Gloves, Ushanka and File

Possessions of Field Marshal Paulus can be viewed at Victory Museum

Personal file of POW Friedrich Paulus, Copy (Victory Museum , Krasnogorsk)

A career military man who served in the World War I, Paulus commanded the 6th Army on the Eastern Front from January 1942. At the end of 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, his unit was surrounded by Soviet troops.

Paulus tried to convince Hitler that the army should leave Stalingrad and make its way towards friendly forces, but the Führer forbade leaving the city: it was an important frontier on the Volga for the Reich. But it wasn’t possible to establish air supply, nor to break the blockade, leaving the army without food, ammunition, and fuel.

To raise the morale of the troops, Hitler gave many officers medals and promoted Paulus to Field Marshal. In the last radiogram, the Führer ordered them to defend “till the last soldier and the last cartridge” and reminded that “not one German field marshal has ever been taken prisoner.”

In the eyes of the encircled, that meant they had been abandoned. On the morning of 31 January 1943, Paulus, through his staff officers, handed over a request to the Soviet forces to surrender. Following the negotiations, he was taken to the Headquarters of the 64th Army, and then to the Front headquarters. Paulus refused to issue an order for the surrender of the remnants of the 6th Army, explaining that the prisoner could not command. On 2 February, Soviet forces crushed the last pockets of resistance in Stalingrad.

The capture of some 91,000 soldiers and officers was a severe blow to Germany. Nazi propaganda announced that the 6th Army was completely annihilated. German radio stations broadcast funeral music for three days, thousands of homes were in mourning, restaurants, theatres, cinemas, and all entertainment venues were closed. An enraged Hitler gave Paulus a lavish “funeral” in an empty coffin.

Wehrmacht officer’s winter fur cap, 1943, ( Victory Museum, Krasnogorsk)

In February 1943, Paulus and his generals were brought to the NKVD's Soviet POW Camp No. 27 at Krasnogorsk, Moscow Region. He stated: “I am and will remain a National Socialist. No one can expect me to change my views, even if I am in danger of spending the rest of my life in captivity.”

He expressed intense criticism towards the captured German officers who had become anti-fascists. While under arrest in the former Saviour Monastery of St Euthymius in Suzdal, together with seventeen other generals he signed a statement: “What the officers and generals who have become members of the League [of German Officers] are doing is high treason. We no longer consider them our comrades, and we resolutely renounce them.” However, a month later Paulus abruptly withdrew his signature. Soon he was transferred to the village of Cherntsy, 28 km away from Ivanovo – the NKVD management feared the field marshal could be kidnapped.

There, the general's intestinal disease worsened but he refused a special diet, asking only to be provided with the herbs marjoram and tarragon. He and the other inmates of the general's sanatorium in Cherntsy were well fed, and he was given the freedom to create and write his memoirs.

In the summer of 1944, the field marshal was transferred to a special facility in Ozery where they “worked on” him every day in different ways, persuading him to co-operate. The general hesitated for a long time, but the Opening of the Second Front, the defeats of the German army in the Battle of Kursk and Africa, the loss of the allies, the total mobilisation, the 16 new generals joining the League, and the death of his son Friedrich in Italy changed Paulus' mind. The last straw was the failure of the “German Generals' Plot against Hitler” on 20 July 1944. Hitler brutally killed the attempted officers, the cream of the German army, many of whom were Paulus’ friends.

On 8 August 1944, Paulus signed an appeal “To the German prisoners-of-war soldiers and officers, and to the German people” which read: “I consider it my duty to declare that Germany must remove Adolf Hitler and install a new state leadership that will end the war and create the conditions to ensure our people's continued existence and the restoration of peaceful and friendly relations with the present enemy”. Four days later, he joined the “League of German Officers” and then the National Committee for a Free Germany. Paulus became one of the best-known anti-fascists. There was no turning back for him.

Officer's gloves from the 1940s, presented by Friedrich Paulus to the pilot transporting the Field Marshal to Nuremberg. (Victory Museum, Krasnogorsk)

After appearing at the Nuremberg Trials, the field marshal stayed in Thuringia for a month and a half, where he met with relatives. At the end of March 1946, Paulus was brought back to Moscow, but was not put on trial – Stalin forbade it. The general became the supreme leader's “personal prisoner”: he lived in a summer house near Moscow, studied the classics of Marxism-Leninism, received letters from relatives, and medical treatment in Yalta. He had his physician, cook, and adjutant. But all requests for permission to go home, or at least to visit the grave of his wife, who passed away in 1949, were politely refused.

One morning in 1951, Paulus was found unconscious but was saved. He fell into a severe depression, did not talk to anyone, refused to get out of bed or eat. Stalin decided to release the field marshal but did not specify a date for the return to his homeland.

On 24 October 1953, only after Stalin's death, Paulus left for Berlin, assuring GDR State Council leader Walter Ulbricht that he would only live in East Germany. On the day of his departure, the Pravda newspaper published a statement by Paulus, where he spoke about the need for the peaceful co-existence of states with different systems, about a future united Germany. He also added that he came to the Soviet Union as an enemy, but was leaving the country as a friend.

During his time in the GDR, Paulus was provided with a guarded villa in a high-end district of Dresden, a car, an adjutant, and a personal gun. He taught future officers and delivered papers on the Battle of Stalingrad. Paulus constantly proved his loyalty to the socialist system and criticised the West German leadership. And the East German authorities did not mind that he signed himself as “General Field Marshal of the former German Army.”

Friedrich Paulus passed away on 1 February 1957, on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the defeat of his army at Stalingrad. According to some sources, the cause of his death was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; others said it was malignant tumours.

The urn with field marshal's ashes was buried near the grave of his wife in Baden-Baden.

Possessions of Field Marshal Paulus can be viewed at Victory Museum

Friedrich Paulus, the first German field marshal to be taken prisoner, testified at Nuremberg on 11 and 12 February. Having surrendered to the Soviet forces in January 1943 in besieged Stalingrad, he changed from being a staunch supporter of the Reich to an anti-fascist in a year and a half. After the war, he testified against the Nazis which significantly influenced the course of the Tribunal; for several years he lived as “Stalin's prisoner” in the USSR. In 1953 he returned to Germany, where he taught future officers. He died at the age of 67, on the eve of the 14th anniversary of the defeat of his army. The Krasnogorsk office of the Victory Museum still keeps the field marshal's personal effects and his personal files.

Gloves, Ushanka and File

Lida Baarova

Leni Riefenstahl

Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel

Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson

Hugo Boss

Dmitry Merezhkovsky and ZinaidaGippius

Mikhail Prishvin

Edith Piaf

Charles Aznavour

Olga Chekhova

Marlene Dietrich

Erich Maria Remarque

Marcel Marceau

Evelyn Waugh

Jean Gabin

Rebecca West

Billy Wilder

Elsa Triolet and Louis Aragon

Supported by

General information partners

Media partners

Language selection