NavHist - An Artilleryman in Stalingrad: A Soldier’s Story at the Turning Point of World War II

Reviewed by Jeff Schultz

Dr. Wigand Wüster’s An Artilleryman in Stalingrad: A Soldier’s Story at the Turning Point of World War offers insight into a pivotal World War II campaign through the rarely told artilleryman’s perspective. His frank memoir lacks the self-serving elements common to historical retellings where pride takes precedence and real experiences require at least some embellishment to fit ego-driven narratives.

Wüster served prewar and fought from 1939 Poland up to his capture in early 1943, rising to the rank of Oberleutnant (first lieutenant). He spent years in Soviet captivity before his release in late 1949. Postwar, he earned a law degree and worked as a lawyer, passing away in 2017 at ninety-six.

The book is divided into seven chapters with five appendices, publisher’s note & acknowledgments, and an index, augmented with many black and white photos. Interestingly, the book also features some of his watercolors which give an additional angle to view his experience in a refreshingly accessible manner. The appendices include several supplementary primary documents which support the main narrative in a complementary fashion, such as the 71st Infantry Division’s war diary for 1942 and related divisional and regimental memoirs.

Wüster seeks to chronicle his version of the war as officer and later commander of various artillery batteries of the 71st Infantry Division’s 171st Artillery Regiment, from May 1942 to his eventual capture in January 1943. He does not discuss his experiences in Poland or France, though he mentions France in passing, as idyllic compared to Russia. The 71st gained the nickname of the “cloverleaf” due to 1940 success, it would later serve at Kiev and Kharkov until its destruction at Stalingrad where their collective luck ran out; then reform for service in Italy from 1943-1944.

Wüster deals with the topic of the vastness and unpredictable weather on the way to Stalingrad, which featured dusty tracks that turned to muddy ooze in a rainstorm or thaw. The terrain often featured wide flat spaces and river crossings, which were never easy, nor was dealing with the later winter conditions. During this period, he struggled to deal with a callous battalion commander who proved a petty martinet, making Wüster’s life miserable for no apparent reason on multiple occasions. While crossing the Don River in 1942 part of his regiment, 11th Battery, was overrun and suffered heavy casualties while his 10th Battery survived unscathed as a reminder of the randomness of battle and need to be prepared for trouble at a moment’s notice. Later during the Stalingrad fighting, his 2nd Battery managed to sink a harassing Soviet gunboat on the Volga River during a night action using captured enemy field guns. 

Throughout the memoir he details his struggles with a cruel battalion commander and fights with different artillery batteries, often as a forward observer, until granted leave in November 1942. He returns to Göttingen where the war remains distant and spends time with his sweetheart, Ruth. While away, the Soviet counteroffensive (Operation Uranus) strikes which makes his return a scramble to reach the Stalingrad pocket, as the old Axis flanks collapsed. His insistence on returning seems counterintuitive in hindsight but he considered himself a professional soldier who needed to do his duty. A hair-raising flight to Pitomnik foreshadows the madness that now reigns along the Volga River amid the remains of von Paulus’ now hungry, isolated and crumbling Sixth Army forced to hold their positions. Once connected with his old 2nd Battery of the 171st Artillery Regiment, which sometimes acts as untrained infantry, they hunger and suffer until the fighting ends, bitter cold a constant concern. His recent furlough pays off as he goes into Soviet captivity, as he is fitter than many of his comrades who were on reduced rations well before they capitulated. As a testimony to his personal courage and perseverance, he survives the rigors, brutality, and nihilism of Soviet captivity to reunite with Ruth on 31 December 1949. 

One of the important themes Wüster highlights is the improvised use of captured equipment and personnel due to the underequipped forces that marched steadily into the Soviet Union which many do not understand or dare to fathom. The employment of civilian tractors and even T-34 tanks as improvised prime movers to replace tired and often worn-out horses is one such example, his unit used as many of them as possible as field-expedient transport to keep moving across the vast distances they were expected to traverse without proper means. German artillery units were largely unmotorized, leaving the infantry divisions, dependent on horses, same as their forebears going back centuries. Ignorance of the heavy reliance on horse transport is one of the big myths of Blitzkrieg and Wüster does an excellent job of reminding of the disparity. Not only the Soviet tractors and tanks as prime movers but also the secondary importance of so-called Hilfswilligen (HiWis), as Soviet auxiliary volunteers, drawn from captured Red Army personnel who sought a better life than starving in the POW camps. Often ignored by historians, they performed important supporting tasks which helped the increasingly stretched German resources against the monolithic Soviet foe with massive Anglo-Allied support, even into the later stages of the Stalingrad fighting and beyond.  

Wüster’s An Artilleryman in Stalingrad: A Soldier’s Story at the Turning Point of World War II provides a fresh, little-known glimpse into the life of a German artillery officer on the Eastern Front. Wüster’s story, which culminated in the 1942 Stalingrad campaign, follows his deployment in Operation Barbarossa to his capture at Stalingrad to his subsequent internment in the Soviet Union. His objective memoir takes the reader into many of the day-to-day aspects of the war which many will find rewarding, in contrast to the larger stories most know. His attention to detail and the wealth of images and watercolor paintings provide important context to tell this valuable story about one man’s struggle not only with the madness of the Eastern Front but also lessons about leadership, camaraderie, resourcefulness, adaptation, and ongoing challenges experienced in many hierarchical settings.

Jeff Schultz teaches at a community college in Pennsylvania. 

An Artilleryman in Stalingrad: A Soldier’s Story at the Turning Point of World War II (Dr. Wigand Wüster, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2021).

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