A. Yes. I tried to carry out this mission. When I received the mission, the last airfield had been lost. The Russians had taken them. We looked for smaller places which were rather difficult to find there in those mountainous areas; and within the next few days we succeeded in carrying out a considerable air lift of supplies. However, it was too late. The resisting force of the defenders had broken down; the people were starving; they had hardly any vehicles or horses. They could not get the food from the landing places for the planes because they were too weak to do so. They could not carry the containers so that the air lift of supplies in the case of Stalingrad could not be kept up after the end of January or the beginning of February.
Q. Did you have a serious accident then?
A. Yes. At that moment when I wanted to fly into Stalingrad, before I hit the airfield, I was hit by a railroad engine, and I was seriously injured.
Q. Then you went back to Hitler?
A. I carried out the mission first. Then when Stalingrad had fallen, I withdrew and went to see Hitler and told him that I could not complete my mission. He told me, however, that it was not I who had not carried out the mission but that it was his fault. He said he gave me the orders too late; he had wanted to give the orders to me much earlier but had been talked out of it.
Q. Witness, during that occasion, did you tell Hitler your opinion about the war and the general situation of the war?
A. It was on 4 February when I reported back to Hitler. Hitler on that particular day was very crushed due to the loss of Stalingrad. It was not possible to have a quiet talk with him. He did not receive me at first, or my chief of staff, namely, General of the Tank Corps Model, who had a corps within that fortress. We both were under the impression that day that we would not be able to speak to him. However, he told me in a few words, “Now, go right ahead to your GL task, manufacturing. Now we will have transport planes in the first line, transport planes, and more transport planes.” He was talking about Stalingrad. He thought that had he had more transport planes he would have been able to keep Stalingrad.
With respect to Stalingrad, I had a long discussion with him on 5 March. That was the last time I saw him. That was about a month later. I was ordered to see him because he wanted to give me the mission to build high-altitude and fast bombers and put them in the first line of production. Those now were more important than transport planes. I availed myself of that opportunity on that day and had prepared myself in order to tell him my opinion about the general situation. That discussion took place in the evening. I had dinner with him alone. That was shortly before 9:00 o’clock; and it lasted until 3:15 a.m. Then in contrast to all other discussions I had with him, I was the one who was speaking all the time.
I told him first of all the truth about Stalingrad; and I told him that the question of leaving an army was a military mistake, when according to military and strategical points of view it should have withdrawn, something which had been suggested both by myself and by the army. It was a mistake; and it did end with the loss of 350,000 men on the German side. However, a withdrawal in time would have saved the greatest part of these soldiers. I told him that, after all, the Russians were not as anxious to attack as that; that in the winter they themselves were in a difficult position for attacking a German army and they would not have dared. I told him then that that point was the last turning point in the fate of the war. I told him that I had tried to reach him before the Russian campaign. However, I had been unable to do so because it had been forbidden. I said that the time was now five minutes past twelve. We use that expression in Germany when something is completed; when it is finished. I told him that by that I meant that the war was lost. I apologized for not considering his nervous condition. There was no time for that any more. I thought it my duty to tell him my sincere opinion; as a field marshal I thought myself entitled to do so.