Word: hedgehog
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Hitler presided. He flatly refused to allow Paulus to retreat. The Sixth Army, he shouted, should form a gigantic "hedgehog," capable of beating back all attacks until succored by an army pushing from the Caucasus. Air transport would supply the hedgehog with food and ammunition...
...generals were flabbergasted. Luftwaffe experts agreed that lack of airfields, shortage of transports, bad weather made it impossible to supply the hedgehog. There was one exception, one man who invariably said what his-master liked to hear. That man stood up and said: "My Fuhrer, I take over the responsibility of supplying the Sixth Army." It was Reich Marshal Hermann Goring...
Last week, 13 months after the debacle, Seydlitz delivered the verdict: "From a conference table 1,400 miles away, without any investigation or discussion on the spot . . . 22 of the best German divisions were ordered to form a hedgehog. Hitler alone is responsible for accepting the encirclement. He prevented an immediate possible break-through ... Goring supported Hitler with an irresponsible promise. Hitler and Goring must forever be haunted by the 250,000 dead German soldiers of Stalingrad...
...Wehrmacht's scheme of defense Rzhev was the main forward hedgehog protecting the Germans in north or central Russia. For 14 months Red armies had hammered the city, until last week had never managed to break its defenses. According to the Russians, Hitler himself once told his generals that Rzhev's fall would be equal to the "loss of half of Berlin...