of Stalingrad, but the German forces, weak and low
on supplies, were in no condition to do so, and Paulus
refused. Unable to resupply the German forces there,
Hitler abandoned them. After three months of starva-
tion and continual attrition from Russian bombard-
ment, Paulus surrendered his entire Sixth Army on 31
January 1943 to the Russian commander Konstantin
rokossoVsky. Ironically, Hitler had promoted him to
the rank of field marshal the day before he surrendered.
The whole of the German force was sent to Siberia; of
300,000 men, some 45,000 died during the march to
the camps, and only 7,000 survivors emerged from Rus-
sia after the war.
Paulus was arrested by the Soviets and initially re-
fused to speak with them. However, when he discovered
that several of his military comrades, including Erwin
von Witzleben, had been executed for their involvement
in the “July Plot” (1944) of German military officers to
kill Hitler, Paulus changed his mind, joined the so-called
National Free Germany Committee, and began to make
anti-Nazi radio broadcasts, which were broadcast inside
Germany. Hitler ordered that Paulus’s family be impris-
oned, but none were physically harmed.
With the end of the war, Paulus was allowed to
travel to Nuremberg, where he testified in the war crimes
trial against former Nazi officials. He was released from
Soviet custody in 1953 and he settled in Dresden, in
Communist East Germany, where he became outspoken
for his anti-American views. He died of motor neuron
disease in Dresden on 1 February 1957.
Paulus is not highly rated by historians. The biog-
rapher Martin Middlebrook explains that even his con-
temporaries did not view him kindly: “History gives a
simple and unkind verdict on Friedrich Paulus: gifted
Staff officer, uninspired commander, an unquestioning
general of the ‘orders-are-orders’ type. He never ques-
tioned Nazism and was willing to do almost anything
ordered by Hitler. Finally, when the fate of a quarter of a
million men rested in his hands, he ‘froze’ and did little
but let events take their course to the complete destruc-
tion of his army and the miserable deaths of most of his
soldiers.”
References: Goerlitz, Walter, Paulus and Stalingrad: A Life
of Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus with Notes, Correspon-
dence, and Documents from his Papers (New York: The Cit-
adel Press, 1963); Middlebrook, Martin, “Field-Marshal
Friedrich Paulus,” in Hitler’s Generals, edited by Corelli
Barnett (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1989), 361–373;
Roberts, Geoffrey, Victory at Stalingrad: The Battle That
Changed History (London: Longman, 2002).Pembroke, second earl of See clare, richard,
fitzgilbert de, second earl of Pembroke.Penn, Sir William (1621–1670) English admiral
Born in Bristol, Gloucestershire, on 23 April 1621, Wil-
liam Penn was the son of Giles Penn, a seaman and mer-
chant from Bristol. At an early age, he began service on
the sea at his father’s side, although apparently he did not
see military action until the English Civil War. When
that conflict broke out in 1642 between the forces of
King Charles I and those who backed Parliament, Penn
sided against the monarch. However, the first phase
of the war saw few if any naval clashes, and he mainly
spent his time in the Irish Sea commanding a ship in the
squadron watching for any invasion by the king’s forces.
In 1647, he was named by Parliament as rear admiral of
the Irish seas, and he maintained his watch there. How-
ever, some believed that Penn was in fact working for the
king, and in 1648 he was arrested by the Parliamentar-
ians and accused of carrying on a correspondence with
Charles I. He was sent to London in chains, but after
a quick investigation into the allegation, he was re-
leased, and in 1650 he was granted his own warship,
the Assurance, as part of the Ocean squadron. As com-
mander of this squadron, he chased Prince ruPert,
one of the leading Royalist commanders, who had fled
England following the king’s capture, trial, and 1649
execution.
Although he had played only a small part in the
first phase of the English Civil War, Penn came into his
own in the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54). Upon
the outbreak of this conflict, he was named as vice admi-
ral, serving under Robert blake, who had also partici-
pated in the English Civil War. Penn supported Blake at
the battle off Kentish Knock (28 September 1652), and
in the clash against the Dutch off Portland (February
1653), his “Blue Squadron” ensured victory. Although
he fought for the Parliament forces, now controlling En-
gland, in 1654 Penn conspired with Charles I’s son, later
Charles II, offering him control over the entire English
fleet. Apparently Charles refused this offer, and Penn
remained loyal to the new Parliamentary ruler, Oliverpenn, SiR williAm