Generalfeldmarschall Paulus, after the surrender at Stalingrad, 2 February 1943. The Commander of the German 6.lth Army.

Generalfeldmarschall Paulus, after the surrender at Stalingrad, 2 February 1943. The Commander of the German 6.lth Army.

The commander in chief of the 10th Army, of which Paulus was chief of the general staff now, was General der Artillerie Walther von Reichenau. He was an aggressive, but a very skilled commander. He preferred to be with his troops in the field. Paulus, on the other hand, preferred to sit at a desk and ensure that all administrative matters were in order. Together they complemented each other well and formed a perfect combination that made the army very efficient.

Without much difficulty, the 10th Army advanced through Poland. It was reclassified shortly after the campaign as the 6th Army. Shortly afterwards, the army was transported west for the campaign against Belgium and France.

Paulus was one of the first officers to become involved in the planning for the invasion of the Soviet Operation Barbarossa that started on 22 June 1941. Paulus now became calmer since no other major operations were planned.

In 1942, during the winter crisis of Operation Barbarossa, he was given the high command of the 6the Army.  His army was captured at Stalingrad in November 1942. After a degrading and hopeless battle, he capitulated on 31 January 1943. The last sources of resistance were cleared two days later. However, A.H. had forbidden him to surrender several times. A.H. had even promoted Paul to Field Marshal the day before his surrender, knowing that a German General Field Marshal had never surrendered to the enemy.  According to his own statement, the battle had killed 400,000 German soldiers.

As a prisoner of war Paulus participated in several capitulation calls addressed to the German Wehrmacht, and became a member of the National Committee Free Germany (NKFD). He was also called up as a witness during the Nuremberg Trials. The Soviets released him in 1953. He then lived in the GDR and died in 1957 in the city of Dresden of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)

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