How Nazi General Paulus remained in Stalingrad without the epaulettes of a field marshal And the Soviet military leader Alexander Vasilevsky remained in the rank of army general for only 29 days 03.02.2023, 08:18

Shoulder strapless Paulus

On January 31, 1943, the commander of the 6th Wehrmacht Army, Friedrich Paulus, was captured by the Red Army at Stalingrad. Immediately after that, he informed representatives of the Soviet command that he was awarded the rank of Marshal. However, in newsreel footage during the surrender, Paulus is captured in the uniform of an oberst general (i.e., a colonel general).

Among other things, the buttonholes of the commander of the 6th Army were generals and by no means field marshals. From 1900 on, German generals wore decorative collar patches embroidered in the Alt-Larisch style. Ordinary generals had two ornamental patterns on their buttonholes, and marshals – three. Simply put, these buttonholes were longer.

Finally, a marshal’s bat was awarded to the holder of high rank while conferring a military rank. He had inscriptions written in Gothic inscriptions from the Führer to the Marshal. [такому-то] and history of promotion to marshal.

Friedrich Paulus did not receive any marshal epaulettes, buttonholes or batons. This suggests that the decision to give him the title was made by Hitler literally on the eve of the disaster of the 6th Army. Otherwise, most likely, all the necessary insignia (they do not take up much space and do not fit in a simple briefcase) would have been delivered by plane to Friedrich Paulus at the Stalingrad cauldron. At the beginning of the 6th Army siege, the Germans had six airfields near Stalingrad, some of which operated almost until the group was liquidated.

It seems that Hitler was not entirely sure whether the 6th Army surrounded at Stalingrad, under the command of Oberst General Friedrich Paulus, would fulfill its main task – to connect the Soviet Don Front as part of the seven combined armed armies for as long as possible, and thus the North of army group “B”. To ensure its withdrawal from the Caucasus. Had the German 6th Army at Stalingrad been defeated by the Red Army soon enough, this could have had more deadly consequences for the Wehrmacht on the entire Soviet-German front. Convinced that Paulus had completed his main mission, Hitler awarded him the rank of Marshal. This does not change the version in which the Führer alludes to Paulus that he committed suicide.

Vasilevsky and his general rank

Sometime in mid-January, the true scale of the geostrategic and political significance of the victory at Stalingrad became clear to the Soviet leadership, since the significance of such events, as a rule, is seen from a distance.

At the Headquarters of the Supreme Command at that time, they thought of rewarding those who participated in the Stalingrad operation for the first time since the beginning of World War II and conferring their first marshal rank. The first candidate for this high rank was, of course, the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Army General Alexander Vasilevsky, one of the authors of the Stalingrad strategic offensive operation. Such an operation could only be developed under the leadership of the Commander-in-Chief and his working body, the General Staff. And the head of the “brain of the army” at that time was Army General Alexander Vasilevsky.

However, it was not entirely correct to assign him the rank of marshal in front of the Deputy Supreme Commander of the Army Georgy Zhukov.

So, on January 18, 1943, Army General Georgy Zhukov was awarded the title of Marshal in connection with the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad, since at that time he was a representative of the Volkhov High Command Headquarters. Front.

On February 16, the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union was awarded to Alexander Vasilevsky. In the previous rank – army general – he spent only 29 days. It can be said that the case was unprecedented in the history of conferring the highest military ranks. This alone tells how much the Commander-in-Chief appreciated Vasilevsky’s contribution to the victory at Stalingrad.

Finally, on March 6, 1943, the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union was given to Commander-in-Chief IV Stalin.

In the same period, the first awards of military orders established in July 1942 were awarded. On January 28, 1943, participants in the Battle of Stalingrad were awarded the Order of Suvorov, I degree. Among them were Georgy Zhukov (his first prize for the Great Patriotic War), Alexander Vasilevsky, Field Marshal Nikolai Voronov, Nikolai Vatutin, Andrey Eremenko, Konstantin Rokossovsky and a number of other generals.

As for Marshal Friedrich Paulus, apparently, in Soviet captivity he had to make crossed marshal batons for shoulder straps from available improvised materials.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.