Old Army, New Order

For the first time since the War, Germany last week found herself with an army and a War Minister. Celebrating the official promulgation of Germany's new conscription law, handsome grey-haired Lieut. General Werner von Blomberg dropped his title of Reichswehr (Realm's Defense) Minister and reassumed the pre-War title of Kriegsminister (Minister of War). The Reichswehr, too, dropped that name, which it has never liked, to become again Germany's Heer. To cap the day, Kriegsminister von Blomberg performed a little ceremony. He went out to the Invaliden Cemetery, laid wreaths on the graves of two significant heroes of Prussia's wars against Napoleon Bonaparte: General Gerhard von Scharnhorst, who introduced universal compulsory military training into Prussia, and General Hermann von Boyen, who beat French restrictions on the size of the Prussian Army by training successive batches of reserves for short periods.

Just how the new conscript law works was explained last week by youthful General Walter von Reichenau, a potent staff officer in the War Ministry.

Every German man between the ages of 18 and 45 is available for conscription. In wartime, women, too, can be drafted for special service.

Normally, at the age of 20, male conscripts will be called up for a full year of active service. Before that, however, they must have served a term in the Labor Service. After his year of active service the conscript is transferred to the First Reserve in which, until he is 35, he must assemble for annual inspections and reviews, serve at various times in maneuvers with active troops. From 35 to 46 he becomes a member of the Landwehr or Second Reserve, not to be called out except in times of national emergency but still liable for annual inspections.

Under the new law, the navy and air force will become corps d'elite, manned entirely by four-year volunteers.

No pure-blooded Jew may serve in Germany's conscript army but in time of war he may be given the honor of dying for his country. A-special military commission has been set up to decide the eligibility of ''part Jews" but these can never hope to rise even as high as corporal.

As in the old Reichswehr, no soldier in active service may marry without his commanding officer's permission, nor may he marry a Jewess or other than Aryan. Those even in the reserve who do so will lose their military rank. German citizens living in foreign countries are still liable for conscription. Pure-blooded Jews, criminals and the morally unfit are excluded from active service. The only ones exempted from military service are candidates for the Catholic priesthood who have already received at least a subdeacon's ordination. Unlike the old Prussian Army, officered exclusively by aristocrats, every conscript will have an equal chance at an officer's commission. Thus a new order of self-made soldiers will be introduced into the old Army setup of Kaiser Wilhelm.

First conscripts to be called will be those born in 1914 and 1915. Registration and organization into regiments will start immediately and the class of 1914 will actually be in uniform by Nov. 1. The class of 1915 will go into the Labor Service. Because, as in France, the War Babies of 1914-15 were few in number, the War Ministry last week announced that members of the classes of 1910 to 1913 may volunteer now for full year's active service, and all classes from 1900 to 1913 will be called up for short term reserve training.

When completed, Germany's new war army will consist of 36 divisions, or about 550,000 men.

Two things not at first apparent were that the new conscript law suddenly makes Kriegsminister von Blomberg one of the most powerful men in Germany, and means the end as a political force of Hitler's Brown Shirts. In the old Imperial Army the War Ministry was a purely administrative post. Not so that of Kriegsminister von Blomberg. Last week's law made him the actual commander of all Germany's armed forces, responsible only to Der Fuehrer in person. Under him and observing his orders will be General Werner von Fritsch of the Army, Admiral Erich Rader of the Navy, and rambunctious General Hermann Wilhelm Goring of the Military Air Corps.

It is expressly stated in the new army law that no soldier in active service may be a member of a political party, the National Socialist included. At the end of his active service the conscript will join, not the Brown Shirts or other private political armies, but a new veterans' organization known as the Soldiers' League, sworn to "closest co-operation with the active troops and military authorities and loyalty by former soldiers to their War Minister, who possesses the Fuehrer unlimited confidence."

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