About Arthur Schmidt (general)
Arthur Schmidt (25 October 1895 – 5 November 1987) was an officer in the German military from 1914 to 1943. He attained the rank of Generalleutnant during World War II, and is best known for his role as the Sixth Army's chief of staff in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–43, during the final stages of which he became its de facto commander, playing a large role in executing Hitler's order that it stand firm despite being encircled by the Red Army. He was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union for twelve years, and was released following West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer's visit to Moscow in 1955. == World War I == Schmidt joined the army as a one-year volunteer on 10 August 1914, attaining the rank of Leutnant on 8 May 1915. == World War II == Schmidt held various positions in the Heer, including chief of operations in Fifth Army (25 August 1939 – 12 October 1939) and Eighteenth Army (5 November 1939 – 1 October 1940). On 25 October 1940 he served as chief of staff in 5th Army Corps, a position he held until 25 March 1942, when he moved to the Führerreserve at Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH). On 26 January 1942 he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. Schmidt was appointed chief of staff to General Friedrich Paulus in Sixth Army on 15 May 1942, replacing Colonel Ferdinand Heim after the counter-attack against Marshal Semyon Timoshenko at the Second Battle of Kharkov. The British historian and author Antony Beevor offers the following description of Schmidt: [He was] a slim, sharp-featured and sharp-tongued staff officer from a Hamburg mercantile family. Schmidt, confident of his own abilities, put many backs up within Sixth Army headquarters, although he also had his supporters.
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