GENERAL KILLED IN ACTION

Southland Times, Issue 23932, 26 September 1939, Page 2

GENERAL KILLED IN ACTION

Von Fritsch’s Army Record MOST POPULAR MAN IN GERMAN COMMAND General Werner Freiherr von Fritsch, whose death in action on the Warsaw front was reported yesterday morning, was born at Benrath in the Rhineland in August 1880. He came of an old military family. His father was a lieutenant-general and his mother belonged to the Bodelschwingh family which supplied many pastors to the Protestant church. Fritsch joined a field artillery regiment in 1898 and was promoted lieutenant in 1900. After completing his course at the War Academy and serving on the Great General Staff, he reached the rank of captain in 1913. During the Great War he was attached to the General Staff. In its later stages he served successively with the 4th Army, the Ist Guards Division and the Air Force. After the creation of the Reichswehr he was promoted lieutenant-colonel in the sth Artillery Regiment at Ulm. Then after a short period as head of one of the departments in the Reichswehr Ministry, he took command of the 2nd Artillery Regiment at Schwerin and in 1931 of the Ist Cavalry Division at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder with the rank of major-general. In June 1932, he was promoted lieutenant-general and put in charge of the 3rd Division of the Reichswehr, in the Berlin district. NO PART IN POLITICS When General Freiherr von Ham-merstein-Equord resigned the chief command of the Reichswehr in February 1934, Fritsch was chosen to succeed him. The appointment was made by President Hindenburg on the advice of the Reichswehr Minister, General von Blomberg. Fritsch had taken no part in politics or the Nazi movement and the Hitlerites had desired the appointment of a man who would complete the political control of the party over the armed forces, but the choice of Fritsch indicated that for the time the soldiers had defeated the politicians. He was said, however, to be an old friend of Hitler. Fritsch was the most popular man in the army. He was the backbone of the resistance to the S.A. (Storm Troops) in their unsuccessful attempt to absorb the Reichswehr and it was he who got Hitler to accept his view that the Reichswehr must be the only force to bear arms. Fitsch held that the army must be kept aloof from politics. He therefore objected to men being instructed in Nazi ideas while serving in the army, and to the tyranny of certain local Nazi leaders. On one occasion when Dr Rosenberg, the party philosopher, was giving a lecture, on Nazi paganism in the War Ministry Fritsch walked out and was followed by his colleagues. He opposed the March to the Rhine and, when he thought he had unearthed a plot against himself by Hitler’s favourite, General von Reichenau, he did not hesitate to punish his junior as if he were a subaltern. ARMY PURGE A crisis which led to an army purge arose between Hitler and a number of generals in January 1938. The ostensible cause was their objection to the marriage of Marshall von Blomberg, the War Minister, to his secretary, a girl of 29, who was the daughter of a bricklayer. A deputation which protested to the Fuhrer about it went on to criticize his foreign policy, notably their dissatisfaction with the Italian connection, the German intervention in Spain, which, it thought, should be liquidated, and the stand-offish attitude towards Britain. Fritsch spoke strongly at various interviews with Hitler on these questions. Then Hitler struck. He retired Fritsch, Blomberg and a number of other generals and had Fritsch arrested by Himmler, head of the Secret Police, on the very day when the general was to have given a dinner party to the British and French Ambassadors. Later he was allowed to return home, but was placed temporarily under “house arrest.” Hitler himself became War Minister and General Brauchitsch succeeded Fritsch as com-mander-in-chief, while a new post was created—that of Chief of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces—and was given to General Keitel. The Government denied that the changes were due either to Blomberg’s marriage or to political differences. General von Fritsch was rehabilitated last June and given command of an artillery regiment in recognition of his services in reconstructing the army.