There would be no survivors. Oh, some men may still be alive, hiding in woods or ruined buildings but the Russians would hunt them down and kill them. LII Panzer Corps had died also, destroyed in a whirlwind of airstrikes and armored thrusts. But, LII had achieved something that SS-Wiking had not, they'd bought enough time for the three infantry divisions in Stalingrad to escape. Model grimaced, his capital of Walthersburg had fallen almost without a fight and was now Stalingrad again. Those three divisions were out and moving south along the Kotelnikovo Road. They were already south of Proletarsk, heading for the Kuban and Armavit. With them was XXXXVII Panzer Corps, by a miracle, they were out also, damaged certainly but still capable of fighting.
That was the good news, the real disaster was in the north. The blow across the Volga had threatened to take his defense line on the Don River from the rear. He'd had to abandon his painstakingly-built fortifications in an attempt to get the infantry there out and south. Only, once out of their steel and concrete, the three infantry divisions had just melted away. The Russians had realized what was happening and launched a pursuit, overrunning the retreating units and turning their rout into a catastrophe. The decision had been a bad mistake, if he'd known the units would collapse that way, he'd have left them put to fight in their bunkers and die there. But he hadn't and the divisions hadn't even made an effort at fighting. In the west, his port of Rostov had fallen, also pretty well without a fight
Now, all that was standing between the Russian northern units and what was left of his army was the creaking Russian logistics system. The Russian tanks had slowed down, waiting for their fuel convoys to catch up. He had a breathing space now, not much of one for certain but it was a breathing space. If he could reassemble his force south of Armavit, he could cut his way out to the south. It would only be a few tens of kilometers and his troops would be in the Caucasus Mountains. There, they would be safer from the murderous Russian fighter-bombers and any pursuit would be seriously slowed.
He could head through the mountains to Tbilsi in Georgia then south to Yerevan in Armenia. Finally, he could make it over the border into Iran. His friend the Ayatollah had already promised him sanctuary there, sanctuary for him and as many of his people as could make it. Looking at the map, Model knew what he envisaged would be a military epic. If the tale was ever told, it would go down as one of the greatest fighting retreats in history. The survivors of his army would have to move as a wolf pack, non-combatants and soft-skins in the middle, armor and infantry on the outside. More than 40,000 people moving as a column with a little over 300 kilometers to cover before they reached safety.
And there was another problem, the stockpile of war gasses at Proletarsk. He couldn't evacuate it now and the Russians were closing in on the town. Then, inspiration struck. If his engineers just released the gas, it would form a huge cloud. The prevailing winds would carry it north and west into the heavily-populated areas of the Donbass. It would kill thousands for certain, probably tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands.
The Russians would go berserk and chase those responsible with every asset they had. And, he'd order the engineers to make for a port on the Black Sea, Primorsko Akhtarsk would do. That would take the Russians south and west while he was planning to go south and east. The misdirection would cost him his engineers but buy him hours, perhaps a day or more. Each such hour meant his column could be further on its way before the Russians started the real pursuit.
Model wrote the orders out clearly and precisely, then called for a courier. The duty officer was Willi Martin, the paratrooper who'd brought him word of the Russian crossing of the Volga. Model repeated the written orders verbally, explaining that the gas release was to cover the retreat to the Kuban and the Black Sea coast so his army could evacuate by sea to Turkey.
The Road To Proletarsk, Kalmykia, Russia
Willi Martin left Model's headquarters a profoundly troubled man. He might be a junior officer, but he could read a map and what he had been told just didn't make sense. The gas cloud would be militarily inconsequential, oh it would snarl the Russian rear echelon and supply columns up for a while but they'd cope with that. The slaughter of civilians would be unimaginable, horrible to contemplate. And the Russians would be enraged, they'd come after the surviving Germans with everything they had and there would be no mercy for anybody.
Had Model gone mad? Or had he decided that if he was going down, he'd take as many people with him as he could? What was he thinking, why was he doing this?
As Willi Martin drove north, the question continued to plague him. The tires of his Kubelwagen, beating on the road surface seemed to be chanting why? why? why? He was stopped at checkpoints but Model's pass saw him though them without delays. Anyway, the checkpoints were manned by chainhounds, not SS. The Einsatzgruppen who'd been so keen on hanging “deserters” when the front was holding had evaporated now that the Russians had broken through. Perhaps they'd died, fighting heroically as a rearguard, but somehow, Martin doubted it. It was more likely they were running south as fast as their legs would carry them.
And as he drove west, the question in his head was never answered. At the last checkpoint, the chainhound read his pass but stopped him anyway. “Road forks up ahead sir. Left fork leads to Proletarsk, right fork to Orlovskiy. Make sure you take the left fork, there is a Russian mechanized recon battalion in Orlovskiy already.”
The tires were still asking, he still couldn't find an answer when the fork in the road appeared. Martin suddenly realized that the fork really was the question and he had to pick the right answer. It was almost a message and he suddenly understood that the answer was, quite literally staring him in the face. He had to make the right decision. So, he took the right fork in the road.
Orlovskiy, Kalmykia, Russia
Martin had hung his shirt on his radio antenna, it was a poor enough white flag but it would do. As promised, there was indeed a Russian mechanized recon battalion in Orlovskiy, the eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers and SU-76 tank destroyers were parked but ready to move. He swerved his Kubelwagen to a halt and got out, hands raised. Russians were surrounding him, one took his pistol, another his wristwatch.
Then, an officer with the word “SMERSH” on his collar arrived. Martin showed him the dispatch case with Model's crest on the front then broke the seal, opened it and took out the orders. The Russian didn't speak fluent German but he spoke enough and the words “Sarin” and “Tabun” were understood in any language. His eyes widened and he stared at Martin.
“It's wrong.” Martin said “I can't be part of doing that. It's just wrong. It'll be two, perhaps three hours before Field Marshal Model realizes his message didn't get through. You've got that long to stop this. I didn't see much on the road as I came up, a few chainhounds - a few military police. That's all”
The intelligence officer stared at him and nodded. Another officer arrived, obviously the battalion commander. The SMERSH officer showed him the papers and spoke quickly. Martin heard the senior officer's “Borgemoi” and now everybody was staring at him.
Major Yeltsin stared at the German. Was this a trap? Was the Fritz officer luring his unit into an ambush? He looked at the German officer's eyes. Shame, despair, doubt. And anguish. No, this wasn't a trap. Anyway, there was no time to ask permission or follow procedure.
“Get the unit mounted up. We're moving out NOW. We're heading for Proletarsk as fast as we can move.” He looked at the SMERSH officer. “Lieutenant Putin, get this German officer to Colonel-General Taffkowski as fast as you can. Stay with him all the way until you speak to the General yourself. We cannot afford for this man to be shot while trying to escape. We're going to try and seize Proletarsk, its only 15 kilometers down the road, but we'll need back-up and reinforcements. Get a message through to the General's staff, see the General sends anything and everything he has.”