Im watching a documentary about WWII and it mentions that when the 2 separated fighting forces of germans finally surrendered in Stalingrad, that 2/3 of the fighting force had died due to starvation or fighting.
Of the 91,000 soilders that were captured and held prisoner, it was estimated that only 5000 returned post war. It was quite a vague gloss over then they moved on. It was mentioned that a German newspaper ran the headline "they died so that Germany could live"
My question is, what happened to the other 86,000 pow's ? Did the Russians do them in, did they freeze to death or starve, or did the germans execute a majority of the captured as punishment for breaking hitlers ordersand surrendering? Could it gave been to cover up the loss so as to not lose face in front of the German citizens?
Thanks
They died. Now, keep in mind that their situation towards the end of the battle for Stalingrad was absolutely horrifying. Most of these men were starving, wounded and sick before they were captured and capture did not exactly improve their situation.
First of all, it took a while before the Red Army had time to deal with their prisoners. Sometimes weeks. In this time they were basically left were they had been captured/surrendered. They were too weak to attempt anything anyway so there was little need to put them under heavy guard once disarmed. So, a fair few starved, froze to death, succumbed to their wounds or some disease before they could even be processed by the Red Army.
Once the Red Army had time to deal with them some were sent off on foot towards prisoner camps further east. Already weak and marching in the Russian winter many did not survive the march. The lucky ones were sent off by transport, either rail or truck. Even among those, half died before they reached their destination (17000/35000-ish). Over the next few years the rest died off from the cold, starvation, disease, over-work, mistreatment or more likely a combination of all of this. By the time the survivors were repatriated there were around 5000 left alive.
> Could it gave been to cover up the loss so as to not lose face in front of the German citizens?
No. The destruction of the 6th army was publicly announced by radion broadcast in Germany on January 31st.