New All Highest

A plot to assassinate General Hans von Seeckt, 57-year-old General der Infanterie und Chef der Heeresleitung des Reichswehrs, was nipped in the bud.

Lieutenant Thormann, belonging to one of the many Bavarian societies and said to be a relative of the Thormann who was implicated in killing Dr. Walter Rathenau in 1922, received a mandate to kill General von Seeckt. Arriving in Berlin, he went to the offices of the Anti-Semetic Deutschvolkische Freiheits Party to hire an assassin. The General was known to exercise every morning before going to his office by riding in Tattersall's Academy, which is close to the Reichswehr Ministry on the Bendlerstrasse. The assassin was to follow von Seeckt, "disguised as an equestrian," shoot him when a favorable moment presented itself and escape in the ensuing uproar.

A member of the Anti-Semetic Party, however, betrayed Lieutenant Thormann and he was arrested in a crowded cafe in the Pottsdamer Platz.

General von Seeckt as Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr is the present All Highest in Germany. He is responsible for law and order and his power is practically unlimited in enforcing it. Although he is a staunch Conservative and therefore a Monarchist, the impartial administration of his powers has not been met with favor in Monarchist circles, who hold that he is obstructing a return to a monarchical regime.

At the outbreak of war in 1914, von Seeckt was a Colonel and Chief of Staff to General von Lockov. He fought at Mons, Le Cateau and on the Ourcq. In 1916 he was lent as Chief of Staff to the Austrian Archduke Karl, afterward Emperor Karl of Austria. Some time later he was attached to Enver Pasha, Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish Army. He remained in Turkey until the end of the War and so missed being involved in the German collapse in the west, a fact which considerably raised him in the esteem of the German people.