Purge No. 2

The gravest crisis since German Army leaders persuaded Adolf Hitler to have the most radical of his Nazi followers killed in the Blood Purge of June 30, 1934 broke bloodlessly last week. This time it was the surviving Nazi radicals who secured from the Fuehrer a fine collection of conservative German scalps, although not literally, for resignation not execution was the fate last week of such as:

War Minister Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg

Foreign Minister Baron Constantin von Neurath

Army Commander--in-Chief Colonel General Werner von Fritsch

Not only this potent trio but a whole string of generals and Army officers of various ranks were retired or shifted to new commands last week by decision of the Fuehrer. The whole crisis arose and was dealt with in a manner typical of the way nearly all great matters in the Fatherland today turn upon personal contacts with Adolf Hitler and his personal reactions. Much of the time the Fuehrer is inaccessible to even extremely prominent officials, mystically cogitating in his Bavarian mountain retreat some 400 miles from Berlin. To get the ear of the Leader, much less to secure one of his usually long-delayed decisions, is an achievement in itself, but recently Army Commander-in-Chief Colonel General von Fritsch and a group of his brother generals found a magnificent excuse for bursting in upon the Dictator--an excuse which last week momentously backfired.

Daughter of a Masseuse! The generals invaded the august presence of the Fuehrer on the plea that the most sacred traditions of the Army and the celebrated Potsdam Code of officers' conduct had been flagrantly violated by the marriage of War Minister Field Marshal von Blomberg (TIME, Jan. 24). These extremely private nuptials occurred in a Berlin marriage clerk's office and the War Minister's witnesses were No. 1 Nazi Hitler, No. 2 Nazi Goering. Their presence was sufficient authority, so Blomberg appeared to have thought, for the match. But the generals snorted that not even a lieutenant would have been permitted to wed "socially impossible" Miss Erika Gruhn, a stenographer whose father is a carpenter and whose mother is a licensed masseuse.

Adolf Hitler, although himself the son of a petty Austrian frontier official and although he once earned his living as a decorator's assistant, was profoundly upset by the reproof last week of General von Fritsch et al.--for clearly they were facing the Dictator with the fact that he had been the chief accomplice in uniting a German Field Marshal with the daughter of a masseuse. According to best-posted Berlin sources, the canny German generals used what they thought was their advantage over the crestfallen Fiihrer--who maintained that he had been "duped" by Bridegroom von Blomberg--to open a blunt discussion of the many points on which Army leaders have long differed with the Nazis.

"Dog of a Swine!" Not many foreigners realize that when a Nazi youth is called up for military service the Army sergeants at whose mercy he finds himself commonly tell him to "Forget everything the Party taught you and remember you are a dog of a swine like the rest of these raw recruits!" If the Nazi has been an officer in the political Storm Troops, the Army sergeants up to now have been even harsher in knocking the conceit out of him. This attitude, raised from the brutality of a sergeant to the suavity of a general, was what Dictator Hitler encountered last week from General von Fritsch. and in Berlin it was believed that the generals urged:

1) No further German aid for General Franco, something to which German Army leaders have been opposed from the first, while Herr Hitler has half-heartedly kept insisting that in Spain Germany ought to go the whole way "to save Europe from Bolshevism."

2) Weakening or withdrawal by the Fatherland from the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo "Axis," the Army being convinced that Italy will desert Germany in the next war as she did in 1915, and that in the Far East it is clearly to Germany's interest to build friendly relations and trade with China.

3 ) More orthodox capitalist conduct of the finances of the Fatherland, whereas the Nazi radicals have always been for virtual socialization of Germany.

4) Respect for Christianity, and curbing of the Nazi neopagan cult headed by Dr. Alfred Rosenberg, "Cultural Leader of the Nazi Party."

"How smoothly. . . ." If Adolf Hitler had capitulated to the generals on these points last week, and apparently General von Fritsch thought he had the Fuehrer at the point of capitulation, the whole course of current German history would have been altered. Herr Hitler, with his mystique momentarily shattered, decided in the greatest excitement not to call a session of the Reichstag which he was to have addressed. He might next have sent for General von Fritsch and capitulated, but instead he sent for Nazi Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Secret Political Police, and General von Fritsch, the Army commander-in-chief, was soon reported placed under arrest. Whether it was ordinary arrest, or house arrest or arrest in the bosom of an officers' corps selected by Fritsch was not fully established last week.

Meanwhile the docile German people were permitted to learn almost nothing of all this. They were even told in Adolf Hitler's personal newsorgan, the Voelkischer Beobachter, that Field Marshal von Blomberg was in Berlin with the Fuehrer last week when he was in fact honeymooning at the Hotel Quisisana, Capri, Italy. At German frontiers bales of foreign newspapers were snatched off every arriving train, confiscated, destroyed. Fridericus, a typical Nazi Party newspaper, front-paged an editorial keynoting: "How smoothly everything goes in the Reich compared with conditions in America!"

Grapevine sources meanwhile warned some hundreds of thousands of the 66,000,000 German people that something perhaps as bad as the Blood Purge might be coming, and these people were nearly frantic with anxiety as the hours crept on. Finally at 10 p. m. the Ministry of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment broadcast on a nation-wide hookup for all Germans to "stand by." They stood by for two agonizing hours until the crashing announcement came.

Hitler Ueber Alles. Once more Adolf Hitler, advised by his inscrutable intuition, staked everything on a Nazi throw. The Fuhrer announced not only that he accepted the resignations of Field Marshal von Blomberg and General von Fritsch but also that he assumed control of the War Ministry himself and further--to make his defiant mood unmistakable--accepted the resignation of Foreign Minister Baron von Neurath, appointing to replace him Herr Joachim von Ribbentrop, the chief Nazi architect of the anti-Communist pact of Germany, Japan and Italy (TIME, Nov. 30, 1936).

This meant that the time had come for any forces in Germany which thought they could overthrow the Nazis to revolt or finally be crushed. At latest dispatches no revolt had occurred and none seemed in prospect, but the crisis had not passed without rumors that Army circles had "examined the advisability of announcing that a Jew had assassinated Hitler"--something which may yet be tried. On the surface of events in Berlin this week, Adolf Hitler had won by a single bold stroke a major victory of his career. It was particularly noticed that he had not made General Goering his War Minister. Instead the No. 2 Nazi, who has long and almost openly aspired to succeed Blomberg both as War Minister and as Field Marshal, was fobbed off last week by simply making him a Field Marshal, today the only one in Germany on active service. So far as "impossible" wives are concerned, Goering tied the Potsdam Code into pretzel shape and swallowed it when he married an actress with what is considered in Germany to be a Jewish name (Sonnemann), although she claims to be no Jewess. The Army swallowed her and it would have swallowed Blomberg's wife if she last week had really been the issue. She was not, and silly were news-stories which called her "The Mrs. Simpson of the German Crisis."

Secret Council. Nothing Adolf Hitler does is ever entirely simple, and last week he complicated his solution of the crisis by creating openly what he called a secret Cabinet Council "for the purpose of advising the Fuehrer in the conduct of foreign policy." Old Baron von Neurath, who had just been kicked out as Foreign Minister, was made the so-called "president" of this council, but into it went also new Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, Field Marshal Goering, Propaganda Minister Dr. Goebbels, Naval Chief of Staff Admiral-General Erich Raeder and Major General Wilhelm Keitel who was appointed last week Adolf Hitler's "deputy" as War Minister and Chief of the High Command.

In announcing this singular "secret Council," many of whose members hate each other like cats & dogs (e. g., Goering & Goebbels and Neurath & Ribbentrop), Adolf Hitler added an effusive declaration to its president, Neurath, emotionally declaring, "I cannot spare your services, even in view of your recent 65th birthday and 40 years of service. In the five years of our work together your counsel and your judgment have become necessary for me!"

This left European statesmen where Herr Hitler has always tried, generally with success, to keep them: guessing. If there was any logic in his appointment of Ribbentrop as Foreign Minister it was exactly opposite to the logic of appointing Neurath to be president of a unique new organ of state. On balance, however, the move distinctly favored Ribbentrop, for the civil service machine of German diplomacy now passes into his Nazi hands. None doubted in Berlin that from now on the restraining influence of Neurath will be felt only by fits and starts, as he may happen to influence the Fuehrer.

Adventurous, dynamic Ribbentrop, who was Ambassador to the Court of St. James until his appointment as Foreign Minister and whom the British deeply distrust, last week followed Adolf Hitler down to his Bavarian retreat. There they will chart new courses for Germany, and the Fuhrer will write his postponed speech to the Reichstag, now summoned to hear him on February 20. Those who fear a Nazi blow at Czechoslovakia were alarmed that the pro-Nazi Lieut.-General Walter von Reichenau was transferred to command the German Fourth Army Corps now stationed not far from the Czechoslovak frontier. The German Ambassadors to the other "Axis Powers" .(Japan & Italy) were ordered recalled by Hitler & Ribbentrop, increasing the impression that "something is being prepared." Recalled, too, was Ambassador Franz von Papen whose job in Austria has been to scheme to unite it with Germany by Anschluss.

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