Mucker

In 1909, when he was 17, he entered the guttural, drill-sharp barrack routine of the German Imperial Army. Then came the four grey years of World War I. After that Germany was a shambles of street fighting, depression, inflation. For flat-nosed, flabby-faced Theodor Eicke, the world was horrible; the only meaning in it was to claw his way over the others and reach the top of the muck heap.

Eicke joined Hitler in 1921, became Standartenjiihrer of the Palatinate Storm Troops. Later he helped found the fanatically brutal, black-shirted SS. In 1932, when he was caught trying to assassinate a democratic politician, he fled to Italy. When Hitler came into power, Eicke came home to head the SS Death's Head Brigade--the guards who tortured into pulp the minds and bodies of anti-Nazi Germans in the new concentration camps. Eicke was warden of Dachau, and there he was in his element: he meted out the most indecent punishments himself.

In France and Russia he successively commanded the SS Death's Head Panzer Division, and an Elite Guard armored-infantry Division. Last week a Russian bullet returned Obergruppenfuhrer Theodor Eicke to the muck.

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