Foreign News: Free Germans?

The Russian armies were some 19 miles inside East Prussia last week (see WORLD BATTLEFRONTS). What the Russians would do with Germany when they got farther was one of Europe’s most arresting questions.

If Russia’s planned economy of purpose in getting Rumania, Bulgaria and Finland out of the war was any clue, Russia had a plan for Germany. Almost certainly the plan involved the National Committee for Free Germany and the League of German Officers.

The Free Germany Committee was born in Moscow more than a year ago (TIME, Aug. 2, 1943). The League of German Officers was formed shortly afterwards. Now, in a country headquarters not far from Moscow, German Communists and Wehrmacht officers sit together, plot & plan their return to Germany. Neither the U.S. nor Britain has anything to match Russia’s Free Germany Committee.

Political Keystone. Thus, around a Russian-guided center, a new Germany might well take shaped Like the new Poland, it would be friendly to Russia. And it would be the most important segment in a cordon sanitaire-in-reverse, the political keystone of the key continent. The Russians chipped and chiseled at this keystone long before World War II. But they lacked the proper tools until their great victory at Stalingrad.

The idea of basing a Free Germany on captured German officers and soldiers has been credited to Communist Author Erich Weinert, a bushy-maned Berliner who fought with the International Brigade in Spain, fled from the Gestapo to Russia. He is said to have written a memo to Stalin, who approved.

Skillfully the Russians and their German comrades won over the Wehrmacht officers and men. They kept the German commanders posted, by battle map, on the steady German retreat, east & west. They worked on the tradition of Russo-German friendship among the German military cadres—a tradition implanted by Bismarck, cultivated by General Hans von Seeckt, who outwitted the Allies and armed the Reichswehr in part with the help of munitions and plane factories in Russia.

Indestructible Germany. Prospective recruits for the League of German Officers were reminded of Stalin’s speech to the nation (Nov. 6, 1942):

“We do not pursue the aim of destroying Germany, for it is impossible to destroy Germany, just as it is impossible to destroy Russia. We can and must destroy the Hitler State. . . . We do not pursue the aim of destroying the entire organized military force in Germany, for every literate person will understand that this is … impossible. . . . But we can and must destroy Hitler’s army. . . .”

Politicians and Proselytizers. By July 1943, enough Wehrmacht men had been won over to set up the Free Germany Committee. By September, there were enough recruits to organize the League of German Officers, now a subcommittee of the National Committee. Erich Weinert was chosen chairman of Free Germany, and General Walther von Seydlitz, commander of the LI Army Corps at Stalingrad, became chairman of the Officers’ League. Other charter members: Wilhelm Pieck, 68, participant with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in the unsuccessful Communist attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic, ex-Reichstag deputy, wheelhorse of the pre-Hitler German Communist Party; Lieut. Count Heinrich von Einsiedel, great-grandson of Bismarck, ex-Luftwaffe pilot, and a pro-Russian proselytizer among his fellow officers.

A long manifesto (TIME, Aug. 30, 1943), which may well be one of the basic documents of World War II, summoned all Germans to unite in a democratic coalition.

Since then daily Free German broadcasts over the Moscow radio have ended with the slogan: “Germany must live! Therefore Hitler must fall! Fight with us for Free Germany!” A weekly, Free Germany, also appeared.

Now, on the front in East Prussia, Free German propagandists with the Red Army microphone their ex-comrades to surrender. They helped soften the Wehrmacht for last summer’s great defeat in White Russia. After that debacle, 17 Wehrmacht generals, including Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, commander of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, joined the Free Germans.

The Russians have lately been talking loud & long against a soft peace. Though they are using the Free Germans as a psychological military weapon, they have said nothing as yet about their possible political use.

Says General von Seydlitz: “Our intentions are to lead the Wehrmacht to the frontiers of Germany and to preserve it for the people. An honorable peace can be in store only for a people whose Wehrmacht is not disintegrated.”