N.A.T.O. ARMY COMMITTEE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29389, 16 December 1960, Page 12

N.A.T.O. ARMY COMMITTEE

German General As Chairman

(N.Z. Press Association— Copyright) BONN, December 14.

A man who stood next to Hitler during the assassination attempt. General Adolf Heusinger, has been elected chairman of the N.A.T.O. permanent military committee.

The N.A.T.O. chiefs of staff, at present meeting in Paris, unanimously elected General Heusinger, who was Hitler’s chief of operations from 1940 to 1944. He will succeed the Dutchman, General Benjamin Hassehnann, on April 1 next year. After the 1944 bomb plot against Hitler, the Gestapo arrested General Heusinger, but was unable to prove his complicity in the plot, although he admitted dissatisfaction with Hitler’s conduct of the war. He was later awarded a medal which Hitler ordered for survivors of the bomb plot. At the presentation ceremony. Hitler launched an attack against “defeatist and disloyal” generals and demanded blind and unquestioning obedience from them. General Heusinger said he answered: “I fear that will be somewhat difficult. Your generals have been to school. They are accustomed to thinking.” He was then put on inactive duty for the rest of the war.