THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Monday, August 6, 1945. THE JUNKERS CASTE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25915, 6 August 1945, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Monday, August 6, 1945. THE JUNKERS CASTE

One of the first remarks made by General Eisenhower at a press conference held on his return to America was that the German General Staff must be destroyed. He was by no means the first of the Allied leaders to draw attention to the menace to European peace which is represented by this group of German militarists. The decisions made at Potsdam are a first and important step in carrying out a policy that is regarded by all authorities as essential. The redrawing of the frontiers of Germany, so that East Prussia comes under the control of nations with no reason for preserving the Junkers is, in view of this desideratum alone, a necessary preliminary. The clauses dealing with the demilitarisation of Germany, and the “complete” and “ final ” abolition of the General Staff, all officer organisations, and other military and quasi-military organisations, are aimed at the heart of the militaristic system based on the Junkers traditions. For more than a century the German Staff Corps has been a canker on the tortured body of Europe, and the destruction of this group—complete and absolute —would be one of the greatest contributions to future peace that the Allies could make. The existence of this powerful and self-exalted officer caste—symbolised by men like Hindenburg, Brauchitsch and Manstein had been tolerated too long, and no country in Europe could feel safe while such an organisation was permitted to continue its machinations towards effecting the age-old ambition of “ a greater Germany.” Behind the political scene the General Staff Corps, so powerful that the Army was regarded almost as its private instrument, dominated the councils of every Government of modern Germany. Seldom did it wield its power openly, for in the event of military defeat the politicians and not the soldiers must be the scapegoats; but its influence on Germany’s foreign policy was incalculable. Architects of warfare, these officers, chiefly of the Junkers caste, never, in victory or defeat, reduced the efficiency of their organisation or refrained from their study of past wars and their planning for the next. They survived the previous great struggle with scarcely any upset. They escaped the ignominy of the capitulation by complaining that the Army had been stabbed in the back by faint-hearted politicians, and with the army of 100,000 men considerately left them by the Allies to guard against internal disorder they proceeded to develop the new theories of land, sea and air warfare. Later, they flagrantly defied the terms of the Versailles Treaty and commenced the rearmament of forces that were built up under a variety of guises. One of the principals of the ship-building firm of Blohm and Voss has disclosed that plans for a new, type of U-boat were prepared before 1932, and almost before Hitler came into prominence. Hitler, in fact, was largely a tool in the hands of the Staff Corps, which permitted his rise to power because his plans for conquest coincided with its own. Now that these plans have gone awry, however, practically every Junkers officer to be captured sets up the familiar cry of Hitler's betrayal of the Army or his madness in dealing with military dispositions. But the Allies do not intend again to be tricked by such obvious tactics, and the Potsdam decisions indicate that the destruction of this core of Prussian terrorism will be an essential part of the complete demilitarisation of Germany.