Effects on POWs if 6th army at Stalingrad surrender other dates

[mattep74]

I have followed timeghost ww2 week by week about Stalingrad and read the wikipediasite about the battle.

When the 6th army finally surrendered in February of 1943 we know that 90,000 Germans surrendered and 5000 came back home. Of those that did not make it 30,000 died before getting on the trains to POW-camps becauce they were in such a bad state. But what if the 6th army surredered at another date

1. On January 7th the Soviets offered terms for the 6th army surrendered, but was refused. What if the 6th army had surrendered then? More Germans would have surrendered. The men would not have had all the illnessess they had a month later and would be able to survive a bit longer.

Yes, the Soviet troops around the pocket would have been free to attack the Germans elsewere but would have to be reorganized, but could still have reached Rostov

2. Surrender one of two weeks earlier with more men alive and slightly better than the OTL date. Soviet troops around the pocket will have the same impact on the rest of the front IMO since they would have to be reorganized. Would there have been more Germans alive to get home after the war?

3. Surrender at a later date. For every week the surrender is postponed there will be less Germans alive to surrender as they had no food left. If the battle ends in the middle of February with the Germans all starving to death, what will be the historical view of the battle?

 

[Resurgam]

The Soviets’ tender mercies after surrender is the real problem for the POWs I’d imagine.

 

[Sam R.]

Given that in 1941 the German forces explicitly stated their intentions regarding the laws of war, surrender and POW status; the calculative economic logic of the Soviet Union will shine through. This logic only massacred the special GuLag camps *after* war was declared, and only starved the GuLag general population to death when general food supply was short. In other words the logic of the Soviet Elite towards undesired populations is economic, not eliminative. The earlier the 6th army surrenders, the less likely they will be killed by neglect and starvation: the soviet elite's horror is economic, not ideological.

yours,
Sam R.

 

[Garrison]

I have followed timeghost ww2 week by week about Stalingrad and read the wikipediasite about the battle.

When the 6th army finally surrendered in February of 1943 we know that 90,000 Germans surrendered and 5000 came back home. Of those that did not make it 30,000 died before getting on the trains to POW-camps becauce they were in such a bad state. But what if the 6th army surredered at another date

1. On January 7th the Soviets offered terms for the 6th army surrendered, but was refused. What if the 6th army had surrendered then? More Germans would have surrendered. The men would not have had all the illnessess they had a month later and would be able to survive a bit longer.

Yes, the Soviet troops around the pocket would have been free to attack the Germans elsewere but would have to be reorganized, but could still have reached Rostov

2. Surrender one of two weeks earlier with more men alive and slightly better than the OTL date. Soviet troops around the pocket will have the same impact on the rest of the front IMO since they would have to be reorganized. Would there have been more Germans alive to get home after the war?

3. Surrender at a later date. For every week the surrender is postponed there will be less Germans alive to surrender as they had no food left. If the battle ends in the middle of February with the Germans all starving to death, what will be the historical view of the battle?

By this point the Wehrmacht has had several million Red Army POWs die of hunger, disease and just plain old brutality under their care, untold civilians died because of the Hunger Plan also carried out by the Wehrmacht. Stalingrad had become a symbolic battle as much as a strategic one long before the surrender, so I honestly don't think the date of the surrender will make much difference to either the treatment of 6th Army or the perception of Stalingrad.

The Soviets’ tender mercies after surrender is the real problem for the POWs I’d imagine.

Well the Wehrmacht had set the standard for the treatment of POWs in the east in 1941, so it was a case of you reap what you sow.

 

[starman]

1. On January 7th the Soviets offered terms for the 6th army surrendered, but was refused. What if the 6th army had surrendered then? More Germans would have surrendered. The men would not have had all the illnessess they had a month later and would be able to survive a bit longer.

I dunno….. From what I've read most of the post-surrender deaths were caused by a typhus epidemic in the following spring so maybe it wouldn't have made much difference.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Earlier surrenders impact would’ve mainly been operational-strategic. Freeing up a nearly 300,000 Soviet troops, 6,000 guns and mortars, and 250 tanks a month ahead of time could permit the Soviets to slam the door shut on at Rostov on the 1st Panzer Army before it can escape the Cauacasus. That prevents any stabilization of the front along the Mius and butterflies Manstein’s backhand blow at 3rd Kharkov. It’s a huge victory for the Soviets.

 

[Captain Homicide]

Soviets

I know Göring promised the 6th Army could be supplied from the air but what were the other members of the military leadership suggesting to Hitler once it became clear Paulus and his forces were trapped?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

I know Göring promised the 6th Army could be supplied from the air but what were the other members of the military leadership suggesting to Hitler once it became clear Paulus and his forces were trapped?

In December, it varied from person to person and sometimes even from week-to-week. Manstein rather famously went back and forth on whether the 6th Army should remain in place and be relieved or whether it should try and break out repeatedly. But attitudes became pretty universal following the failure of Wintergewitter. Those which weren’t based on wishful Nazis thinking about a magical turn around were rather based on cynical military calculation now that it was obvious the 6th was beyond relief or rescue: by holding out to the last man, the 6th Army ties up as many Soviet forces as possible for as long as possible.

 

[TDM]

I dunno….. From what I've read most of the post-surrender deaths were caused by a typhus epidemic in the following spring so maybe it wouldn't have made much difference.

Yep

Given the sources for the ratio of deaths of German POW's in Soviet custody for the war overall range from 14.9% to 35.8%

the fact that it's 93.4% for the 91k prisoner taken at Stalingrad suggest something out of the ordinary went on here.

However even if it was largely the Typhus in the following months those boys were in pretty shit state when they got captured (due to exhaustion, wounds, malnutrition and disease) and I doubt they got fattened up much, so if an earlier surrender had left them physically stronger when entering captivity it might well have meant the typhus would have got so many.

 

[starman]

Freeing up a nearly 300,000 Soviet troops, 6,000 guns and mortars, and 250 tanks a month ahead of time could permit the Soviets to slam the door shut on at Riga on the 1st Panzer Army before it can escape the Cauacasus.

Riga? Or Rostov?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Riga? Or Rostov?

Ha! Good catch. Though an advance all the way to Riga in the winter/early-Spring of ‘43 would be quite the achievement, it’s also a fair bit less plausible!