"BELTS OFF"

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 169, 20 July 1942, Page 2

"BELTS OFF"

HITLER'S OFFICERS

U.S. NEWSMAN'S STORY

0.C.) SAN FRANCISCO, June 12

Free and in America after five months' internment in Germany, Louis P. Lochner, famous United States newsman, gives some facts about Hitler's relationship with his generals. "It is revolvers down and belts off for any general or field marshal who wants to see Adolf Hitler at his general headquarters in East Prussia, in the Berlin Chancellory or anyone else," says Lochner. "No matter how well an army navy or rair force leader may know der Fuehrer, no matter how completely in his confidence he may believe himself to be, the German dictator takes no chances. Hence before anybody can come into his presence he must park his pistol, his military belt, or his sabre in the anteroom.

Tl7 T he erstwhile corporal of the first World War loves the game of war more than he loves anything else He wants to out-Napoleon Napoleon. When in his Reichstag speech of April 26 he praised the German troops for having accomplished during the past winter what the forces of the great Corsican could not achieve, he in fact impliedly told the world that he had already outstripped Napoleon. Filled as he is with military ambition, he can tolerate no other god beside himself ./ h £ ]ate Colonel-General Von Fritsch, the father of the present German army, had to resign because he dared to criticise Hitler's acquiescence m Field Marshal Werner n?o° m £ erg s mesalliance in 1938. General Beck, chief of the 9 er man generai sta ff, became 'ill' just before the outbreak of the present war. He opposed Hitler's policy of frightfulness. General e P resent chief of general staff, has been promoted only to colonel-general, while a dozen of his colleagues were made field marshals simply because—so the rumour goes tihaf thi e yer warning the dictator that this or that contemplated move SkfnFfs wo r r'th riSks than the undc ""

Field Marshal Von Brauchitsch who always gave the impression of being in the pink of condition 'resigned' shortly before Christmas because of heart trouble and nowis reported imprisoned. His resicnathft t £° incided wi th the discovery army was . nowise prepared for the severe winter in Russia There can be little doubt that he warned Hitler in time." Addressing his generals at Berchtesgaden, Hitler stated bluntly he did not mind being called Genghil Khan or Attila the Hun and he urged his generals to be tough Hitler wanted his soldiers mri officers to make short shrift of the Polish population "The army balked at fhis." savs Lochner. "So Hitler sent his urn compromising secret service men to Poland to 'clean up.' They did and countless are the stories told me by German officers themselves of acts of inhumanity committed by the black guards.