GENERAL BECK GOES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 143, 14 December 1938, Page 11

GENERAL BECK GOES

GERMAN ARMY PILLAR

AN OPPONENT OF HITLER

According to an official announcement. Chancellor Hitler as supreme commander of the armed forces, has dismissed from active army service, on his own application. General Ludwig Beck, first Chief of the new German General Staff, and , appointed General Franz Haider as his successor, said a message from Berlin to the "New York Times" recently. The announcement adds that General Beck has received the rank of colonelgeneral and the right to wear the uniform of the sth Artillery Regiment. Colonel-General Walther yon Brauchitsch, Commander-in-Chief of the Army, addressed a personal letter to General Beck expressing his own and the army's thanks for the tireless and unceasing labour the retiring general had dedicated to the service during his long and honourable career. General yon Brauchitsch's letter, as summarised in the Press, said that General Beck, as long-time tutor and Chief of the General Staff, had a prominent part in bringing the army to its present high standards. The letter closes with the hope that General Beck may remain intimately connected with the army and its General Staff. SIGNIFICANT POINTS. Thus General Beck's long-expected retirement has finally come about, and it has been surrounded with the military courtesies usual on such occasions. Yet the official announcement contains several fine points that have not escaped close observers familiar with the many conflicts of opinion behind the .scenes of the authoritarian Third Reich. For in the announcement General Beck's retirement was subordinated to the simultaneous retirement of ColonelGeneral Gerd yon Runstedt, commander of the Ist Army* Group. WTiereas the announcement said that Herr Hitler had granted General yon Runstedt, "in appreciation of his special services," the right to wear the uniform pf a particular regiment, there was no such mention of "special services" so far as Herr Hitler was concerned in General Beck's case.. As a matter of fact, the retirement of General Beck, who is 58 years old and who possesses a brilliant brain but a delicate physique, has been expected for some time for genuine reasons of health apparent to all who saw him in the field! during recent army manoeuvres. There is no doubt, however, in military quarters that one of the contributing reasons to his retirement was his highly conservative attitude on all international affairs of .recent years and his warnings—which are no longer secret —to the effect that neither the army nor the western fortifications were yet ready for a major war. These warnings were reported to have been particularly outspoken during the Czech crisis, and, though they were said to have angered Herr Hitler considerably,, they were also, credited with a substantial contribution to the final peaceful settlement. NO LONGER ACTIVE. However, when the march into Czechoslovakia began 'General Beck was no longer active at his post, and the real General Staff work was being done by General Haider. With General Beck, therefore, an- • other conservative pillar of the army is held to have been removed, together with Field-Marshal Weiner yon Blomberg and Colonel-General Werner yon Fritsch —removed during the February 4 shake-up prior to the march into Austria —and, for that matter, General yon Runstedt, too. Thus Herr Hitler is more than ever not only the titular but also the actual supreme commander of the armed forces. On the other hand, it is also true that under the new Germany Army organisation the General1 Staff has never attained that dominant importance it possessed under the Kaiser, when the Chief of Staff became automatically the Commander-in-Chief in case of war —like.the two Moltkes. \ General Haider, is four years younger than General Beck. He was born on June 30, 1884,-and'has done staff work most oi his life. He entered the Bavarian Army as a lieutenant in 1904 and during the waruattained a captaincy on the Bavarian General Staff. After the war he served on the General Staff of the 7th Bavarian Division. Later he was transferred to the Army Training Division of the Reichwehr Ministry. He then served as Chief of Staff of the 6th Division, and .following the proclamation of conscrfption he was promoted to general and served as commander of_,the 7th Division. His last post was that ofj Quartermaster-General on the General Staff, whose chief he j now becomes. Among other army changes announced was the promotion of General Erhard Milch to Colonel-General and Air Force Chief of Staff, the Lieuten-ant-General Hans Juergen Stumpfl to the rank of general.