"Marshal Paulus?" When Ruskin heard Schmidt say this, he couldn't help but be stunned, and asked rhetorically: "General Schmidt, as far as I know, isn't Paulus with the rank of general, and when was he promoted to marshal?" ”

"Just a few hours ago, Your Excellency." Schmidt said in a flattering tone: "Obviously, our Führer awarded him the rank of marshal at this time just to let him command the troops to continue fighting to the end, but our officers and soldiers have awakened and will no longer die for the damned fascists, so surrendering to your army is our right choice." ”

After the muscles on his face twitched a few times, he instructed the staff officer next to him: "Please General Schmidt go to the next room to rest, and I will make a phone call to the army group headquarters to report the situation here to the commander." ”

After receiving the order, the staff officer took Schmidt and his entourage to a dilapidated house without a roof next to it, and waited for the results of Raskin's contact with his superiors.

After listening to Raskin's report, Shumilov did not bother to ask Rokossovsky for instructions, so he directly gave an order to Raskin: "Chief of Staff, I now order you to immediately lead your troops into the Central Department Store and capture all the enemies there, including the newly promoted Marshal Paulus. ”

After Raskin put down the phone, he went to the room where Schmidt was, and told him righteously: "General Schmidt, please take me to your headquarters now, I am ordered to take you all prisoner!" ”

After listening to the translation, Schmidt bowed slightly, and made a gesture of invitation to Raskin: "Your Excellency, General, please allow me to act as a guide for you!" ”

Ruskin nodded, and with a guard platoon of soldiers, followed Schmidt and Adam, towards the Central Department Store, a few hundred meters away. Seeing his chief of staff coming with a group of Soviet troops, the German officers and soldiers who had been staying in the fortifications outside the building stood up one after another, threw away their weapons, and removed the obstacles blocking the road, so that the other side could enter the department store more smoothly.

At this moment, a lookout post on the third floor of the department store, when he saw Schmidt leading the Soviet troops towards the building, immediately informed the duty room in the basement by telephone: "The Russians are coming towards us. ”

After answering the phone, the officer in the duty room said to the operator sitting next to him: "The Russians are coming towards us, destroy the code book immediately, and it must not fall into their hands." ”

Upon hearing his order, one of the operators immediately began to burn the incoming and outgoing messages and codebooks, while another took it upon himself to send the final telegram in plain code: "The radio station of the Sixth Army is about to be turned off, the Russians have arrived at the door of our basement, and we are destroying the equipment. Down with the Bolsheviks, God bless Germany! Finally, the international telegram was used to negotiate "CL", indicating that "this station has stopped sending messages".

After all this, the operator took off his headphones and stood up, picked up the radio on the table, and fell to the ground with great force. After a loud bang, smoke rose from the radio, and he was afraid that the radio station had not been destroyed, so he lifted the wooden chair he had made and smashed it vigorously until his used radio station was smashed into a pile of parts.

When Ruskin and the others arrived at the door of the department store, four warriors immediately broke away from the line and stood guard on the left and right sides of the gate. Ruskin walked into the building without stopping, and with Schmidt leading the way, he headed towards the basement. Soon, with the help of the dim light, he saw two closed doors in front of him, which were the entrance to the basement.

Schmidt glanced at Colonel Adam, who immediately stepped forward quickly, slapped his hand on the door vigorously, and shouted at the same time: "Open the door, open it quickly!" ”

The closed door slowly opened, revealing a swarthy hallway. Ruskin walked to the door and looked inside, on both sides of the corridor, there were German officers and soldiers sitting on the fire to keep warm, and saw a group of Soviet commanders and fighters appear in front of them, they did not put up any resistance, but just looked at each other numbly.

Raskin stepped forward and shouted in an incomparably majestic voice: "You have been captured, surrender immediately!" As soon as he finished speaking, although few of the German soldiers sitting in the corridor understood Russian, and the interpreter who followed Schmidt did not translate what Raskin had said, the German officers and soldiers understood it and threw the weapons they held in their arms, in their hands, or in their pockets in the middle of the corridor. For a moment, in the corridor where no one spoke, there was only the dull sound of various weapons landing.

Seeing the hallway full of weapons, Ruskin turned to Schmidt and said, "Wherever Paulus is, take me there immediately." ”

"Please come with me, Your Excellency!" After Schmidt said this, he carefully walked through the stacked weapons in the corridor with Raskin towards Paulus's headquarters.

Paulus sat on a marching bed in the headquarters, and when the sound of weapons falling one after another was heard outside, he knew that the Soviet commanders and fighters who had come to capture him were coming, and he couldn't help but become a little uneasy. But when he saw Ruskin, led by Schmidt, walk in through the door, he hurriedly stood up from the side of the bed and stared nervously at each other.

Ruskin walked to a place four or five steps away from Paulus and stopped, and after looking him up and down, he said righteously: "Marshal Paulus, I am Major General Ruskin, and I have been ordered to come and accept the surrender of the German army and take all of you prisoner!" ”

After listening to this, Paulus took off the mink military hat on his head, replaced it with a large-brimmed hat, raised his hand to salute Raskin, and said respectfully: "German Marshal Paulus, surrender to the Soviet Red Army!" ”

One of the warriors standing behind Raskin glared at Paulus and was about to search him to see if he still had a weapon on him, but was stopped by Ruskin. Raskin looked at his subordinates and said, "No need to search, he is a German marshal, give him the respect he deserves!" ”

An hour later, the captured Paulus came to Rokossovsky's command. Rokossovsky and Voronov, in a separate small room, received the captured German marshal.

A German translator walked in and reported to Rokossovsky: "Comrade commander, Paulus has been brought!" With that, he flashed to the side and asked the warrior to escort Paulus in from the outside.

Rokossovsky looked up at the tall and thin German general in front of him, but with a well-proportioned physique, and said in his heart that this is the famous Paulus? He quickly stood up, stretched out his hand to Paulus, who was standing straight, shook his hand, and then politely beckoned him to sit down.

Although Paulus was a prisoner, both Rokossovsky and Voronov were very polite to him. Rokossovsky picked up the cigarette on the table, handed it to Paulus, and said in a friendly tone: "Please smoke, Marshal Paulus, and taste the taste of our Russian cigarettes." ”

Paulus took a cigarette from the case, put it in his mouth, and lit it himself with a match. He glanced at Rokossovsky, who was smoking like himself, and then at Voronov, who was sitting next to him, and couldn't help but ask curiously: "Mr. Admiral, why don't you smoke?" ”

After listening to the translation, Voronov smiled and said to Paulus: "I'm sorry, Mr. Paulus, I don't smoke. ”

Paulus turned his head to look at Rokossovsky and made a request through the translator: "Gentlemen, please don't force me to answer any question that violates the military oath, is that okay?" ”

"No problem, Marshal Paulus." To Paulus's request, Rokossovsky readily agreed: "Let's talk casually, and we will never touch on questions that you are not willing to answer." ”

In this way, with the cooperation of the translator, the three of them began to chat with each other. The conversation between them was not of the nature of an interrogation, but only a conversation with Paulus about the current situation of the war and the condition of the captured German officers and soldiers.

After chatting for more than half an hour, Paulus again asked: "Gentlemen, since I am already your prisoner of war, I wonder if I can enjoy the treatment that a prisoner of war deserves." Like, let me go take a shower first? ”

In fact, as early as when Paulus attacked, Rokossovsky smelled the unpleasant smell on his body, and it is estimated that he had not taken a shower or changed his clothes for ten days and half a month. He remembered that in the information he had, Paulus was a cleanliness man, and he didn't know how he managed to persevere after such a long time without bathing or changing clothes.

Before instructing the interpreter to take Paulus away, Rokossovsky felt that he should make a request to Paulus to order the northern clusters, which were still resisting, to stop fighting and surrender to the Soviet army, so he asked tentatively: "Mr. Paulus, although the fighting south of Stalingrad has ended, there is still fierce fighting in the factory area to the north. In order to avoid unnecessary casualties, can you give the commanders of the northern cluster an order to stop this futile resistance? ”

"I'm sorry, gentlemen." Paulus did not hesitate to refuse Rokossovsky's request: "I am now your prisoner of war, no longer the commander of the German 6th Army, and therefore have no right to give any armistice order to the German army that is still fighting!" ”

Seeing Paulus's stubbornness, Rokossovsky did not want to persuade him anymore, and ordered the interpreter standing next to him: "Take Marshal Paulus to the room arranged for him, let him take a good bath, and then change him into clean clothes." ”

After Paulus left, Voronov was so angry that he punched the table hard, gritted his teeth and said: "What a stubborn fellow, he himself has been taken prisoner, and he refuses to give the troops the order for a ceasefire." ”

"Chief of Staff," Rokossovsky did not answer him, but walked to the door and shouted at Malinin, who was busy outside, "Please come in, I have something to tell you." ”

Hearing Rokossovsky's call, Malinin walked quickly into the hut and looked at Rokossovsky with surprise, waiting for him to give the order.

"Chief of Staff," Rokossovsky said, after extinguishing the cigarette in the ashtray, looked up at Malinin, "immediately send a telegram to several army group commanders of the German encirclement and annihilation of the northern cluster, and ask them to immediately make propaganda leaflets and hit the German positions with mortars, so that the German troops, who are still stubbornly resisting in the factory area, know that their commander, Field Marshal Paulus, has become our prisoner, and let them immediately stop this senseless resistance." ”

After recording the order, Malinin asked: "What should we do if the Germans do not surrender?" ”

"Does that need to be said?" Rokossovsky said categorically: "If the enemy does not surrender, we will resolutely destroy them." Don't forget, Chief of Staff, that we have more than a hundred artillery regiments and more than two dozen Guards rocket artillery brigades deployed north of Stalingrad, and they have enough thousands of artillery pieces to raze the German-occupied factory area. ”

When Malinin went out, Voronov skillfully reminded Rokossovsky: "Comrade Rokossovsky, I think we should report the news of the capture of Paulus to the Supreme High Command as soon as possible, so that Comrade Stalin will also be happy." ”

After hearing this, Rokossovsky nodded, pushed the high-frequency phone on the table in front of Voronov, and said politely: "General Voronov, you should make this call." ”

Voronov did not refuse, picked up the phone and dialed the Kremlin, and after informing the operator of his contact code, he found Pos Krebeshev very smoothly: "Hello, Pos Krebeshev, I am Voronov, the commander of the artillery. I have something important that I need to report immediately to the Supreme Commander himself, please help me transfer the phone in. ”

After Boskrebeshev heard that it was Voronov's voice, he immediately said politely: "Hello, comrade commander-in-chief of artillery, please wait a moment, I will immediately transfer the phone to you." ”

A moment later, Stalin's loud voice came out of the headphones: "Comrade Voronov, you called me early in the morning, do you have any good news to tell me?" ”

"That's right, Comrade Stalin." After glancing at Rokossovsky, who was standing next to him, Voronov smiled and said with a smile: "I have good news for you, Paulus was captured by our army!" ”

As soon as Voronov's words fell, there was no sound in the headphones. It was a long time before he heard Stalin excitedly ask in a somewhat translucent voice: "What did you just say, that Paulus was captured by our army?" ”

"Absolutely right, Comrade Stalin." Voronov continued: "To be precise, it was the chief of staff of the 65th Army, Major General Raskin, who led the commanders and fighters of the motorized 38th Brigade to capture Paulus and his men in the basement of the central department store in Stalingrad. ”