German survivors of Stalingrad
 

Hello everyone,

I am working on a documentary about Nachthexen, the Soviet female combat pilots. I would like to speak to some German veterans who fought in Russia, particularly in Stalingrad about what they thought of Nachthexen. Does anybody have contact numbers for those veterans or their associations?

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

I think that you are a little too late .....

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

I have heard that as little as 5,000 men who were at Stalingrad ever saw Germany again and that the majority died in Soviet captivity in the 10 years after WW2. My father met one such survivor in Germany when he was stationed there in 1950's.

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

From web site
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSstalingrad.htm :
“The battle for Stalingrad was over. Over 91,000 men were captured and a further 150,000 had died during the siege. The German prisoners were forced marched to Siberia. About 45,000 died during the march to the prisoner of war camps and only about 7,000 survived the war.”

After 3 to 13 years in Soviet captivity, it's rather unlikely any are still with us today.

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

Also, some of Night Witches are still alive.

http://waralbum.ru/wp-content/upload...90702-nbap.jpg

There were many Night Bomber Air Regiments:

http://www.allaces.ru/cgi-bin/s2.cgi...ruct/p_bap.dat

http://www.iremember.ru/misc/books/po2.jpg

And dont forget, that there were also daylight bomber (Pe-2) female regiment :) They were not "night" witches :)

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

Hello
one must remember that LW flew out some 23000 men from the encirclement, mostly wounded of which at least 5000 died later because of their wounds. Unwounded outflown were specialists and highly regarded officers who were a bit older men, so if they survived the war they are very probably past away already but some of the younger wounded might still be alive.

Juha

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

Don't forget to look at Romanian, Italian, or Hungarian survivors. There still may be some of them alive. Or Germans who were outside the pocket, e.g. people who participated in the failed relief attempt.

As for the Germans in Stalingrad, I think it probable that you may find more survivors among those who were captured in late November/early December 1942 at the time of the Soviet conterattack. Those had not already suffered from hunger when they were taken prisoner. Many of those who surrendered in early 1943 were already ill or famished (or, very often, both) and died in captivity. The death rate in captivity among them was far higher than the average for the whole war.

But I think you may also find recollections of veterans written in the post war period or mail (although, in the latter, you must be aware that people were mostly conscious of the activity of censorship and therefore were careful in what they wrote).

Re: German survivors of Stalingrad
 

It's definitely not too late to find any.

One, Former Panzer Captain Winrich Behr, is 92-years old. He tried, in vain, to convince Hitler that the 6th Army's circumstances were hopeless. He has a Wiki page. Anthony Beevor interviewed him in the mid-1990's for his book Stalingrad. I googled some of the other survivors in Beevor's book, and so far he's the only one I found still living.

But there are certain to be a few more. If 5,000 Germans returned from Russia in the 1950's, and one half of a percent of them is still living, that's still 25 men. It's been 67 years since the battle, and the youngest would be in their mid-eighties, but many people live that long - some despite having lived very difficult lives.

This doesn't include the lucky Germans who, due to wounds, specialties, or circumstances, were flown out early and escaped Soviet captivity.

I don't know how you'd find them, but I'm sure they're out there.

Good luck.