GERMANY’S NEW ARMY

Waipa Post, Volume 52, Issue 3705, 10 January 1936, Page 12

GERMANY’S NEW ARMY

IMPORTANCE TO NATION. ESCAPE FROM VERSAILLES. Compulsory military service has come into force throughout the Reich, writes J. E. Williams to the Christian Science Monitor from Berlin. At the railway stations of the principal cities groups of young men with their bags or parcels could be seen waiting to depart to the various training centres to which they had been allocated.

The obligation to perform military Service, according to the decree passed on March 16, applies to all physically fit German men between 18 and 45 years of age, and the length of service, set by the Fuehrer, is one year. The “1914 Jahrgang” has been called up—the youth who recently attained their majority. Only German citizens will be called tp the colours. Those permanently resident abroad and who are this year liable to serve but for technical reasons cannot appear, will enjoy the specially prescribed provisions for postponement or of exemption from military service, but to ensure such, application must be made at the German Consulates. German citizens who also hold foreign nationality must serve—unless specially exempt—a pre-war rule, now applied by all States having military conscription. The term “citizen” is here important, since it is synonymous with Aryan and “of the right political opinion,” so that firstgeneration Jews are unlikely to have “the first and finest honour of any German, to serve his country in arms.”

Conscription applies equally for the three services, the army, the navy, and air force, but the personnel of the two last-named branches will only be supplemented from volunteers entered for longer service. In East Prussia, the 1910 class has also been called up, since that province, being separated from the rest of the Reich, is required to look more to its own defence. On completion of their active service the men will pass into the reserve until the completion of their thirtyfifth year, and then into the “Landsturm” until their forty-fifth. Three Commands. The army is now divided into three army commands, Berlin, Kassel, and Dresden, and ten regional corps commands scattered throughout the Reich. For the navy there are two stations, the one for the Baltic Sea, at Kiel, the other for the North Sea, at Wilhelmshaven. The air force has six areas, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, Muenster, Kiel, Koenigsberg. The creation of the “Volksheer,” the People’s Army, undoubtedly lends

a warm response in a large section of the population, especially the lower middle-class. To the average German it means, above all, the removal of the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty, symbol of national humiliation, and regaining of that “freedom in arms” so highly prized here.

“The German nation co-operates in to-day’s events,” writes the Berlin Borsenzeitung, a newspaper reflecting German military opinion. “It was always a sign of moral soundness when the soldier was popular in Germany and characteristic of German decadence that in post-war years the soldier was often lonely in his own home—yes, had to go his own way neglected. “To-day the soldier everywhere is the centre of influence in town and country, in family and society.” It further adds that from the action of March 16 last—the date of the conscription decree—new recruits become representatives of the whole German nation, protectors of soldiers’ honour, that is of Germaif' honour.

To many Germans the army appears as the necessary training school, without which the youth of to-morrow cannot properly mature, and because of the lack of which in the last 17 years this country became “politically and socially a chaos.” Ideals of discipline and sobriety, of physical fitness, and of the supremacy of the State and the State’s demands above all else, will be inculcated.

The army is the most democratic institution in the State to the majority of Germans, and the National Socialists have certainly taken an important step towards making it more democratic in opening up the reserve of officers to all Germans of whatever station in life. Henceforth ability is to be the sole criterion for advancement. Widespread Results. The political, economic, and social effects of military conscription will be far-reaching. Many Germans, otherwise opposed, accept it because they consider it will lead to consolidation of the State. Youth will be disciplined at the right time. During the year of service there will be no participation in politics—“the soldier during his short time of service,” according to a statement by General von Reichenau some time ago, “must concentrate his entire physical and mental energy upon his training in arms and he can only be subordinate to one authority, that of the army.” In other words, for his military service period the youth will not be a member of the National Socialist Party and has no voting rights. Military conscription, looked at from the short point of view, also means a measure of “economic prosperity.” Work is given to certain trades, the unemployed are taken off the dole, and for the time being it can be easily forgotten that the State

must bear the costs. “If the army had not been on our side in the days of the Revolution we should not be standing here to-day,” Herr Hitler declared in September, 1933. To-day the army has received its reward—it is entrusted with an important, part in the training of the Germany of to-morrow.