THE GENERALS DIE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 79, Issue 24178, 21 January 1942, Page 6

THE GENERALS DIE

The mortality and sickness rate in the Nazi High Command must be as disturbing to the Germans as it is heartening to the Allies. Last month Field-Marshal von Brauchitsch was suddenly displaced by the Fuehrer himself. As no suggestion was then made of physical infirmities assailing the general, the sudden announcement of his illness follows with sinister quickness on the death of von Reichenau. The thin disguise of a stroke will not blind even the Germans: the Gestapo have dealt with von Reichenau and very probably they have dealt with von Brauchitsch. The one body dangerous to Hitler has been the General Staff. Yet in every clash Hitler has won. In the blood bath of 19.34 he had General Schleicher shot like a dog. Von Fritsch left the High Command in 1938 and was shot in the back in the Polish War. With his fall the Gestapo infiltrated into the sacred preserve of the German Army and Himmler became the

rival of the Commander-in-Chief.! From the beginning of 1938 no officer of the Keichswehr, however high, has been safe from the vengeance of the Gestapo. No general, »if Himmler can prevent it, will supplant Hitler. Not that any German general is less a menace to the world than the Nazi chief. The German High Command prepared for this war from the day of the armistice in 1918. If it could conclude a patched-up peace to-day and replace Hitler by one of its puppets, the High Command would prepare for a third world war free from the mistakes of the present. Peace is impossible with Hitler or his generals. But when evil men fall out, it is generally in the day of their adversity. Things are going badly for the Nazis in Russia and if Hitler is quarrelling with his iron-faced and ruthless generals it is a sign that the German body politic is rotten.