” The most senior of those officers never returned to Germany. He lived out his life in Russia.”
Not true. Friedrich Paulus died in East Germany in 1957.
You appear to be correct per Wiki.
Enemy at the Gates (the book(s), not movie) was my source and I will have to revisit that. There was an avalanche of promotions of various personnel written up and sent out on the last German planes to leave the “pocket”. This was to ensure higher pension for those soldiers’ family/wifes after the presumed death upcoming. (VERY few survived captivity to 1949).
Paulus was presented in the book as filling his time rebutting various scholarly criticisms in Germany of his management of 6th Army, but the book said this was done from Russia. He was not allowed out even for the funeral of his wife. She died in Baden Wurtenberg in West Germany, though in 1949 the delineation was not firmly in place.
It appears clear he was not kept in Russia, but East Germany sufficed. His last posting pre war was Stuttgart and any home he might have was there. West Germany.
You appear to be a student of Stalingrad. My focus is from oil and its planetary scarcity unfolding. Stalingrad was/is the chokepoint of the Volga river and oil flow(ed)(s) on barges or pipelines north to Moscow from the rich Caspian fields.
Hitler was not stupid. It was all about oil. The 6th Army was fueled from Romania, now diminishing to empty.