in disaster for the Wehrmacht when Soviet forces encircled the Germans within the city, leading to the ultimate death or capture of most of the 265,000-strong 6th Army, their Axis powers, and collaborators.
Paulus fought in World War I and saw action in France and the Balkans. He was considered a promising officer; by the time World War II broke out, he had been promoted to major general. Paulus took part in the invasions of Poland and the Low Countries, after which he was named deputy chief of the German Army General Staff. In that capacity, Paulus helped plan the invasion of the Soviet Union.
In 1942, Paulus was given command of the 6th Army. He led the drive to Stalingrad but was cut off and surrounded in the subsequent Soviet counter-offensive. Adolf Hitler prohibited attempts to break out or capitulate, and the German defense was gradually worn down. Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943, the same day on which he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Hitler. Hitler expected Paulus to take his own life, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer, digital page 1569 repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal being captured alive.
While in Soviet captivity during the war, Paulus became a vocal critic of the Nazi regime and joined the Soviet-sponsored National Committee for a Free Germany. In 1953, Paulus moved to East Germany, where he worked in military history research. He lived out the rest of his life in Dresden.
Many English-language sources and publications from the 1940s to the present day give Paulus's family name the prefix "von". For example: Mark Arnold-Forster's The World At War, companion volume to the documentary of the same name, Stein and Day, 1973, pp. 139–142; other examples are Allen and Paul Muratoff's The Russian Campaigns of 1941–1943, published in 1944 and Peter Margaritis (2019). This is incorrect, as Paulus's family was never part of the nobility and Antony Beevor refers to his "comparatively humble birth" .
When World War I began, Paulus's regiment was part of the thrust into France, and he saw action in the Vosges and around Arras in the autumn of 1914. After a leave of absence due to illness, he joined the Alpenkorps as a staff officer, serving in France, Romania and Serbia. By the end of the war, he was a captain.
Later, Paulus briefly commanded a motorized battalion (1934–35). In October 1935, he was made chief of staff at Panzer Troop Command. This was a new formation under the direction of Oswald Lutz, which directed the training and development of the Panzerwaffe ("armored forces") of the German army.
Paulus led the drive on Stalingrad that summer. His troops fought Soviet forces defending Stalingrad for over three months in increasingly brutal urban warfare. In November 1942, when the Soviet Red Army launched a massive counter-offensive, Operation Uranus, Paulus found himself surrounded by an entire Soviet army group. Paulus did not request to evacuate the city when the counter-offensive began.
Paulus followed Adolf Hitler's orders to hold his positions in Stalingrad under all circumstances, despite the fact that he was completely surrounded by strong Soviet forces. Operation Winter Storm, a relief effort by Army Group Don under Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, was launched in December. Following von Manstein's orders, Paulus prepared to break out of Stalingrad. In the meantime, he kept his army in fixed defensive positions. Manstein told Paulus that the relief would need assistance from the Sixth Army, but the order to initiate the breakout never came. Paulus remained firm in obeying the orders he had been given. Manstein's forces were unable to reach Stalingrad on their own and their efforts were eventually halted due to Soviet offensives elsewhere on the front.
Kurt Zeitzler, the newly appointed chief of the Army General Staff, eventually got Hitler to allow Paulus to break out—provided he continue to hold Stalingrad, an impossible task.
For the next two months, Paulus and his men fought on. However, the lack of food and ammunition, the equipment losses, and the deteriorating physical condition of the German troops gradually wore down the German defense. With the new year, Hitler promoted Paulus to colonel general.
About resisting capitulation, according to Adam, Paulus stated:
After a Soviet offensive overran the last emergency airstrip in Stalingrad on 25 January, the Soviet command again offered Paulus a chance to surrender. Paulus radioed Hitler once again for permission. Telling Hitler that collapse was "inevitable," Paulus stressed that his men were without ammunition or food, and he was no longer able to command them. He also said that 18,000 men were wounded and were in immediate need of medical attention. Once again, Hitler rejected Paulus's request out of hand, and ordered him to hold Stalingrad to the death. On 30 January, Paulus informed Hitler that his men were only hours from collapse. Hitler responded by showering a raft of by radio on Paulus' officers to build up their spirits and bolster their will to hold their ground. Most significantly, he promoted Paulus to field marshal. In deciding to promote him, Hitler noted that there was no known record of a Prussian or German field marshal ever having surrendered. The implication was clear: Paulus was to commit suicide. Hitler implied that if Paulus allowed himself to be taken alive, he would shame Germany's military history.
On 2 February 1943, the remainder of the Sixth Army capitulated. Upon finding out about Paulus's "surrender", Hitler flew into a rage and vowed never to appoint another field marshal again. In fact, he went on to appoint another seven field marshals during the last two years of the war. Speaking about the surrender of Paulus, Hitler told his staff:
Paulus, a Roman Catholic, was opposed to suicide. During his captivity, according to General Max Pfeffer, Paulus said, "I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal." Paulus also forbade his soldiers from standing on top of their trenches in order to be shot by the enemy.
Shortly before surrendering, Paulus sent his wedding ring back to his wife on the last plane departing his position. He had not seen her since 1942 and would not see her again, as she died in 1949 while he was still in captivity. Commanders at War, the Military Channel, May 28, 2010
During the Nuremberg Trials, Paulus was asked about the Stalingrad prisoners by a journalist. He told the journalist to tell the wives and mothers that their husbands and sons were well. However, of the 100,000 German prisoners taken at Stalingrad, half had died on the march to prison camps, and nearly as many died in captivity; only about 6,000 survived and returned home.
After his return to the German Democratic Republic in 1953, Paulus gave a talk in Berlin on 2 July 1954 in the presence of Western journalists, titled "On the vital issues of our nation". In it, he paid respect to the memory of General Heinz Guderian, who had died a little over a month previously, and criticized the political leaderships of the German Empire and Nazi Germany for causing the defeats of the German Army in both world wars:
He also criticized United States foreign policy as aggressive and called for a reconciliation between the Germans and the French:
Finally, he supported former German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's appeal for a betterment of relations between West Germany and the Eastern Bloc, agreed with Brüning's criticism of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's overtly pro-American policy, and expressed his hope for a German reunification:
From 1953 to 1956, Paulus lived in Dresden, East Germany, where he worked as the civilian chief of the East German Military History Research Institute. In late 1956, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and became progressively weaker. He died a few months later, in Dresden, on 1 February 1957, aged 66. As part of his last will and testament, his body was transported to Baden-Baden, West Germany, to be buried at the Hauptfriedhof (main cemetery) next to his wife.
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