Seven against The World!

RESTRICTED • EUROPEAN NEATER OF OPERATIONS • UNITED STATES ARMY

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 ARMY TALKS
EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS

Seven Against The World !

IT would be easy to blame the present state of-Germany on a small
group of high-powered politicians backed by the wealthy business
man and the military caste of the nation . It would be comparatively
simple to write off Germany's progress as a war-making country to the
gang of men who have taken over her helm . But, unfortunately, the story
is not that simple . That gang is immediately responsible for your being in
uniform, just as they are responsible for thousands of Germans being in
uniform.
Their responsibility is great . However, one thing should be kept in mind
always : they could never have waged a world war alone ; they could
never have organized Germany along the lines of severe discipline—
discipline which extends all the way from the front to the smallest factories,
to every phase of life in Germany today—if they had not received the
cooperation and the approval of the German people.
For more than a decade the German people have given their consent
to this program, either eagerly or by not opposing it . They have Hitler,
and all that goes with him, because they wanted him . As he has pro-
ceeded from one crime to another, they have proceeded with him.

German People Went Along With Nazi Bosses

They have not winced at his demands and they have applauded his
accomplishments . When he has conquered, they have not questioned how
or why . As we examine the characters of the
men who are the bosses of Germany, we are
examining in a large degree the character of the
German people—including the German soldier.
Those people we will have to deal with when the
soldier has been killed or captured.
We cannot afford to be lulled into any false
j udgment . For generations the German people have
been willing to foster aggression upon their neighbor-
ing nations . This is not merely because they have
been the dupes of evil leaders. It goes deeper than
that.
So far as this issue of ARMY TALKS goes,
however, we are concerned with knowing about
the leaders the German people have accepted and


July, 1911 5

followed in this war. In a number of ways the pattern of leadership found

in Germany today is similar to the pattern she developed 25 years ago,
and which can be expected to develop again before another 25 years have
passed, if we do not apply the lessons these last two wars have taught us.
Most of us know the names of some of the German High Command.
Rommel, Von Rundstedt, Von Fritsch, are not unfamiliar to us . We have
all seen their faces in newspapers- and magazines . Many of us know the
names of the political leaders of Germany . We have probably heard of
Goering, Goebbels and Von Ribbentrop, and we have a fair idea of what
they do . But what we are not likely to know is how they operate together
and how they got where they are. This story concerns the Nazi leaders.
In the order of their importance they are Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering,
Heinrich Himmler, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Paul Josef Goebbels, Robert
Ley and Alfred Rosenberg.

How They Killed Their Way To Power

The facts are a matter of record, and more are being added every day to
prove that never before in modern history has any nation been in-the
hands of so brutal, so ruthless and so clever a gang of professional killers
as Germany is today . They were not elected or chosen by any kind of
ballot . They killed their way to their present positions.

The story of their rise to power puts even the worst gangster killers
in the shade, and makes Dillinger and Lepke look like amateurs at the
business . At this stage we cannot be surprised at much of anything the
Hitler gang will do, but we must constantly remember what they have
achieved by their methods. First, they took over by intimidation the
running of one of the most potentially powerful countries of the world,
with a claimed population of 8o millions . Second, they proceeded by the
same' means to take over a good sized section of the world . The fact that
this meant plunging the world into war didn't even make them hesitate.
Their methods increased in cruelty and barbarism as they dealt with the
 ARMY TALKS

people of the countries they conquered . They will continue as long as they
have a gambler's chance of pulling anything out of the bag . When that is
gone, these leaders can be expected to turn on each other, hoping by
placing the blame on the other fellow to escape the punishment they all
deserve.
Let's see who this bunch of criminals are, and how they succeeded in
corrupting the history of the world for a decade . Let's look at their records
and as we do, stop and think how far these men would have gone in the
United States . The German people have been content—many of them
have been enthusiastic—to have criminals in high office . Would we tolerate

a murderer as President ? Would we allow a cheap political juggler to be

Secretary of State ? Would we look with cheerful composure at a cruel
gangster's filling the position of Chief of Staff? The answer is—No . But
a powerful nation has not merely accepted them for their own leaders ; they
have tried to foist them on the rest of the world.

Gang-Leader Adolf Hitler

About Adolf Hitler, the leader, nothing needs to be added, except
possibly that he is a first class killer in his own right—a fact that has been
overlooked or minimized until recently . For even if we care to forget his
main responsibility for the war and the conquest of Germany, Austria,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, France, and all the others, he
still can claim a brutal series of murders which give him a box seat at any
trial . For sheer blood lust the purge of 1934 has few parallels in modern
history . It is believed that Adolf Hitler led it personally, and brained
defenseless men with his loaded crop . At least he supervised the murder of
Ernst Roehm, once his closest friend, after planting his gunmen where they
could shoot Roehm like a trapped rat . In the purge not only Roehm, but
General Von Schleicher and his wife were murdered . Personal revenge was
taken care of as well . In 1923 General Gustav von Kahr had smashed
Hitler's beer-hall Putsch . The old man was now dragged from his home and
chopped to bits with an axe. It was believed that Father Bernhard Stempple


26 July, 1944 It

had once read a letter written by Hitler to his niece—a letter indicating
unpleasant and unnatural relations . A few days after the purge the body
of the priest; filled with bullets, was found in a wood.
These are some of the personal crimes of Hitler . He is branded already
by his own record—the anguish of the . world is a later accomplishment.
The organization of the Nazi party is like a pyramid, with Hitler at
the top and below him the party leaders . Everybody in the party is
responsible to him as the Fuehrer . The lines are clear, and every man
has a leader above him and a follower below him . Among the highly
placed and more ambitious members of the party there goes on a never-
ending struggle for power . It is cut-throat and ferocious. Only the strongest
men win. Hitler partly overlooks and partly encourages this battle, for two
reasons : (I) the strugglers become more dependent on him, and (2) under
his jungle law, the toughest and most brutal men survive as his leaders.

Strong-Man' Hermann Goering

In this struggle fortunes change . Now and then one fights his way to
the front, now and then one is destroyed . Any report on the men under
Hitler who wield the greatest power in Germany has to take these changes
into account . Nevertheless, in spite of these shifts, six of the early leaders
have been able to stay at the top and keep up the fight of the Nazi party
for world mastery.
Hermann Goering is, next to Hitler himself, the ablest man in the Nazi
party, probably no other man in Germany today is capable of ruling the
Third Reich by force of his own disreputable character . Goering is an
organizer and a man of action—usually violent action . He organized the
Storm Troopers. He was responsible for the Reichstag fire, when the
Reichstag was burned to the ground and the blame then pinned on
the Communists . From the early days of the party he was the leader of the
Nazi deputies in the Reichstag (the
national parliament), and was later
president of that body . He created,
and now rules the German Air Force.
He is Commissioner for the four-year plan
and czar of Germany's national economy.
Right now he is one of the most powerful
and cruel leaders in Germany. One
writer has said :
" People have misunderstood Goering's
true character just as badly as they did
Hitler's, and even longer . Goering is
enormously fat, the result partly of
disturbances in the functioning of the
ductless glands and partly of his
gluttony. He loves uniforms and
display . He flaunts these and


8 ARMY TALKS

other of his all to human frailties . He can be jovial when he wants to be.
He speaks in a racy vernacular that goes straight to people's hearts . On the
other hand, it suits both his taste and his purposes to play the part of a
` conservative,' a role for which he has a certain background, for he is

exceptional among the Nazis for coming from a family with pretentions
to gentility. His father was the first Governor of German South-West
Africa."
Goering likes to cultivate the reputation of being " safe " and " sound."
This turns out to be a cruel joke on those who are foolish enough to bank
on it. He likes to pose as a jovial, kindly man, the popular friend of
everybody . Actually the only soft spot in his make-up is towards animals.
He has never hesitated to torture or kill men whenever it furthered his
ends, but he will not tolerate any cruelty towards animals . Ten days after
he acted as chief executioner in Prussia in the blood-battle of June 30,
1934, he sentenced an old fisherman of Zweibruchen to six months in jail
because he had failed to kill a frog painlessly before cutting off its legs.
Goering was a morphine addict for years, and was once sent to an
institution in Sweden for a time . Neither use nor disuse of drugs has tempered
his savagery . In a speech made at Frankfurt on March 4, 1933, he said :
" I am not in office to dispense justice, but to destroy and exterminate."
It was at Goering's own orders that the Luftwaffe bombed and machine-
gunned cities and towns, refugees on the roads and women in the fields.
Warsaw, Rotterdam and Belgrade are among his war memorials . To some
well-meaning but short-sighted leaders among the Allied nations this man
was once regarded as being preferable to Hitler.

Hang-Man Heinrich Himmler

One of the main reasons for the strength of the Nazi party was the
under-estimation of Hitler and his henchmen. This applies particularly
to Heinrich Himmler . Outwardly Heinrich Himmler seems to be the
26 July, 1944 9

mildest of men and to merit his nick-name

of " Our Gentle Heinrich ." Himmler looks
like an old-fashioned school teacher . Skinny in
appearance, he sports a Charlie Chaplin
moustache, has straw-colored hair, not much
chin, and wears strong glasses. He looks
like a stooge—but it isn't so! Early and
late he is at his job . As head of the dreaded
Schutz Staffel he is the most feared and the
most hated of all German leaders, and he is
harder to see than Hitler. He is a vegetarian,
drinks no coffee and no liquor except wines.
He collects stamps, and to the world presents
a picture of purity and innocence. Poor world ! It had to learn, too !

Gestapo Chief And Leader Of S .S.

If there is one man in Germany who is more cruel and more savage than
any other it is Himmler . He is chief of all German police and Reich Leader
of the S .S . As such he is in command of the special guard of National
Socialism . In these capacities he disposes of a private army of 250,000
fully-equipped combat troops—the Verfuegungstrappen of the . S .S .—and he
heads up the most extensive secret police system in the world, operating in
Germany and in other countries . It is Himmler who supervises the
concentration camps ; it is Himmler who directs much of the fifth column
work that prepared the way for the invasions of the German armies ; it is
Himmler who ordered the killing of the " mental defectives " to the number
of nearly 100 ,000 in 1939 and 1940 alone.
In other words, Himmler is Hitler's pro-
fessional butcher . He has set out to destroy
whole nations whose continued national life
was distasteful to Adolf Hitler . Himmler
experimented on the Jews ; he perfected his
system on the Poles . The plan for destroying the
Poles consisted of two parts : the first part
involved killing several million Poles outright ;
the second, dumping several million more
into a great " reservation " where they would
gradually perish through disease and slow
starvation . Altogether at least 3,000,000 Poles
were liquidated by these methods within 18
months of the day when the German armies
first struck at Poland . Included in this figure are
between . a quarter and a half million Poles
killed in the Polish phase of the war .


10 ARMY TALKS -

Himmler is doing his work thoroughly . Given enough time, under his
own conditions, and he would utterly destroy the Poles and the Jews in
the territories of the Reich . Others would follow.

"Diplomat" Joachim Von Ribbentrop

The rise of Joachim von Ribbentrop to the post of Foreign Minister
and the special favor of the Fuehrer is typical of the struggle in which
men stopped at nothing to get what and where they wanted. He survived
a bitter inter-bureau feud and finally defeated a conspiracy to push him
out of favor with Hitler . He was thoroughly hated by members of his
own party before he ever became Foreign Minister . But Hitler likes
him . One reason he likes him is because he has many enemies—therefore
he needs to depend on Hitler . But more than that, Hitler respects von
Ribbentrop's nerve and his judgment on foreign affairs . " Ribbentrop's
the man for me ! " he once - said . " He's cold, nothing influences him ."
He used to refer to him as " A second Iron Chancellor, a second Bismarck ."
There can be no question about Ribbentrop's nerve—it consists of
bad manners, insolence and condescension . He is always sure that he is
right—even now . It is hard to understand why Hitler respects Ribbentrop's
judgment on foreign affairs . It is true that Ribbentrop helped to convince
him that _France was ripe for conquest and would offer no serious resistance
is she did enter World War II . But it was Ribbentrop who assured Hitler
that the British were weak, and could be beaten as easily as the French.
He was wrong . Worse than that he was proven to have been guessing
in both cases . His estimates and his answers were not the result of states-
manship ; they were the product of a cheap politician's gamble . Like most
gambling, it cannot bear inspection.
Ribbentrop has no popular following . He is
a poor speaker, he lacks the common touch ;
the people find him distant and snobbish . It
has always been impossible for Ribbentrop to
control a political machine-of his own . But
he continues to try. He has replaced the old
career diplomatists in the Foreign Office and
in the foreign service as fast as he could.
That is a slow business at best, and it will
be a long time before he can eliminate
the old career group who have no love
for any political organization, least of all
one led and managed by Ribbentrop . He
is detested by Goering . He has cultivated
Himmler, perhaps feeling that next to Hitler
the man who will be most valuable to his
purpose is the one who controls the S .S .


26 July, 1944 11

Paul Joseph Goebbels, Demagogue

It may he safely said that Goebbels
is the most distrusted man in the Third
Reich . Therefore, he is one of their most
respected . Like Himmler, Goebbels
began his political career as secretary
and assistant to Gregor Strasser, one of
Hitler's early followers and henchmen,
and turned against him when he saw
'that advancement would come more
quickly by other means.
Goebbels is an outstanding organizer,
disputer and mob orator . He knows
what to say to a mob and how
to say it . He has a fine voice, a
remarkable command of the German
language, and a perfect pronunciation.
It is nearly impossible not to be stirred by Goebbels' speeches even if you
thoroughly dislike and mistrust everything he says . He is a man of tre-
mendous energy and real courage.
Since the Nazi party has come into power. Goebbels has had three
jobs . First, he is national propaganda chief of the party and the govern-
ment. (In other words he operates the German wind machine, and does
it shrewdly and to great effect in Germany .) Secondly, Goebbels controls
the Reich Chamber of Culture, which regulates all so-called cultural
activities in Germany . These two functions often overlap, as Goebbels once
pointed out . Thirdly, Goebbels is the party district leader for Berlin.
Hitler himself supervises propaganda and cultural affairs even more
closely than he does other affairs . And the talents that enabled Goebbels
to win power and favor have continued to stand him in good stead . He has
always been quick to sense Hitler's moods and wishes . He has seen the way
the cat would jump and was usually with the cat ! When the blood purge
of June 30, 1934, broke out, Goebbels hurried to Hitler's side and never
left him until the danger had passed . From the end of 1932, Goebbels
shared with Hess and Goering the distinction of being closer to Hitler
than any other of the party chiefs . At this time he was second only to
Goering in authority . .
However, Goebbels has never been popular with the men of the party.
This is not true of the women . Slight in build, with a deformed foot,
he is nevertheless a man of genuine charm and one who has always suc-
ceeded in making himself attractive to women . His affairs have been
many and have given him a bad reputation . An affair with an actress
which involved him in an open scandal in the winter of 1937, irritated
Hitler and sent Goebbels into a temporary decline . He might have rubbed
out this bit of awkward publicity had he not made three successive profes-
sional blunders in judgment, which made his position worse.
Early in the war he planned a broadcast on personal sacrifices . In
view of the wide publicity given his private excesses, that was squashed .


12 ARMY TALKS

He wished to revile the American correspondents then in Berlin . That,

too, was sat upon . Finally, he' decided to turn the Graf Spec incident into
a German victory. Needless to say, that scarcely made a hit when the
truth leaked out . These mistakes forced him into a political decline
from which he recovered only because of the serious war need for his
abilities. Goebbels has unquestionable ability and it is ability which
neither Hitler nor Goering can afford to do without . He has remained in
power, and almost certainly will remain to the end.

Labor Boss Robert Ley L,,

Dr. Robert Ley has several offices . He is the national organization
chief of the party, and formerly managed the annual party conferences in
Nuremberg. He is leader of the Labor Front and he directs the " Strength
through Joy " organization which in earlier years provided working people
with recreation and better factory conditions.
Ley seized the German labor unions " brutally and ruthlessly " on
May 2, 1933, in what was probably the most daring attack upon organized
labor since the industrial revolution . The attack succeeded . The unions
were destroyed, and Ley was in the position of having to satisfy German
labor in order to keep his job and the party's promises . Furthermore,
he had to ask labor to accept additional hardships . Prices rose ; taxes
were deducted from wages ; insurance increased . Pay declined below
depression figures . Labor was not allowed to strike and was subjected
to work-conscription similar to military service . Freedom to change a job,
to choose a trade or to move to another part of the country was severely
restricted . White-collar workers had to submit to disagreeable hardships.
But the number of jobs and hours of work greatly increased . As a conse-
quence, most workers thought they were better off. For a time, in some
ways, they were.
Ley had seized the birthright of the German workers and he meant to keep
it . But being a practical man, he offered a number of high-sounding rewards
which gave all workers a new sense of
dignity and of self-respect. First of all he
cracked down on the capitalists as hard as
he had on labor . Then he promised
higher real earnings in the future—time
unspecified ; he improved working con
ditions in both offices and factories ;
he offered recreational and cultural
opportunities at little cost, sometimes free.
Meantime Dr. Ley preached The
New Socialism ." It is not entirely
clear what this was . Apparently it
has nothing to do with public owner-
ship or operation of means of pro-
d re duction, nor has it anything. to do with
the right of labor to a voice in their own
government . What it seemed to mean


26 July, 1944 13

was a thoroughly regimented society, overshadowed by a military outlook.

This society worked hard, received little, but had " great honor and a
communal sharing of recreation and culture ." For example, the property-
owner keeps his property if he " behaves himself " and does not run afoul
of powerful party members . He keeps his property and the Nazi officials
tell him exactly what he can do with it . The Nazis also take an increasing
proportion of all earnings.
How has Ley managed to make the German people swallow his flimsy
program ? Partly because he was backed by the full strength of a dominat-
ing party organization ; partly because he was an expert in camouflaging
the ends by the means . He has always sought out the worker at his job
in the office, the factory and the shop, to ask him about his work, his salary
and his family, and to shake his hand . He set up " Courts of Social Honor "
which imposed heavy fines on employers found guilty of offences against
their workers' rights or honor . In some cases the Courts removed control
of the businesses and placed them under other management of Ley's
selection.
Ley had laid claim to improving the working conditions of the German
people . For a time he operated spectacular holiday schemes to which a
great deal of publicity was given. Let's see exactly what these schemes
consisted of. He has made the leisure time of the people far more enjoyable
than it ever had been before . He had two 25,000-ton ships built and
leased two others for workers' and employees' cruises . He ordered con-
struction of a gigantic seaside resort for Labor Front leaders . Finally, he
organized excursions and vacations all over the Reich, and in Italy at
nominal cost, or no cost at all . These arrangements paid huge dividends
in display value and in the mass morale.
The truth of the matter is that other reasons have been more important
in making National Socialism a going concern . There has been no alterna-
tive to National Socialism . Them, too, Hitler won victory after victory,
which pleased not only the German High Command and the political
leaders, but gratified the workers and the lower middle class as much as
anyone else, if not more . Nevertheless, Ley, with his cheerful back-slapping
manner, brought energy and imagination to the whole business of selling
National Socialism to the German worker . He sold with enthusiasm
and 'with a boisterous good nature what appealed to Hitler and the working
man alike.

"Mystic" Alfred Rosenberg

Rosenberg is the official philosopher of the party . He has taught a dogma
as difficult to understand and as ridiculous to accept as anything the Hitler
gang have produced . He has taught that all will be for the best in the best
of all possible worlds once the so called Nordic race has seized its rightful
place as ruler of the earth . Rosenberg's teaching is as hard to accept as is
the man . He is one of the top group who make no pretence at being strong
or brutal or clever. Like all the rest, he is unscrupulous . The only
ex use for his presence is that what he teaches appeals to Hitler, and so
Hitler has kept him along with his half-baked philosophy .


14 ARMY TALKS

Personally, he is unattractive . Born in Russia of German stock, Rosenberg

developed a hatred for Communism which he has turned to great account.
To this he soon added an ardent dislike for Jews, Catholics, Freemasons
and others, all of whom he attacked in pamphlets. He maintained that
these " enemies " were engaged in a plot against the Nordic Master People
and against the Reich . He enlisted in Hitler's group, and at once impressed
the Fuehrer with his specious learning and his " great " philosophy—
mainly because it fitted in with Hitler ' s own plans.
Hitler adopted many of Rosenberg's ideas, and the " great thinker "
became editor of Voelkischer Beobachter, the newspaper of the National
Socialist party, Commissioner of the Fuehrer for the Supervision of the ,
Philosophical Education of the National Socialist Movement, and chief of
the National Office for the Advancement of German Literature . In the
last office Rosenberg has done as much damage as he has anywhere else.
He set up a vast censorship bureau and ruled on what books could be
published in Germany.
While on a visit to London in 1933 as representative of-Hitler's Govern-
ment, Rosenberg was sabotaged by members of the German Embassy and
Foreign Office . His own efforts were so sad that there was a demand
in Parliament that he be deported.
The London trip finished Rosenberg's chances for high political office.
He returned to his writing and retained only nominal status in the political
arena . However, he should be satisfied : he has done as much harm as a
man-of his stamp could reasonably hope for . And his evil influence is still
very strong.

These, in brief, are the bosses of Nazi Germany . In them are mirrored
the false ideals they have set up . They are not men for whom any of us
could have respect . They are, nevertheless, the men whom the Germans
have supported . The tragedy of their leadership is that the German people
allowed them to gain control and have followed where they led . It is no
more possible to remove blame from the people than it is from the leaders.
Without the support of the people the leaders could never have succeeded.
Granted the people may have been hoodwinked into accepting a false
program ; they might at a number of points have rejected it . This they
never were willing to do . They are now paying with blood for what they -
tried to steal by blood .


26 July, 1944 15

How to prepare this Army Talk

VER six months ago ARMY TALKS asked : " What's wrong with

O the Germans ? " Several questions were raised at that time.

" Why has Germany sought to make virtues of what we think
ate sins against the highest instincts of humanity ? Why has Germany
taught her youth to hate, to torture, to murder—to take pride in the bestial
instincts of human nature ? "
Pick out the points in the pamphlet which will most interest your group.
Goering will be of special interest to Air Force unit, Remember ? The
Luftwaffe chief told the people of Berlin they would never be bombed.
His intuition is no better than Hitler's . Perhaps his fanatical interest
in the individual combat of the medieval knight led him to overdevelop his
fighter command, whose pilots he glorified as modern knights, at the
expense of bomber strength . Certainly the Luftwaffe would have been
more effective during the Blitz if it had had more bomber squadrons.
Goebbels can claim the attention of the ground forces . According to
this Nazi propagandist the American " mongrels " would not fight . Events
in Italy and Normandy must have come as a shock to him . Hitler's
role as an " intuitive " military genius might be brought into the picture
as well.
Service of Supply men may want to emphasize Goebbels' efforts to poison
their relations with the civilians (either French or English) with whom
they are in contact . Robert Ley's work with German and foreign slave
labour has affected the whole German supply situation . His methods
could only be used in a Nazi country.
Liven the program . If your unit doctor is interested in mental and
psychological cases ask him to give your group a talk on the seven criminals
who run Germany . He can suggest new explanations for some of their
behavior.
There are lots of good questions to start the discussion ball rolling.
What should be done with the criminal leaders of Germany ? What
significance does the Swiss announcement on her attitude toward war
criminals have? If they are to be tried, where and how ? Were the leaders
of the German Empire any better than the present group ? Were their
instincts and ambitions fundamentally the same although covered with a
thin veneer of Prussian " kultur"? Why has the German nation been
tolerant of such leadership ? Can she be educated to the point where she
can be trusted to choose her leaders ? If so, how ?
Since these are questions people like to talk about, your problem as
leader may be to control the discussion on an orderly basis rather than to
stimulate it . See that everybody has a chance to contribute . Start off
with a short introduction and then let the group carry on . Remember
that the AFN ARMY TALKS Program is now heard each Saturday at
43o hours .
TIP TO-- UNIT COMMANDERS
AIRTALKS ON THE
ARMY
Tune inAmerican on your
Forces Network station fin .
a dramatized presentation
of the week's Army Tai

00

TIME : Saturday, 29 July 1944

at 1430-1500 hours.

PLACE : Any convenient spot

where you . have a radio
and a room for your
platoon to listen in
and discuss the subject.

STATION:
American Forces Network .