Manstein began to pin his hopes on the "self-help" of the besieged German army itself. On 18 December, Manstein sent Intelligence Major Eisman into the encirclement. Eisman later narrated that he did not bring any breakout orders, but he must have discussed the possibility of a breakout with Paulus and others.
In his memoirs, Manstein described a gloomy picture of Paulus's chief of staff, Schmidt, not only did not want to break through, but even hoped to get enough air supplies to spend Easter in Stalingrad. Under the influence of this powerful chief of staff, Paulus did not want to break through, especially since he knew that Hitler would not approve the breakout. In short, Manstein emphasized that Schmidt was the culprit for the failure to break through.
The claims of Manstein's memoirs are naturally not easily acceptable. Fortunately, Paulus and Manstein had a meeting that afternoon over a teletypewriter, leaving objective evidence. Paulus explained his position: if he wanted to break through, he could only send tanks to meet Hot, and the infantry was too weak to move.
The premise of the success of the breakthrough is to obtain sufficient air supplies. Specifically, it requires 1.5 bases of fuel and enough food for 270,000 people to eat for ten days. However, if there is no breakthrough, it is difficult to hold the encirclement for a long time because there are too few air supplies. Finally, Paulus asked: Is it necessary to prepare for the breakout? How is Holt doing? Manstein's answer was: the first question, to be said later; the second question, Holt was continuing to attack Upper Kumsky, but the Soviets were under strong pressure from the south.