I have no clue if Von Paulus or Paulus was his real name and neither do I care. I will keep referring to him as VP, since that's all I have heard before..
However, regarding his leadership skills as an Army commander I have this to say..
Many years back I read a bigger WW2 collection about the Stalingrad-battle and it starrted with the typical depiction of leaders, comparing Zhukov&Rokossovski with VP. I remember reading that during some millitary exercises in the mid-30's, he commanded on Batallion/regimental level and performed "fair"..
However, the main comments his superiors <at that time> wrote in his evaluation was... "This man lacks determination and decisiveness".
Would be very interesting to know if anyone have come over something similar regarding his early career. The German officer-education was very very solid and considered superb in early WW2. Lack of aggressiveness and determination at such an early stage of his career could not <in retrospect> be a great asset for someone to lead the 6th at Stalingrad.
He might have been an excellent chief of staff, but the difference between that and operational leadership is so huge that even uneducated dilletante'-commanders like Hitler should have known so. He got the job after Reichenau got a stroke and had never commanded a unit of significance before. Who decided that he should take over leadership? Or was this simply another of the many appointments based more upon seniority or political pull, rather than merits. One might wonder.
One thing is for sure, after Chuikov, Von Paulus was STAVKAS greatest asset in 1942. His inability to blitz in to Stalingrad in August is a pure tactical hesitation and he will have to share the blame with Hitler and OKW for making Uranus such a cakewalk also.
The best thing one might say about VP is that he supposedly was a very nice guy, had a beatiful Hungarian (or was it Rumanian) wife, and possessed many "humanistic" character-traits. However, I am unsure how helpful those were in Stalingrad
-Anger and resentment over 1919 was forever hijacked and destroyed by political parasites and cowards-
