Evening star., 1945-04-28
Success Of Invasion
Decided War, DitfmaI
Says After Surrender
BY KENNETH I. DIXON,

BY KENNETH L. DIXON,
Associated Press War Correspondent.
WITH THE UNITED STATES 9th
ARMY IN GERMANY, April as De-
layeh.-Lt. Gen. Kurt Dittmar,
most widely quoted stratsgist Of the
German high command. surrendered
today and told American officers
that the Reich lost the war mill
tarily when It failed to stop the
Normandy invasion and lost 1t po-
itically when Hitler escaped assas-
sination last July.
= Gen. Dittmar, whose shrewd COM
mentaries on German military
movements were quoted by Allied
press and radio for five years, gave
up to United States 9th Army troops
guarding the Elbe. Crossing the
river In q rowboat under q white
nag, the nervous little expert said
he wanted to negotiate the surren-
der OF q number of German troops
who were terrified by the approach
Of the Russians.
The quality Of German resistance
since last summer was minimized by
the slight, shriveled man, generally
known as the voice of the German
Army and the Wehrmacht,s most
informed spokesman. Patting his
balding head nervously. he insisted
that the war was bound to end in a
few days and asserted there had
been no Wehrmacht strategy for the
last six months.
Nazi Casualties Stressed.
Correspondents had asked him his
opinion Of Allied tactics.
We've made 1t easy for you since
july" he replied.
Gen. Dittmar said Germany had
suffered too many casualties to be
able to continue the war after Berlin
falls and added that the highly
touted Southern German redoubt
was mostly a myth.
His favorite theme was that things
might have been different had Hit
Ter been assassinated. His face
lighted eagerly when he discussed
the bomb plot to elimiante the
Fuehrer. Had it succeeded, he said,
the army leaders might have engi-
neered a surrender.
Insisting that Hitler was still in
Berlin, Gen. Dittmar said the Nazi
leader would either be killed or COM
NIT suicide there, that he would
never face an Allied trial as a war
criminal. The only important Ger
man resistance left, he said, was that
spanked by the Gestapo, storm
troopers and Elite Guard which
would cease upon Hitler's death. He
said Reichsmarshal Hermann Goer-
ing probably already had been ex-
ecuted.
American authorities, although
admitting the possibility that Gen.
Dittmar's surrender was an enemy
plant, seemed to entertain little
doubt that the information he gave
was genuine
Was on General Staff.
A member of the Wermacht for 40
years and Of the German general
staff since the wars outbreak, Gen.
Dittmar helped plan and execute
the Maginot Line breakthrough in
1910. After brief tour of duty in
Finland, he was chosen to aid in
strategy work for the general staff
and has always been in closest con-
tact with the German high COM
mand.
He said Stalingrad was the Wer-
macht leaders first intimation of
their eventual doom and that the
Normandy invasion was the turning
point OF the war. Failure of the
Avranches counterattack in Brit
tany last summer ended their last
hope of stopping the Allies in the
west and when Hitler took over the
strategy, army leaders knew they
had lost the war.
Gen. Dittmar wore the uniform of
a lieutenant general - equivalent
rank to that of an American major
general - and was accompanied
across the river by a German major
two enlisted men and his 16-year-
old son, Berndt, a military academy
student. He surrendered to Capt.
Henry Abbes, Glendale, Queens,
N. Y. |
He professed to know nothing of
the military situation in this area,
said the German soldiers and civil
ians were panicked by the Russian
advance.
The 54-year-old expert disclosed
that he had never spoken on the
air waves because Of a bad radio
voice. He said he wrote the scripts,
however, and a Nazi captain faxed