Evening star., 1938-02-06
The Nazi Purge.

There can no longer be any doubt that
Nazi Germany has become house sorely
divided against itself. Hitler's purge not
only of the army but Of the foreign Office
and the higher diplomatic staff, for which
one must bark back to Stains firing
squad liquidation Of Soviet generals last
June for counterpart, uncovers state
OF military and political discord In the
Reich, the dimensions of which were only
family suspected. No official alibis, like
the alleged impaired health of fifteen
commanding generals, or the pretended
request of Baron Won Neurath to be al
lowed to relinquish the foreign secretary
ship, can explain away the most drastic
shake-up undergone by any postwar
European government A rift in the
totalitarian lutte, not necessarily a de-
structive one but undeniably on,inous, is
revealed to a world periodically regaled
with bombastic assurances of the solidar-
ity and impregnability OF the Nazi
regime. The effects both within Ger
many and upon her external relations
are bound to be immense, If not inn
mediate.
Stripped Of extraneous trivialities like
General Won Blombergs violation Of the
Potsdam code in marrying below his
mllltary-soclal rank, the consequential
retirement of fifteen generals new COM
mands for twenty-five generals and
eight colonels, the placing of three gen.
erals at the disposal of the supreme army
command and, finally, the dismissal of
the war minister, Won Blomberg, and
the commander in chief of the army,
Won Fritsch, turn the searchlights full
glare on the underlying cause OF the
purge. 1t springs from refusal of the
old German Army, personified by the
officers corps, to tolerate the infiltration
OF the Nazi doctrine, particularly its
neo-pagan. anti-Christian philosophy,
into the armed forces. This group holds
that Nazi politics as such and Nazi
party leaders must let the army alone if
it is to fulfill its mission as guarantor of
the Reich's security. Won Blomberg's
mesalliance was welcomed by his COM
rades as an opportunity to demand his
removal, for his acceptance of the Nazi
idea had become unpalatable to the
generals who insist that the ReichsWehr
is military and not political machine.
Apparently the shifts just decreed by
Der Fuehrer mean that he has ac-
complished the Notification of the high
command, or at least purged the army
Of the dominating influences which
were frustrating that objective. General
Goering's failure to succeed Won Blom-
berg as war minister though the now
Nazi, as commander in chief Of the air
force, ranks above all officers in either
the army or navy, seems to support the
theory that Nazi extremists have come
into the saddle. Goering, though totali-
tartan to the core, rates as sympathizer
with the view of the professional soldier
that the party cult is one thing and ma
tional defense quite another. He also is
popularity identified with the school of
German military thought, which rabid
Nazis do not share, that the Reich is
not yet prepared for war adventures.
Transfer of Won Neurath from the
Wllhelmstrasse to the presidency of q
secret cabinet council to advise Hitler
on foreign policy and elevation of Lon
don Ambassador Won Ribbentrop to the
foreign secretaryship are immeasurably
important. Just what reorientation of
Germany's foreign relations they sig
nify-with Great Britain and Italy in
particular-cannot, of course, be fore
shadowed. Recall of Ambassadors Won
Papen from Vienna, Won Hassel from
Rome and Won Dirksen from Toxic Is
hardly less significant. The Won
Neurath- Ribbentrop swap presages a
stronger German line in London with
regard to colonial restoration. Won
Papen's departure from Vienna strength
ems fears that the Berlin purge is the
Cul td1il 1dloCl 1OI 11AUlCl . lUlA .plOJSCGCu
"putsch" in Austria. Fresh Nazi diplo-
matte faces in Rome and Toxic look as
if Der Fuehrer plans some new kind of
grease for the Berlin Rome Toxic axis.
Looming over all these moves on the
Nazi chessboard and the hypothesis they
generate is the fact that Hitler, in
assuming personal charge of both the
armed forces of the Reich and its foreign
policy, clothes himself, by Napoleonic
stroke, with what the controlled
press promptly, ecstatically and graphi-
cally epitomizes as "all power to Der
Fuehrer." The world has no reason to
greet with equaninity this elevation to
omnipotency Of the autocrat-author Of
"Mein Kampf."
1t Is when nation feels perfectly safe