36 Facts About Friedrich Paulus

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus was a German Generalfeldmarschall during World War II who is best known for his surrender of the German 6th Army during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Friedrich Paulus was considered a promising officer; by the time World War II broke out, he had been promoted to major general.

Friedrich Paulus took part in the invasions of Poland and the Low Countries, after which he was named deputy chief of the German Army General Staff.

In that capacity, Friedrich Paulus helped plan the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Friedrich Paulus led the drive to Stalingrad but was cut off and surrounded in the subsequent Soviet counter-offensive.

Friedrich Paulus surrendered in Stalingrad on 31 January 1943, the same day on which he was informed of his promotion to field marshal by Hitler.

Hitler expected Friedrich Paulus to take his own life, repeating to his staff that there was no precedent of a German field marshal being captured alive.

In 1953, Friedrich Paulus moved to East Germany, where he worked in military history research.

Friedrich Paulus lived out the rest of his life in Dresden.

Friedrich Paulus was born in Guxhagen and grew up in Kassel, Hesse-Nassau, the son of a treasurer.

Friedrich Paulus tried, unsuccessfully, to secure a cadetship in the Imperial German Navy and briefly studied law at Marburg University.

When World War I began, Friedrich Paulus's regiment was part of the thrust into France, and he saw action in the Vosges and around Arras in the autumn of 1914.

Friedrich Paulus was chosen as one of only 4,000 officers to serve in the Reichswehr, the defensive army that the Treaty of Versailles had limited to 100,000 men.

Friedrich Paulus was assigned to the 13th Infantry Regiment as a company commander at Stuttgart.

Friedrich Paulus served in various staff positions for over a decade.

In February 1938, Friedrich Paulus was appointed Chef des Generalstabes to General Heinz Guderian's new XVI Army Corps, which replaced Lutz's command.

Friedrich Paulus remained in that post until May 1939, when he was promoted to major general and became chief of staff for the German Tenth Army, with which he saw service in the invasion of Poland.

In November 1941, after the German Sixth Army's commander, Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau, Friedrich Paulus's patron, became commander of the entire Army Group South, Friedrich Paulus, who had never commanded a larger unit than a battalion, was promoted to General der Panzertruppe and appointed commander of the Sixth Army.

Friedrich Paulus's troops fought Soviet forces defending Stalingrad for over three months in increasingly brutal urban warfare.

In November 1942, when the Soviet Red Army launched a massive counter-offensive, Operation Uranus, Friedrich Paulus found himself surrounded by an entire Soviet army group.

Friedrich Paulus did not request to evacuate the city when the counter-offensive began.

Friedrich Paulus followed Adolf Hitler's orders to hold his positions in Stalingrad under all circumstances, despite the fact that he was completely surrounded by strong Soviet forces.

Friedrich Paulus remained firm in obeying the orders he had been given.

Friedrich Paulus said that 18,000 men were wounded and were in immediate need of medical attention.

The implication was clear: Friedrich Paulus was to commit suicide, or fight to the last man.

Hitler implied that if Friedrich Paulus allowed himself to be taken alive, he would shame Germany's military history.

Friedrich Paulus handed the colonel general a piece of paper and said: 'Congratulations.

Shortly before surrendering, Friedrich Paulus sent his wedding ring back to his wife on the last plane departing his position.

Friedrich Paulus had not seen her since 1942 and would not see her again, as she died in 1949 while he was still in captivity.

Friedrich Paulus later acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials.

Friedrich Paulus was allowed to move to the German Democratic Republic in 1953, two years before the repatriation of the remaining German POWs.

Friedrich Paulus told the journalist to tell the wives and mothers that their husbands and sons were well.

Friedrich Paulus was, in any case, a defender of a united and sovereign Germany.

Friedrich Paulus criticized United States foreign policy as aggressive and called for a reconciliation between the Germans and the French:.

From 1953 to 1956, Friedrich Paulus lived in Dresden, East Germany, where he worked as the civilian chief of the East German Military History Research Institute.

Friedrich Paulus died a few months later, in Dresden, on 1 February 1957, aged 66.