NAZI GRATITUDE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 181, 3 July 1940, Page 3

NAZI GRATITUDE

SHOOT SON OF FIRST OLDi PRUSSIAN GENERAL TO AID THEM < After the conquest of Poland, the ■ German conquerors re-named the ' toAvn Lodz, Litzmann, after one of t the German generals of the Great ' War. In a letter to the London Daily 5 Telegraph, a correspondent gives > some interesting facts regarding ' General Litzmann. He says:— ; "May I refer to your comments 5 on the re-naming by the Nazis of ' the town of Ltdz, in Poland,, after ' the late General Litzmann, who, as you say, won some distinction near ; Lodz in the battle of December, 1914, against the Russian forces. | and who was later the first gene Ul : of the old army to espouse the Nazi cause. "As a matter of fact, he was the only old general to do so after Ludendorff's break with Nazi-ism and ' before Hitler's seizure of power in i 1933. His joining the swastika prov- * ed a great asset to the Fuehrer, who was always clever to exploit j the sentimentality of the German masses. t General Litzmann was over 80. » and so, in his capacity as the oldest ; member, he was to preside over the openings of the short-lived Reichstag and Prussian Landtag of 1930 and 1932. He was a rightly ornar mental figure as an aged President, s He did little else indeed, to oblige 1 the Nazis. But that was all Goeb--2 bel's propaganda wanted. * "Yet Hitler had a previous opporr tunity to thank an honour the galr lant gentleman. On June 30, 1934, i the veteran commander of the battle - of Lodz pleaded for the life of his } son. The Fuehrer refused to receive * the father —and shot the son. * "Let us not forget that on tlicv night of reckoning Czechs, Poles', Danes and Norwegians will not be '' the only ghosts to cry at their muir- * derer. "Despair and die." Some of " the ghosts will shout this in plain German, and even with a clear and hard Prussian accent."