Foreign News: Supreme Council

Thirty-six hours before the German Army marched, Adolf Hitler organized his country for war. To run the internal affairs of Germany he named a six-man “Cabinet Council for the Defense of the Reich” empowered to issue decrees without even the signature of the Führer. Personnel:

Marshal Hermann Wilhelm Göring, No. 2 Nazi and dictator of Germany’s Four-Year Plan, chairman.

Rudolf Hess, No. 3 Nazi and deputy leader of the party, the hirsute anti-Semite who in 1923 was Hitler’s beer-hall Putsch-mate.

Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick, oldest (62) high-ranking Nazi. Sickly Wilhelm Frick did not serve in the last War. As chief of the Munich Political Police he took a hand in the 1923 Putsch, earned a 16-month prison sentence for his trouble. In 1930, as Minister of the Interior of Thuringia, he appointed Hitler a police officer, thereby made him a German citizen.

Minister of Economics Walther Funk, pudgy successor to Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht as president of the Reichsbank, whose tough job it will be to step up German economy to meet its wartime needs.

General Wilhelm Keitel, Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, who technically outranks even Hermann Göring. No rabid Nazi, 56-year-old General Keitel has been in the Army since he was 19, served through the last War as an artillery captain and general staff officer. After the Army purge of 1938 he emerged as its new chief.

Dr. Hans Heinrich Lammers, Hitler’s personal State Secretary and Chief of the Chancellery. Least known bigwig of the Nazi party, bald Dr. Lammers is a typical oldtime Prussian official, wears a Prince Albert more often than his Storm Trooper’s uniform. A Nationalist until 1932, in that year he broke with Alfred Hugenberg, threw his influence behind Adolf Hitler. When Hitler came to power in 1933 he rewarded Stooge Lammers with the job of Undersecretary of the Chancellery. Author of many fat books on legal questions, Dr. Lammers produced the legal opinion which, after Paul von Hindenburg’s death in 1934, made Hitler dictator for life.