HITLER’S IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32352, 18 July 1970, Page 4

HITLER’S IMMEDIATE SUCCESSORS

Capitulation 1945. By Marlis G. Steinert. Constable. 326 pp. At about 3.30 p.m. on April 30, 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. At 6.07 p.m. Martin Bormann, the Head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, and the senior surviving Nazi in the bunker, sent the following message to Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, the Commander in Chief of the German Navy: Grind Admiral Donitz: In place of the former Reich-Marshal Goring the Fuhrer appoints you, Herr Grand Admiral, as his successor. Written authority is on its way. You will immediately take all , such measures as the situation requires. The message was, as Bormann meant it to be, ambiguous. Not until the afternoon of the following day was Donitz informed of Hitler’s death, and so made fully aware of the responsibilities which devolved upon him. Made Reich President by the terms of Hitler’s political testament, this basically apolitical man, a sailor interested only in his profession, found himself head of a state whose ideology was of little interest to him, and whose party machine be had never formally joined. So great an irony can only be explained by the exigencies of the moment, by the fact that Gennay was in the final stages of ruin militarily, economically, and politically. It had even ceased to be a geographic entity, for the Allies, advancing from East and West, had cut the country in two. Recognising the nation’s prostration, and the folly of continued resistance, Donitz took his appointment to be a commission to surrender. During the twentythree days that he was Head of State, be dedicated himself to carrying out that commission. In particular, he worked to save as large a portion of the German forces as possible from falling into the hands of the Russians. The success of his schemes, which included a phased laying down of arms over a period of four days, is seen in the fact that almost half of the German army was able to surrender to the Western Allies.

In other spheres, political, social and economic, the Donitz government achieved nothing: not because the national collapse prevented it, but because, as the studies prepared by the various ministers show, it was bankrupt of ideas and principles, and because it perpetuated to some extent the fantasies with which Hitler had come to console himself in the latter part of the war. How out of touch the regime was with reality can best be deduced from a foreign policy paper which, after analysing quite soundly the pros and cons of co-operation with either East or West, went on to suggest that the best solution would be “a place in the British Commonwealth, provided this could be done with dignity.” Such a move, it should be noted, was held desirable on racial and biological grounds, not political and cultural ones. Hitler’s 1940 call for an Anglo-German partnership. Still it seems, rang out loud in his successors' ears. Since Donitz was the Head of State, and prime mover, this study of the German Provisional Government focuses primarly upon him. It also contains, however, valuable portraits of the other leading figures in the administration: Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, Hitler’s Finance Minister and Donitz’s Foreign Minister and right-hand man General Jodi, the former Chief of Staff; and Albert Speer, the architect who during 1944 worked miracles as Minister of Armaments and War Production. Of these Speer alone emerges with credit The only member of Hitler’s entourage with the courage to defy the dictator when necessary, Speer had energetically striven to foil the Fubrer’s “scorched earth” policy of February and March, 1945. Displaying equal courage after Hitler’s death, Speer not only worked to preserve the industrial plant necessary for Germany’s survival, but also faced up, as none of his colleagues would or could, to the need for the German leaders to shoulder the burden of guilt which the nation would be made collectively to bear. Where Donitz, von Krosigk, and Jodi seemed

to move in a moral vacuum, Speer recognised bis guilt and did bis best to atone for it. Confusion characterised the twentythree days of the Donitz regime. Out of this confusion Dr Steinert has brought order. Her book is clear in its aims and methods, incisive in its analysis, and frank in its conclusions. Inevitably, with a book about Nazi Germany by a German, one asks whether a bias is discernible in the author. The answer is no. Though clearly no Nazi sympathiser, Dr Steinert is at pains to examine and explain history rather than to praise or blame its participants. The task of arraigning the Donitz administration is left to us. Before passing judgment we would be wise, observing how a Christian gentleman of the highest personal moral-standards, such as von Krosigk, copld comfortably spend years as a member bf Hitler’s cabinet, to ask ourselves how certain we are that we wduld behave differently in similar circumstances.