Evening star., 1945-04-26
Captured Nali Genera
Urges keiteI 10 Make
Hitler Stop Fighting
Ey the Associated Press

IS tiie hssoCldteG PfeSS.
LONDON, April 26.-Lt. Gen
Heinrich Kirchheiln, in a Luxem.
bourg radio broadcast last night
appealed to the German high COM
mand to make the Fuehrer cease
fighting at once" because "the wal
is irrevocably lost" He was the
first high-ranking German officer
captured by the Americans to make
such an appeal.
Directing his remarks to Chief
OF Staff Field Marshal Wilhelm
Keitel. but privately admitting he
thought the effect very doubtful,
Gen. Kirchheim said:
You, Field Marshal Keitel, are
the Fuehrer's highest military ad-
wiser. 1t IS your duty to stop this
senseless slaughter of our youth
and destruction of our last cities.
You must succeed in making reason
conquer against military amateurs
and make the Fuehrer cease fight
Ing at once.
Defeat Is Admitted.
1T must not be further continued
certainly not for defense of our
soldierly honor. Our honor requires
us to confess olr defeat and bear
Our heavy fate with dignity"
Gen. Kirchheim said his fellow
German ohicers cannot feel bound
to their oath any longer" and added
that whoever continues this war
is guilty" The general repeatedly
took off Hitler's medals when he
heard of the brutalities in German
concentration camps.
Although Gen. Kirchheim is the
first top-rank German officer to ap-
peal for capitulation from the West
ern front, several captive officers
have done SO from Moscow.
Gen. Kirchheim ridiculed Nazi
attempts to carry on the fight with
a mixture of hastily organized civil
ians and Wehrmacht remnants.
The Americans look down on the
Volksstrum with a mixture of COM
passion and irony" he said. THE
Werewolf cannot be brought into
accordance with fair warfare Keitel
knows that resistance is senseless.
Captured by 9Th Army.
Gen. kirchheim was captured by
the American 9th Army last week.
He was found driving his own car
in an American supply convoy head
ed toward the front.
He told Marshal Keitel he had
watched the fighting in the Magde-
burg area with the intention of re-
porting to him what shaking OBJ
servations / made" Prevented from
doing this by his capture, he said he
was making the report by radio.
These were his observations:
I'm troops and artillery the enemy
sometimes enjoyed a tenfold superb
ority, The Americans are equip
ped with ineXhaustible supplies of
ammunition. The enemy men, con-
trary to ours, were excellently clad
and fed and owing to the slight
number of their losses and the
greatness of their successes, were in
the. best of spirits and conscious
Of victory
Speaking in German, Gen. Kirch-
helm described the Volkssturm as
elderly men and boys equipped
with nothing else but bazookas to
meet American tanks"
Resistance Soon Broken.
Their resistance was soon broken"
he related. Costly blood was shed
and many towns laid in shambles. /
We soldiers are united in our view
about the senselessness of this sort
of resistance (
The WereWolves-the German un- /
derground movement pledged to
continue the fight behind the Allied
Kirchheim dismissed as
merely good means of propa-
ganda" which has nowhere made
its appearance.
Jeering at Hitler recurrent prom 4
ises of new secret weapons which |
will turn the tide of war, the officer
said "if we had any more new
weapons they would have been /
thrown in much earlier. They are
certainly nonexistent." \
Meanwhile. the Bern radio said
~ Il