Nazis still hold 40,000 Americans
68 of 78 camps overrun by Yanks
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Hitler death news results in skepticism
If true, it may have little effect
WASHINGTON (UP) – This capital calmly awaited the unfolding of events today to show whether the German radio report of Adolf Hitler’s death is true and how the alleged succession of Adm. Karl Doenitz will affect the supposed surrender negotiations.
Though there has been no official comment as yet, the general opinion is that German disintegration is now so nearly complete that even if the Nazis are telling the truth, it will make little difference at this stage of the war.
Consequently, there is little tendency to rejoice over the news of Hitler’s death, just a general feeling of relief that the world is well rid of him – if he is really dead.
Voices skepticism
The general skepticism felt throughout the Allied world was expressed here by Sen. Edwin C. Johnson (D-Colorado), a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee.
“I’d suspect the report and would like to see the body,” Mr. Johnson said. “I don’t believe those darn hounds at all. They might pull anything.”
Important questions arise if Doenitz really has taken command of the German nation. One is whether he will attempt to make new contacts with the Allies. Another is the question of how serious he can be about continuing the fight in view of the rapid overrunning of the Reich by Allied Armies.
Where is Himmler?
A third question is what has happened to Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler, who was reported to be conducting surrender negotiations with the Allies.
The possibility was not overlooked that Himmler, if he is in control in Germany, might have staged the whole show in keeping with his purported promise to deliver Hitler’s body as a token of good faith. Doenitz could be a figurehead set up to carry out the actual capitulation.
There were divergent views expressed on Doenitz himself. Military observers believed he might have been chosen because he was the strongest possible leader and that he might continue to lead a last-ditch stand in Denmark, Norway and the German ports.
Strong party man
These observers pointed out that Doenitz was recognized as a strong Nazi Party man. At the same time, they said, he was the only German commander who had not been thoroughly whipped. His U-boats were reported increasingly active after the first of this year.
However, it was felt at the State Department that despite Doenitz’s rise to top rank through his espousal of Nazism he still thinks like old-line German High Command military men. This would make him a possible choice to lead a peace move in keeping with the High Command’s suspected desire to save what it can from the ruins.
One theory advanced at the State Department to explain Doenitz’s getting control rather than Himmler is that Doenitz “just happened to be there” at the right time and decided to take over.
May be hoax
This could portend a scrap between Doenitz and the men behind him with Himmler and his Nazi adherents, presumably including what remains of the Gestapo and other Nazi groups.
The possibility is also seen, however, that the whole affair is a hoax designed to cover Hitler’s whereabouts and plans and confuse the Allies on the question of ending hostilities.
New Fuehrer cried ‘Kill! Kill!’ when he bossed U-boat crews
Adm. Doenitz devoted most of his 53 years of life to fanatical slaughter
LONDON, England (UP) – Grand Adm. Karl Doenitz, self-announced successor to Adolf Hitler as Nazi overlord of dying Germany, ended the last war as an inmate of a British insane asylum and emerged in this one with the fanatical credo “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Doenitz scuttled and abandoned the submarine he commanded during a battle in the Mediterranean in October 1918. Then he surrendered to the British.
Taken to England, he was committed to the Manchester Insane Asylum. Some who knew him said he feigned insanity. But he was later repatriated to Germany as insane.
Veteran at killing
In this war, Doenitz sent his U-boat crews into battle with the cry:
Kill! Kill! Kill! That is your duty to the Fatherland and Der Fuehrer. Have no humanity in your labor. Humanity means weakness.
His record shows no signs of humanity and few of weakness. Most of his 53 years have been devoted to the art of killing. It was he who ordered U-boat crews to strafe the survivors of torpedoed ships as they tried to escape in lifeboats.
Doenitz is a navy man who hates ships, and his whole life has been centered on means of sinking them. His ruthlessness brought him quick favor from Hitler, who raised him from commodore to grand admiral in four years.
Hair close-cropped
Doenitz is a small, mean man with a tight jaw and close-set, shrewd eyes. He has close-cropped hair, a severe mouth, long nose and overhanging eyebrows.
Although he never was known particularly as an ardent Nazi, Doenitz has served their cause well. His last known public statement of prominence was on the occasion of the attempt on Hitler’s life last July. Doenitz condemned the plotters as “a small clique of mad generals” who would be destroyed ruthlessly.
Doenitz rated as one of the great German heroes of this war in the eyes of the German people because of the U-boat campaign against Allied shipping. Even when his submarines weren’t doing very well, the Germans never knew that for the Nazi high command communiqué still told of one success after another for them.
Suffered defeat
The new Nazi master ultimately suffered defeat in his attempts to blockade Britain by cutting the lifelines across the Atlantic. But he came perilously close to success sometimes, and the battle against the U-boats was one of the toughest the Allies ever fought.
Doenitz invented the wolfpack method of U-boat warfare, teaching his submarine skippers to travel in pairs or packs in their attacks against Allied convoys. He developed many new devices for submarines, including the long-range radio communication by which he directed their activities from his headquarters in France.
Doenitz was given charge of the German Navy’s submarine service in 1935, when Germany’s rearmament was still under cover. Under his supervision submarines were built in parts and packed in crates, ready to be assembled when the Versailles Treaty finally was flouted openly.
Succeeded Raeder
He became commander-in-chief of the German Navy in 1943, after a battle with the man he replaced, Grand Adm. Erich Raeder. Oddly enough, Doenitz protested against Gestapo and Storm Trooper activities at U-boat bases.
Doenitz also accused Raeder of falsifying the reports of Allied sinkings, a practice that did not noticeably cease when he took over.
Doenitz was born in the Baltic Province of Mecklenburg in 1892, the son of an engineer. He entered the navy as an ensign when he was 18.
It was Raeder, the man whose job he ultimately stole away, who persuaded Doenitz to remain in the navy after the war. He became a U-boat commander at 35, and reached the rank of captain in 1939. After a brief term as commodore, he became a rear admiral the same year. He was made a grand admiral when he became commander-in-chief.
Lost two sons
Doenitz has lost two sons in this war. The elder, Klaus, was killed when a British destroyer attacked a German motor torpedo boat in May 1944. Peter, the younger, was an officer aboard one of his father’s U-boats. He was killed in March of last year in the Atlantic.
Over Doenitz’s desk at his headquarters in Kiel hung the picture of Adm. Tirpitz, German naval commander in the First World War and like himself a past master at sea war without rules. An inscription on the Tirpitz picture says “die tat is alles” – “the acting is everywhere.”
Just before this war began, a German submarine reportedly was detected in the English harbor of Portland. A British destroyer dropped depth charges, and the U-boat surfaced. The commander apologized for being out of bounds. The admiralty later learned Doenitz was also aboard.
He was hiding in the torpedo room.
Brain of Duce ‘very ordinary’
Remains examined by Milan professor
By Aldo Forte, United Press staff writer
MILAN, Italy – Doctors said today that Benito Mussolini, the extraordinary dictator, had a very ordinary brain.
“His brain showed no special traits,” said Prof. Mario Cattabeni, director of the University of Milan Medical Institute.
Cattabeni said only one third of the brain was left after the Milan mob had finished kicking in Mussolini’s head.
Cattabeni said:
What remains in our hands, namely the top section, shows no particular anatomic or pathologic difference which might classify him as either genius or maniac. However, the brain will be preserved for possible future examination.
Cattabeni, who made the first autopsy on Mussolini’s body, said the dictator was an exceptionally healthy man for his age. He showed no symptoms of either cancer or ulcers, despite frequent rumors that he suffered one or the other. Nor were there any signs of paresis, another affliction often attributed to him.
Cattabeni said:
For a man of his age and considering the amount of work he did his health was perfect. His lungs, heart, and liver all were in excellent shape. If he hadn’t met the fate he did, he would have lived to 100 years.
Jubilant but dubious – that’s reaction of British
U.S. soldiers in London howl with joy until they realize war’s not over yet
LONDON, England (UP) – Morning newspapers today generally “greeted” the reported death of Adolf Hitler and bannered the news in the largest type used since President Roosevelt’s death.
The Daily Express, however, went a step further with a three-column box headed “Obituary.” It said:
The Daily Express rejoices to announce the report of Adolf Hitler’s death. It prints today every line of information regarding the manner of his death.
Deeds well known
It wastes no inch of space on his career. The evil of his deeds are all too well known. It gives no picture of the world’s most hated face. It records that Hitler was born Schickelgruber at Braunau, Austria, April 20, 1889. and his days upon the earth he sought to conquer were too long.
The British people were jubilant over the report, although a number still were skeptical that Hitler had died. When a group of Cockney youths as asked what they thought, one replied: “I don’t believe it.” Another insisted that “He’s halfway to Stockholm by now;” while a third said “It’s a pity a British housewife couldn’t have given it to him – that would have been a real show.”
Howl with joy
American soldiers howled with joy when the report was announced at the Rainbow Corner Red Cross Club. Cpl. Charles Cummings of Omaha, Nebraska, was the first to hear the news.
He said:
I grabbed the mike and shouted: “Hitler’s kicked the bucket. Adm. Donuts has taken over.”
I don’t think they heard that last part. They really howled. In about 15 minutes they subsided – I guess they realized the war wasn’t over yet and they wouldn’t be catching no boats tomorrow.
Hitler’s death not worth an extra in Rome
ROME, Italy (UP) – The German announcement of Adolf Hitler’s death caused remarkably little excitement in Italy, once a co-partner in the Axis.
Newspapers were not printing because of the May Day holiday and publishers told the United Press that “Hitler’s death is not worth an extra or publication on an off-day.”
“We are waiting for the German surrender, nothing else,” one publisher said.
U.S. diplomatic quarters were skeptical of the report.
Degrading Nazi propaganda main fare of U.S. captives
Americans not kept in horror camps, but underfeeding, neglect are systematic
By Henry J. Taylor
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Clare Luce urges hard peace
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Adolf Hitler’s story: From Vienna bum to dictator – to death
Egoist Fuehrer raised double-cross art to its highest pitch of all history
By S. Burton Heath
In 20 years, to the exact day, Adolf Hitler talked and double-crossed his way from the Austro-Hungarian lent of a Bowery bum to dictator over one of the world’s great nations.
On August 2, 1914, when World War I started, Hitler was existing in the squalor and degradation to which laziness, egotism and the complete lack of any constructive talent had brought him.
On August 2, 1934, he declared himself complete dictator of the Reich, and made good his presumption.
Hitler has boasted that history will remember him long after it has forgotten all his predecessors. Probably that is true.
It will recall him as an egotist who raised the double-cross to an art which nobody else in the world’s history ever achieved.
Alois Hitler, illegitimately born Schickelgruber, but legitimized by one George Hiedler, described his son, Adolf, as “good for nothing.” The description was apt from the day of his birth, April 20, 1889, to the outbreak of the First World War.
Adolf Hitler lived in Vienna, in a sort of flophouse, from 1907 to 1913. His fellow roomers gave him crusts of bread and bits of horse sausage, which he supplemented at a free soup kitchen.
In 1913, he went to Munich, where he continued his low life until the Germans marched on France.
His war service was ordinary. He won the Iron Cross twice, was wounded twice and gassed once.
He got into politics by double-crossing the German Army. In July 1919, he was assigned by the Propaganda and Espionage Division, which used him as a snooper, to observe a “meeting” of the German Workers Party, consisting of six men devoted to pan-Germanism and certain quasi-socialistic dogma. He joined them, on the spot, and thereafter combined politics with his “military” duties.
Hitler’s platform of pan-Germanism, anti-Versailles, anti-Semitism appealed to enough persons to convince him that politics was his forte.
Then came the foundation for another piece of double-crossing. A pervert named Ernest Roehm had raised a large secret army. Hitler was made public spokesman. When the Allies forced that army underground, Hitler adopted it as the Gymnastics and Sports Division of the Nazi Party.
An ex-military flier named Hermann Goering lent Hitler money and joined the party. A year later, he was put in command of Roehm’s army, the brown-shirted SA.
Beer hall putsch put down
Nor was that all that Roehm contributed to Hitler’s rise. In 1923, the Nazis and other strongarm groups held a Congress of some 100,000 persons in Nuremberg and formed a German Combat Union. Roehm maneuvered so that within a month Hitler, who had wangled dictatorship over the numerically small Nazi Party because political head of the whole combat union.
On May Day, 1923, Hitler’s SA men stole weapons from the Reichswehr barracks, undeterred because Roehm had arranged that the guards would not resist. And in November, 600 SA men kidnapped the entire government of Bavaria in the celebrated beer hall putsch.
Here, again, double-crossing was the order of the occasion. Wilhelm Frick had ordered his police to close their eyes to Hitler’s gangster’s activities. The ample guard at the beer hall did nothing, though it outnumbered the SA contingent. It was only Gen. von Seekt’s orders to the Reichswehr, after the conspirators thought they had won, that put an end to the coup and sent Hitler to prison.
Throughout this turbulent period, Gen. Ludendorff was used as a tool by the rising Austrian gang chief. Hitler used him on the theory that, when the time came for violence, the Army never would fire on its hero.
From 1923 to 1933 was a period of growth in Hitler’s fortunes and those of his party. Both were supported by contributions from big industrialists who approved Hitler’s opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, his desire to gather all Germans of the world into a greater Germany, his anti-Communism.
And finally, there was the military caste. The Junkers thought they were using Hitler to promote their own ends and woke up, much too late, to discover that Hitler had done the using.
Then, in 1932, the conservative von Papen felt obliged to offer him a cabinet seat, which he left Munich to take, only to be brought back by Goering and Goebbels.
The day after he became chancellor. Hitler dissolved the Reichstag and set March 5 for new elections. On February 27, the Reichstag building burned. It is commonly believed that the fire was set by the Nazis. but the arson was blamed on Communists and was used by Hitler to get from old man Hindenburg a decree suspending all the basic freedoms.
Storm troopers arrested political opponents. Hitler swept the elections. On March 23, a rubber-stamp Reichstag made Hitler dictator over Germany.
In June 1934, he persuaded Roehm to give the SA a month’s furlough, after which he promised to incorporate the SA into the Reichswehr as soon as sick President Hindenburg should die.
Roehm killed in blood purge
Then Hitler and Goebbels, with a picked SS group, killed Roehm and most of his closest friends while Goering, back in Berlin, purged other enemies and settled a few personal grudges with the pistol and the headsman’s help.
By 1938, Hitler felt strong enough to violate the Locarno Pact by marching into the demilitarized Rhineland. Commanding officers carried sealed orders which, if the French had objected with show of force, would have directed the Nazis to match back home again. But the French did nothing.
Hitler and Mussolini created the Rome-Berlin Axis on January 13, 1937.
Japan joined in November.
German troops marched into Austria in March – and that nation was annexed to the Reich.
Neither France nor England liked the way Hitler was stepping out. But he got Chamberlain and Daladier together with Mussolini and himself at Munich, and on September 30, the Anglo-French negotiators signed a pact authorizing Hitler to take the Sudetenland.
In each of these steps for new territory, Hitler double-crossed the nation concerned, the Anglo-French allies and the world at large. In each he used the fifth-column technique.
Hitler had signed a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland in 1934, and the sanctity and importance of this he had reaffirmed publicly January 30, 1939.
On August 25, 1939, he signed a non-aggression pact with Stalin of Russia. Two days later, Poland concluded a defensive alliance with Great Britain, one week thereafter, German planes began bombing Polish cities and German troops crossed the frontier.
Everything went according to plan. Russia stepped in the back door September 17. Hitler and Stalin divided Poland between them the next day, and by September 29, Poland as a nation no longer existed.
But Hitler had driven England and France too far. They had declared war. Too weak really to help Poland, they stalled along behind the Maginot Line.
In April, he took over Denmark and Norway – again with fifth-column assistance. In May, he invaded Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.
On June 14, Paris fell. On June 17, Petain asked for an armistice for France, and on June 25, hostilities ceased. The British evacuated their men from Dunkirk and left their armament.
Mussolini, who came into the war just as France was ready to capitulate, polished off much of North Africa for the Axis, but came to grief when he tried to sneak-attack little Greece near the end of 1940.
In April 1941, Hitler forces knocked off Yugoslavia, drove the British from Greece and subjugated that brave little nation, took Crete from the air in a completely novel type of campaign, and regained in North Africa much of what the Italians had lost to the British.
Then Hitler made a second great mistake. (The first, by general consensus, was putting off too long the invasion of Great Britain.) He pulled another double-cross – this time on Stalin.
At 3 a.m. of June 22, German troops crossed the dividing line in Poland and attacked Russia.
By December 14, Moscow had been under siege for two months, and only optimists even hoped that the Reds could survive. On December 15, the German invaders began to withdraw.
From then on, Hitler’s star began to fade.
Technically the United States did not enter the war until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. Actually, her entire weight except for actual shooting was on the side of the Allies at least from September 3, 1940, when President Roosevelt and Premier Churchill agreed that, in return for leases on certain defensive bases, this country should turn 50 overage destroyers over to the British for use against submarines.
On March 11, 1941, Mr. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Bill.
He escapes bomb plot
Then, in December, the United States entered the war.
Hitler began fading even faster from official gatherings as his armies began withdrawing from the stolen reaches of his “European Fortress.”
A bomb planted by German officers on July 20, 1944, hastened his withdrawal from the spotlight. This attempt on Hitler’s life left him bruised and burned, killed one of his aides and wounded 12 others.
Wrathfully, Hitler converted the plot into a purge of the German Army. Eight Junker officers were hanged August 8, 1944.
Then, on January 1, 1945, in a New Year’s message, he promised the German nation new weapons, new troops and a bright future. None materialized.
On February 16, Hitler decreed martial law in German areas threatened by advancing Allied armies. He threatened Germans who shirked their duty with court martial and death.
On March 9, when U.S. troops were expanding their Remagen bridgehead on Germany’s side of the Rhine, Hitler was reported to have visited the Oder River front facing the Russians.
Two days later, Hitler spoke by proxy to his people in observance of “Heroes Day” ceremonies at the War Memorial in Berlin.
On March 16, official British quarters confirmed rumors that an emissary of the German government had made peace overtures in Stockholm.
The gist of these feelers was that Hitler would quit if the Allies would recognize him as Germany’s post-war ruler.
Early in April, Hitler was reported again in complete command of the German armies.
Unsubstantiated reports on April 11 quoted some circles as saying that Hitler was dying, that Nazi Party leaders were split and that, Heinrich Himmler had succeeded Hitler as Germany’s dictator.
Yesterday came the final report: Hitler died in Berlin even as it was being cleared of all German troops by triumphant Russian invading forces.
Editorial: Hitler, dead or alive
The Nazi radio says Hitler is dead.
Strong evidence that this is true is provided by Gen. Eisenhower’s statement today telling of a conference between the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte and two German representatives, Heinrich Himmler and Gen. Schellenberg, on April 24.
The two Germans told the Swedish Red Cross head at that time that Hitler had had a brain hemorrhage and might not live 48 hours.
We hope these reports are accurate. But it would not be difficult for the Nazis to fake the story. Hitler had several doubles good enough to deceive the Germans in public appearances. The Nazis might make a corpse of one of these.
According to Adm. Doenitz’s radio announcement, on April 30 the Fuehrer appointed him successor and on May 1 was killed: “Adolf Hitler this afternoon at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting till his last breath against Bolshevism, fell for Germany.”
That, of course, is precisely what the Nazi propaganda line would be in any event. If true, it would be the perfect cap for the Hitler myth, particularly to the German mind. If untrue, it would serve the same purpose – and also pave the way for a fadeout, escape, and future underground operation as leader or front for the real one.
There can be no doubt that the Nazis plan an underground movement. The Allies already have ample evidence that it is in operation even now. Though the Allies are forewarned and forearmed against this strategy, it will be exceedingly difficult to combat.
Certainly some, and probably many, of the “political prisoners” and alleged victims of Nazi terror now being rescued from concentration camps by the Allies, are in fact Nazi plants. Some will get away with it, and live to do their dirty work again when they think the time is ripe.
Whether or not Hitler would be an asset to such a movement is a question. But we are inclined to believe that “a martyr who died a hero’s death” would be worth much more to them than a defeated leader, who had led Germany to its doom – especially if he were a mental and physical wreck.
The Allies will have to be very careful when it comes to checking on Hitler’s death. This is no case for wishful thinking.
Background of news –
Surrender, new style
By Bertram Benedict
The impending surrender of Germany will be unlike any other after a war of modern times. “Unconditional surrender” was the demand on Lee by Grant but, as is noted below, the peace of the Civil War came after negotiations. Moreover, the war had been fought on the right of the secession; when the South was defeated, that issue was automatically settled.
Napoleon twice was offered peace before French soil was invaded, peace which would have left him in power. The peace with Germany in 1918 was a negotiated one.
The Italian war against Ethiopia ended without negotiation after the capture of Addis Ababa, and in the Spanish Civil War, there was no negotiation after the capture of Madrid in 1939. But in the first case, the war was fought solely for complete annexation, about which there could obviously be no negotiation, and in the second case, the rebels fought to capture the government, and their victory obviously precluded the need of negotiating.
How wars end
The methods by which great modern wars, beginning with the American Revolution, came to an end might be thus summarized:
1783, American Revolution: The peace negotiations covered almost two years. The American negotiators, at first instructed not to consider a separate peace (that is, one without the participation of America’s ally, France), disregarded the instructions. England was making peace so as to concentrate on her war against France and Spain.
1814, the War of 1812: The peace was negotiated.
1814-1815, the Napoleonic Wars: Late in 1813, the Allies had offered Napoleon peace which did not involve his abdication and which gave France the Rhine as a boundary. Early in 1814, before Paris was taken, the Allies again negotiated with the French dictator, offering to let France have the boundaries of 1792. Each time Napoleon was obdurate.
1847, the Mexican War: The peace was negotiated, although for a time after the capture of Mexico City it seemed that no Mexican government would exist with which to treat, and a strong movement developed in the United States for annexing all of Mexico.
End of the Civil War
1865, the American Civil War: In 1864, President Lincoln had empowered Horace Greeley, at the latter’s insistence, to meet with Confederate envoys at Niagara Falls, to see if they would agree to restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery. In February 1865, two months prior to Appomattox, Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward met three Confederate envoys on a ship in Hampton Roads to explore peace possibilities. After Lee surrendered, Johnston surrendered his force only after 14 days of negotiation.
1871, the Franco-German War: After the capture of Napoleon III and the capitulation of Paris, the peace was negotiated with the new French Republic.
1898, the Spanish-American War: The peace was negotiated.
1905, the Russo-Japanese War: The peace was negotiated in the United States, under the mediation of President Theodore Roosevelt.
1918, World War I: Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey surrendered unconditionally, but Germany only after almost two months of negotiations. It was agreed that the peace terms would follow President Wilson’s peace principles, with two exceptions. The separate German-Russian peace of March 1918 had also been negotiated.