Inward Call

In one of the weirdest proclamations in his extended career of weird utterances, Adolf Hitler last week fired Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch and himself took over the job of Commander in Chief of the German Army: "When the Fuehrer on Feb. 4, 1938 assumed commanding power over the whole armed forces, this was done out of concern for the then threatening military struggle for the freedom of the German people. "In addition, the realization of an inward call and his own will to take upon himself the responsibility weighed with the statesman Adolf Hitler when he resolved to be his own generalissimo.

"The course of this war has more & more confirmed recognition of this fact, but it was fully shown only when the campaign in the east assumed proportions which exceeded all past notions. . . ." Adolf Hitler was doubtless concerned by the turn of events in Russia.

At worst, he may have feared that his Army, suffering simultaneously the numbing sensations of cold and defeat, might turn on him, its Frankenstein.

At the least, he could not forget that it was not the State but the Imperial German Army which, in 1918, decided that enough was enough. Adolf Hitler would never have enough.

Like Hitler's appeal to his people through the voice of Joseph Goebbels (see p. 2j), Hitler's appeal to his men on assuming his new command showed the full measure of his uneasiness.

He said: "Germany's battle is now approaching its culminating and turning point." He alluded to Japan as a "comrade in arms" and said: "The present war is now entering upon a new and favorable stage for us." Because of the sudden onset of winter, he said, the armies in Russia must now be brought from "mobile progress into a stationary front." Adolf Hitler's Army was on the defensive. So was he.

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