Last Letters from Stalingrad

My grandfather grew up in a post war Stalingrad, he lived in an apartment block full of men who served, one of them served in a blocking detachment, I could post that if you're interested. But I do remember saying that throughout the 40's and up until 1954, there were shit tons of German POW's in the streets, all of them helped in rebuilding the city. They lived in a small camp right outside the city and my grandfather and his friends would come and look at them for fun, or they were passing by the camp. When he did pass by the camp many of the men would stop him and try and get him to go and get them milk, tea or coffee from the city in exchange for the candy or something with sugar, they got from their daily rations. He said that he would do the trade but he hated doing so because when he touched one of the POW's he'd shudder just because he thought they were literal demons, he'd also have to do this when the guards weren't looking or else they'd send him the police and the police would send him home and make sure his mom spanked him, but my grandfather was an idiot and kept doing this cause he loved candy.

>>1981185
Please post whatever first-hand accounts you can. My main focus of my paper is the mental effects the constant fighting had on the men during and after the battle.

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Posting one letter I do have:

>>1981217
Well the attitude towards German POW's by the locals was that they were literal incarnations of everything terrible so it made things very uneasy for the civilians, if anyone ever saw a German POW you would try and avoid them and not even look at them, because looking at them made you uneasy, keep in mind this is from my grandfathers perspective, and he was only a minor at this time. He did mention that the soldiers he talked too at the time who fought in the battle of Stalingrad said that the most of the battle was very boring, but it was a terrible sense of boredom where you have nothing to do but you can't sleep or eat because you're so tense and you're waiting for the enemy to attack so you can't even focus on simple things like writing a letter or reading a book or having a simple chat amongst friends. The soldiers hated the quiet during the battle.

In my grandfathers apartment block his neighbour down the hall was in a blocking detachment. He had lots of stories and shared them, he had the worst aim in his entire unit, so he and another handful of men with piss poor aim were put into a blocking detachment. They did see action and when the unit they were blocking was pinned down they waited for 5 minutes but the men were still hiding from the machine gun and they refused to advance, the leading officer was furious at this. He realized that since they were one of the frontal forces in the attack, their hold up was responsible for the stop in momentum of the attack and he knew he'd be answered responsible for it. So he ordered the men from the blocking detachment with their rifles to fire at the men in cover, they weren't hitting them much but they were really close. Some shots even hit and wounded the men so of course the others pressed on the attack. Later on after the attack the wounded men were taken care off and they all survived. (Since their wounds were all minor) In the end the attack was a success, however the morale of the unit was rock bottom. The blocking detachment did see some more action but they never did fire their weapons anymore, the commander of the unit then unofficially discharged the unit, however the blocking detachment couldn't serve anymore with their original unit as they were neglected by the squad leaders and were frequently beaten up by their fellow soldiers so my grandfathers neighbour and his comrades from the blocking detachment were reassigned to a different unit at the first opportunity. Sorry I don't actually have the specifics of units and such but his memory wasn't to kind in that aspect.

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>>1981128
>anything similar

https://mega.nz/#!gYZRnBKL!MmVP4QXIzWZ91tQl1xQM_otIV85hPC7mJns0ozHHNgU

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6. Army has no ammunition and asks for further orders

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Last Message from HQ 6. Army: "Russians in front of the door. We are destroying (equipment)"

http://stalingrad-feldpost.de/briefinh-U/briefinh-u.html