It was founded on 11/12 September. Seydlitz declared that he was prepared to take over the Presidency. The aim of the Association would be to win as many as possible still-loyal soldiers away from Hitler. In other words they would incite desertion. On that day a committee was voted in. 95 officers signed a petition demanding the resignation of Hitler and the German government. During his internment, Paulus was prepared to send a birthday card to Stalin, on his 70th birthday, to thank him, on behalf of the German prisoners, for the good treatment they received. It annoyed Seydlitz who ignored both of those suggestions, saying that Paulus could not know of individual fates and could not therefore speak for the POWs that he did not know. Perhaps with that affront, he prepared his own death sentence. On 23 May Paulus left the camp and Seydlitz never saw him again. For his sins, Seydlitz was accused and tried for war crimes by the Russians and condemned to death. He was already 62 years of age. This was then changed to 25 years’ imprisonment, upon which Seydlitz demanded to be shot, on the spot. To this the Russians replied, “only the SS do that.”
In September 1955 and after the visit of Adenauer to Moscow, Seydlitz was released on 4 October. He found himself in the camp for released Russian prisoners of war in Friedland, where his wife was waiting. They had four daughters. Under pressure from former Nazis, she divorced him some time later. He was ostracised by his former friends and comrades. He stayed silent over his behaviour until his death in the 1970s. Then his memoirs, which he had long since writ ten, were released for publication.
The ancestor of Walther von Seydlitz was none other than Frederick the Great, whose name was a symbol for Prussian soldiery. Seydlitz declared that in his oath he had wasted his faithfulness and his obedience on a ‘criminal’, i.e. Hitler. He became firmly convinced of that after the battle of Stalingrad. Stalingrad was, and still is a name full of meaning, not only to the German and Russian veterans who fought there, but also for every student and would-be student of the Second World War.
In contrast to those German traitors, there were also the stoic and the patriotic, who even as Russian prisoners of war, found ways to support their brothers-in-arms. In our need and shortage of ammunition, we feverishly collected together Russian ‘duds’ for adaptation. We found a puzzle. Many were not filled with the necessary explosive material, but with sand. It remained a puzzle for some time, until one day a scrap of paper was to be found in the sand with a scribbled message, “more than this, comrade, we could not achieve”. It was then clear that German prisoners of war must be working in a munitions factory and it was their way of deactivating the bombs and shells that they made! Somewhere in those unending ‘steppes of Russia’, were heroes, practically powerless, but who quietly worked away for Germany’s cause and were prepared to lay down their lives, in such dangerous acts, for their still-fighting comrades.
The psychological terror and persuasion from the Reds now began in strength, urging desertion with rewards. The usual was offered. Feasts for the stomach and girls for one’s pleasure. Both however were still in plenty within the fortress in Breslau, even then. The Reds even went to the expense of printing extra leaflets for the Waffen SS in which they guaranteed the lives of those members of the Besslein Regiment, after being taken prisoner!
Once more, rumours circulated around Breslau about ‘wonder weapons’ such as the V2 and V3, new planes flying faster than the speed of sound, turbo-jets which rendered Allied bomber flights into scrap metal. It was said that only a few weeks were needed until their usage was possible. Could we hold on until then? It was simply a case that we had to hold on until then, i.e. until the enemy would receive a very nasty surprise.
The small flame of hope that we had, grew with the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April. The news spread that there were disagreements in the Allies’ camp. That ill-fated ‘alliance’ it seemed was about to crumble after all, for we had even heard that the British and Americans were about to march together against the Bolsheviks. Added to that, we were elated to know that moves to free us were about to take place. There was a tangible possibility of relief from outside, in the form of Field Marshal Ferdinand Schorner, who knew about the saga within the fortress walls.
However, his plan to release a large portion from his army group to come to our relief did not materialise, despite permissions, plans and radio messages bouncing to and fro. All too often, ‘General Chaos’ had taken command, but the successes from him were few and far between. So our release from Breslau remained a rumour. We still held on to our hope of a ‘miracle’.
We had survived the worst attack on the city, which had not ended in capitulation. We may have taken a beating, but were still in the ring and on our feet. What more would the Reds do? They could still lose many a tooth by biting on the bone called Breslau, the ultimate target being the defence of Silesia’s city until it had earned the name of ‘unconquerable’. In the last few weeks, every soldier had interpreted for himself the term, ‘fighting to the last man’. That expression had its roots in Stalingrad, but Stalingrad was not the only example in the previous few months. General Otto Lasch, had also fought almost to his ‘last man’ in East Prussia, in Königsberg, capitulating only on 9 April. Despite defeat, those actions had deterred the strongest of Russian troops on their advance to the west. Perhaps, unbeknown to us, it had saved the lives of thousands of refugees on the move. We would do the same, come what may.
We lay like a lonely island in the middle of the Russian flood. Each new day ran its course in the fortress, as it had done yesterday and the day before. Daily, thousands suffered physically in military and civilian hospitals. Endless sacrifices were made by the civilians in that bloody warfare. By day and by night, hour upon hour was spent in the cellars, by the old, the women, the children and the sick.
It was 20 April, Hitler’s birthday. As was usual, we received a birthday present from the Führer in the form of a bottle of wine which was presented to us by a NSFO i.e. Nationalsozialistischer Führungs Offizier, responsible for Party propaganda. Even under those circumstances tradition was not for got ten, although the duty of that officer could not have been comfortable for him, or the speech that he gave. One could really not wish to have to perform his duties on that day. The position that he held had been a part of the Nazi structure since 1944. It gave him the duty of administering a psychological dose of patriotism, stoicism and illusion, to keep ‘everyone’s finger on the trigger of his gun’. His speech was a mixture of hollow pathos and words of victory. We listened politely, but with scepticism, because he wore the Gold Close-combat Clasp for ‘over fifty’ recognised actions.
It could not have been easy to uphold the illusion of a still-determined and steadfast Hitler, on the 56th birthday of the man. He was surrounded on all sides, in his bunker deep in the bowels of the Reichskanzlei, in what not only seemed to be a hopeless situation, but would prove to be so. But he did his best. We heard that our commander-in-chief was holding fast in a heroic fight against Bolshevism. Whether or not he won a victory, or if he suffered a defeat, his name would be added to the annals of history. The Russians were not to be left out of the birthday celebrations. They chose their 112th Division to deliver the fireworks against the Wehrmacht Regiment Mohr that was to be found on a small sector of the front.