Nazi Ruse is Seen in Hitler ‘Death’
Writer Suggests the Report Is an Effort to Hide the Whereabouts of Leader
By LOUIS P. LOCHNER
Chief of the Former Associated Press Bureau in Berlin
WITH THE UNITED STATES SEVENTH ARMY, May 1 (AP) – I have just listened to the shortwave broadcast of Admiral Karl Doenitz’ speech as the new Fuehrer of Germany, but I still find it difficult to believe that Hitler is really dead or that he remained in Berlin during the Russian assault.
The whole melodramatic buildup, beginning with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’ announcement days ago that Hitler was personally conducting the defense of the capital, now reaching its climax in the claim that he met death in the Chancellery, of all places, looks like an effort to make good the Fuehrer’s oft-repeated assertion: “I will never capitulate.” Hitler could not afford to accept unconditional surrender, so what may prove to be the legend of his meeting a hero’s death had to be staged.
Hitler may or may not be dead. If he is dead, it seems extremely unlikely that he died as the German radio says that he did. Having spent the past days in the very section of the country where Hitler rose to power, wrote “Mein Kampf” and conducted affairs of intrigue with the whole world from Munich, I still cannot escape the feeling that Hitler is some place where nobody expects him to be. From time to time people will claim to have seen him.
Doenitz’ announcement by no means ends our troubles with Hitler. They may have only begun. There may be a state funeral for him, and photographers may have the opportunity to produce pictures of a dead man labeled Hitler. Then, some day much later, a “resurrected” Hitler may again stir the world.
The appointment of Doenitz as Hitler’s successor indicates that the German leadership desires someone as chief of state who can possibly negotiate with the Allies. Doenitz had no experience in government and had no real hold on the affections of the German people. His appointment was obviously a political maneuver.
The course of the war is unlikely to be affected by his appointment.
Just a ‘Fascist Trick,’ Moscow Radio Asserts
LONDON, Wednesday, May 2 (AP) – The Moscow radio’s first announcement of the German report of Hitler’s death, broadcast at 3:12 A.M. to the Russian people, declared that “the German radio statement evidently represents a new Fascist trick.”
The radio announcement was prefaced by the phrase “it is asserted that,” indicating that the Russians were skeptical of the German version of Hitler’s fate. The broadcast said that Admiral Doenitz’s order to the German troops was repeating “the usual trickery and twists of Hitlerite propaganda.”
The Moscow broadcast said that, “by the dissemination of the statement on the death of Hitler, the German Fascists evidently hope to prepare for Hitler the possibility of disappearing from the scene and going to an underground position.”
Milestones in Hitler’s Career Marked by Memorable Dates in His Rise and Fall
By the United Press
Significant dates in Adolf Hitler’s life:
April 20, 1889 – Born in Braunau, Austria.
Nov. 8-9, 1923 – Attempted to seize dictatorship of Bavaria through “beer-hall” Putsch in Munich; failed.
Jan. 30, 1933 – Appointed Chancellor by President von Hindenburg.
March 23, 1933 – Made dictator of Germany by powers voted by Reichstag.
Oct. 14, 1933 – Announced Germany’s withdrawal from League of Nations and disarmament conference.
March 7, 1936 – Denounced Treaty of Locarno, sent German troops into demilitarized Rhineland area.
March 12, 1938 – Sent German troops into Austria; proclaimed union of Austria and Germany the next day.
Sept. 28, 1938 – Munich conference at which Britain, France and Italy agreed to partition of Czechoslovakia.
March 14-15, 1939 – Occupied the remainder of Czechoslovakia.
March 22, 1939 – Seized Memelland from Lithuania.
April 28, 1939 – Denounced 1935 naval agreement with Britain and non-aggression pact with Poland.
Aug. 23, 1939 – Entered non-aggression pact with Russia.
Sept. 1, 1939 – Invaded Poland.
April 9, 1940 – Invaded Norway and Denmark.
May 10, 1940 – Invaded France and the Low Countries.
June 22, 1941 – Invaded Russia.
Dec. 11, 1941 – Declared war on the United States.
Nov. 9, 1943 – Said that Germany “will never capitulate.”
May 1, 1945 – Reported dead by Hamburg radio.
Hitler’s Credo of Force and Bloodshed Expounded in ‘Mein Kampf,’ Nazi Bible
Hitler’s credo – in so far as it could be considered a credo, for it was a mass of political and social contradictions – was expressed in his famous book “Mein Kampf,” and in his speeches.
“Mein Kampf,” begun while Hitler was a prisoner, following his beer-cellar putsch in 1923, became the bible for many millions of Germans and one of the greatest “best sellers” in history. By the spring of 1939 it had been translated into eleven languages, and more than 5,200,000 copies had been sold. No figures of the book’s sale during the war are available, although it is probable that several more million copies have been disposed of. It went through more than 425 German editions before the war, when it was estimated that the book had netted Hitler about $3,000,000. His royalties from foreign sales by 1933 amounted to $150,000.
On May 1, 1936, the German Ministry of the Interior decreed that the “community” provide every married couple with a copy. This added greatly to the sale of the book. In Germany the book became a party and national catechism. It was a gift book for boys and girls celebrating their birthdays and for old folks on their anniversaries.
It was a historical criticism of German policy, a manual of faith, a confession, a political testament. Hitler never altered it. For this added reason it remained a maze of contradictions, although some of its ideas were carried to realization, with grave consequences for Germany and the rest of the world.
Discussing Germany’s need for “Lebensraum,” Hitler frankly declared in “Mein Kampf” that Germany intended to take what she could by force of arms.
“The frontiers of states are made by men,” he wrote, maintaining that war was a nobler state than peace. “One must realize that often a steel-hard, healthy national body has grown out of the bloodiest civil war, while more than once decay has stunk to heaven from an artificially cultivated state of peace.
“No one can doubt that this world will one day again be exposed to the deadliest struggles for the existence of mankind. Nothing can be finally victorious but the passion for self-preservation. So-called humanitarianism, the expression of a mixture of stupidity, cowardice and conceited priggishness melts before it like snow in the March sunshine. Humanity grew great in eternal strife – in eternal peace it perishes.”
Doenitz Held Suspect
Admiral Believed Appointed to Negotiate Peace but Any Move is Looked at Askance
By HANSON W. BALDWIN
The E. Phillips Oppenheim quality of the last days of Hitler’s Germany was heightened yesterday as strong peace rumors continued to be circulated after the German radio had announced Hitler’s death.
Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, Commander in Chief of the German Navy and ruthless director of the U-boat war, was appointed to succeed him – and possibly to sign the surrender. Both Hitler’s announced death and Doenitz are to be suspected. The former may be true. It would fulfill the Hitlerian myth to have the Fuehrer immolate himself as a martyr to the Greater Reich, But we may never know whether it is true. Will the body be produced, and if so, how will it be identified?
Doenitz himself seems to be a figurehead, appointed perhaps because he is not a member of the General Staff or of the Junker class, not a Nazi political leader as Heinrich Himmler is; not so closely identified with Hitler as Field Marshal Gen. Wilhelm Keitel was. But both his present position as a figurehead and his past history as a Nazi condemn him. He is no more to be trusted than Himmler.
May be there to negotiate
Apparently he has been set up by the German armed forces for the purpose of negotiating a peace. It is interesting and perhaps symptomatic that an admiral rather than a member of the army, which is Germany’s pride, has been selected for this purpose.
The aura of mystery that has surrounded whatever exchanges with the Germans have been occurring has not, therefore, been lifted by yesterday’s events, and it is well to remember that the Allies’ troops are still being killed in Germany. But the German radio’s announcements may be prefatory to other announcements, and expectations are still high – though without official endorsement – that some early surrender with a German Government will be arranged. But exactly what German Government, how arranged, or by whom was not clear.
If, as some reports have indicated, Heinrich Himmler or other leading Nazis or Doenitz, operating behind the scenes, have tendered surrender offers, these offers must be regarded with suspicion. For Nazi fanatics would never quit unless they felt there was some quid pro quo for them – and for Nazism – in surrender. Even a cornered rat, facing certain death, fights to the end.
The ulterior motive in the original offer reported to have come from Himmler is clear enough. The offer followed the same divisive policy that has marked the enemy’s political strategy for the past four years. Surrender was tendered to the United States and Britain, but not to Russia. This offer was rejected, and it has been reported, though without any official confirmation, that the original tender has been amended to include Russia.
Offer of desperation
If this is true, the reasoning behind such a surrender approach is not so clear. It is obviously an offer of desperation; Germany and the German Army are falling apart like a house of cards. But there are still sizable and fanatical enemy forces, with large stockpiles of ammunition, and capable of prolonging the fighting. The German policy of sabotage, espionage, terror and underground activities in areas already occupied by the Allies is functioning, though on a small scale. The longer the fighting can be protracted, the more difficult it will be for the Allied Military Government to restore some stability to war-torn Europe; the more chance there is that Europe will be plunged into the “organized chaos” that the Nazis have professed to espouse.
Why then should men like Himmler and other Nazi leaders offer to surrender unconditionally – if they have done so? There may be several answers to that question, none of them totally satisfactory:
(1) The announced removal of Hitler from the national and party helm in Germany – by death or other causes – may have caused a change, under pressure of this emergency, in the party line. The new leaders may be convinced that Germany and the Germans will be virtually eliminated unless resistance ceases soon, or they may have less fanaticism than Hitler, or they may be attempting to achieve his same ends in different ways.
(2) Some German leaders would unquestionably be willing to surrender on any terms if they could preserve their lives. But these are the cravens, and whatever else we may say of many of the German leaders, there are among them many men who have shown no lack of physical courage and to whom their own lives have been secondary to what they have considered a greater purpose. Moreover, it seems very unlikely at this late date that Himmler or any other prominent Nazi tarred with such a reputation as his could hope to escape punishment by surrendering. The Allies would surely never stoop to such a bargain.
Hess case recalled
But Himmler and his associates may think that they would. The strange case of Adolph Hess who parachuted into England to arrange a peace shows how different the world looks, how warped the mind is, when one has swallowed a large dose of one’s own propaganda. And the Nazis undoubtedly remember the case of the Kaiser premier war criminal twenty-seven years ago, who lived out his years in ease and peace.
Whatever the reasons that may motivate any surrender offer made or to be made, there is no doubt that the present disasters that Germany is suffering are a powerful spur to rationalization in the German mind and toward making the best of a bad bargain. Yet ulterior purposes by the enemy must and should be suspected. We may be certain that any peace that the Germans make will be accompanied by very large mental reservations, indeed, even if unexpressed or unrecorded.
Therefore, every peace offer must, and undoubtedly will, be minutely scrutinized and examined. There must be no strings attached, no conditions – actual or tacit or implied – to unconditional surrender.
