GERMANY: Hitler & His Generals

Gustav Siegfried Eins is a “secret” radio station which supposedly speaks for some of the Wehrmacht’s Prussian commanders. Apparently immune from the Gestapo and possibly beyond its reach, the station persistently criticizes Adolf Hitler’s conduct of the war and gives the impression that Hitler and his Junkers are fighting each other for control of the Army.

Two months ago, with cold disapproval, Gustav Siegfried Eins reported that Hitler had fired the Bavarian chief of the Wehrmacht’s General Staff, Colonel General Franz Haider, who largely planned the invasions of Poland, France, the Balkans and Russia. Stockholm correspondents reported that Hitler had, summoned Haider before the assembled staff and barked: “I am under the impression that your achievements do not keep up with my demands and you are unable to follow my intentions. I thank you for your work hitherto. You may go!”

Last week the official Berlin radio confirmed the report that Haider had been replaced and identified his successor: non-Junker, 47-year-old General Kurt Zeitzler, long a friend and protege of the Gestapo’s Heinrich Himmler, for whom the Army Prussians have no love. Gustav Siegfried Eins, still broadcasting reports which would normally bring quick extermination to any station in Germany, growled that General Haider was “confined” at his home.

Hitler took a liking to black-eyed, paunchy Kurt Zeitzler during the Polish campaign when the Führer reviewed one of Himmler’s 55 regiments. Zeitzler quickly rose from colonel to general, served in Poland, the Balkans and the Caucasus as a Panzer staff officer and, despite his Gestapo connections, won the grudging respect of the Wehrmacht’s Junkers.

London correspondents concluded that open war was on between Hitler and the Wehrmacht Prussians and that the Gestapo’s Himmler was extending his control to the army. An official Berlin announcement seemed to bolster this interpretation: By order of Hitler, Gestapo district Gauleiters in Germany were designated defense commissioners, responsible for military measures within their areas—which may have been only an indication of growing unrest in Germany. London even revived the report, also current in the U.S., that some of the army Prussians were deliberately “isolating” Hitler, against the day when complete disaster in Russia might enable them to overthrow the Fuhrer and arrange a militarists’ peace.

Crosswords. Something was certainly brewing in Germany and in the German Army. There were many indications that the Wehrmacht’s Prussian aristocracy was fed up with Hitler intuition and Gestapo intrusion. But there were striking inconsistencies in the stories from Germany—the same kind of inconsistencies which have marked such reports since 1940. Example: a commonly accepted story has been that Haider & Co. fell out with Hitler over the Russian campaign and urged him to withdraw while there still was time. Yet Gustav Siegfried Eins, reporting Haider’s dismissal, said the immediate reason was that last autumn he opposed a proposal to withdraw from Russia and concentrate on an all-out Mediterranean offensive. One change in Nazi command was apparently for merit alone: the Luftwaffe’s new fighter chief, 30-year-old Gen eral Adolf Galland, was credited with upward of 100 enemy planes, had won the cherished Knight’s Cross, and was now Germany’s youngest general.

Propaganda Brew? Last week, for reasons known only to the Berlin Government, the official radio deliberately exaggerated the scope of recent changes. It “announced”‘ that 44-year-old General Hans Jeschonnek was now chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff, that Admiral Kurt Fricke had become chief of the Navy’s General Staff. Actually, Jeschonnek has been chief of the Luftwaffe staff (under Inspector General Erhard Milch) since February 1939, and Admiral Otto Schnie-wind, whom Fricke allegedly replaced, has had another post (Fleet Chief) since 1941. Berlin, in short, was again manufacturing news for propaganda purposes.

Berlin would like nothing better than the impression abroad that Hitler and his generals will lose the war by fighting among themselves.