General Friedrich Paulus after the Capitulation in Stalingrad (January 31, 1943) When he realized that his army was trapped in a futile war of attrition at Stalingrad, General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, surrendered on January 31, 1943, against Hitler’s orders. This photograph shows Paulus with his chief of staff, Lieutenant Arthur Schmidt, and his adjutant, Colonel Wilhelm Adam, as they arrive at the headquarters of the 64th Soviet Army at Beketovka to surrender. As a POW, Paulus joined the “National Committee for a Free Germany” [Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland], which called upon German troops on the Eastern Front to defect and thus bring the war to an end as soon as possible. During the Nuremberg Trials, he testified as a witness for the Soviet Union. He was released from captivity in 1953 and lived in the GDR until his death in 1957.