Memories and Reassessments, Wieder

• In 1962, Joachim Weider, a German officer, who had survived Stalingrad and Russian captivity wrote "Stalingrad: Memories and Reassessments"


• He described his feelings as the Russians closed the ring on the trapped Sixth Army


• Wieder Recalled his outrage at Hitler's refusal to allow the Sixth Army to break out when it still had a chance


• As the German forces faced decimation, he reflected on the misery and death the invading German forces had inflicted on other people


• He assesses the terrible retribution Germany would suffer


• As the last days of our army were drawing to a close, a deep moral misery gnawed at the hearts of the men helplessly doomed to destruction


• Voices of conscience added to their indescribable external suffering


• Many officers and commanders now began to oppose the insane orders emanating from Fuhrer Headquarters


• By this they began to reject the long eroded military concepts of honor and discipline


• How shocked had we been then at he very outset of the eastern campaign


• two inhumane orders of the day that had been in open breach of international law, and of true, decent German soldiery itself


• Were all these excesses and evils not bound to rebound on us sooner or later?