With Paulus at Stalingrad

Colonel Wilhelm Adam, senior ADC to General Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army at Stalingrad, wrote a compelling and controversial memoir describing the German defeat, his time as a prisoner of war with Paulus, and his conversion to communism. Now, for the first time, his German text has been translated into English.

His account gives an intimate insight into events at the 6th Army headquarters during the advance to Stalingrad and the protracted and devastating battle for possession of the city. In vivid detail he recalls the sharp personality clashes among the senior commanders and their intense disputes about tactics and strategy, but he also records the ordeal of the German troops trapped in the encirclement and his own role in the fighting.

The extraordinary story he tells, fluently translated by Tony Le Tissier, offers a genuinely fresh perspective on the battle, and it reveals much about the prevailing attitudes and tense personal relationships of the commanders at Stalingrad and at Hitler’s headquarters. It deepens understanding of the German side of the fighting and explains the circumstances that led some German soldiers to ask fundamental questions about the cause they were fighting for.