Nazi Shake-Up

Confusion in the German High Command brought a confusing week to 68-year-old Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt, German Supreme Commander in the west. First he received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, with a double-talk citation for "preventing the deployment of the enemy bridgehead into a battle of three fronts." Then he lost his job.

D.N.B. reported that Rundstedt had been relieved because of ill health, a plausible enough reason, had not the same agency's correspondents, two weeks earlier, reported on his "firm, healthy stride." But observers in Allied and neutral countries could see other reasons: 1) the invasion had neither been stopped on the beaches nor hurled back into the sea by the man specifically picked for the job 27 months ago; 2) despite his high professional standing, Rundstedt had long been considered politically unsound from the Nazi point of view; 3) he and his field commander, the Nazi favorite Marshal Erwin Rommel, had disagreed sharply on tactics.

Adolf's Warning. Hitler himself may have hinted at the dismissal a week earlier when he attended the state funeral of stanch Nazi General Eduard Dietl and delivered an oration which included a significant appeal and threat to other Wehrmacht commanders:

"General Dietl, this faithful and true friend, has been my unflinching supporter among the German officer corps. . . . May Dietl's attitude stand forth as a shining example for many German officers and generals. . . . May they learn to radiate faith, to inspire confidence in any circumstances, especially in times of crisis. May they dismiss any thought that our struggle, behind which is the fanaticism of the entire nation, could end otherwise than victoriously, no matter how the situation might look just now."

Rundstedt could scarcely pass a fanaticism test. A devout and amoral Junker, he gives his basic loyalty to the German military tradition rather than to the Nazi Party. After his dismissal last week, a Stockholm rumor promptly had him under house arrest. More probably he retired to his country place in Bad Nauheim with his phonograph records (all military marches by brass bands) and his collection of buttons and epaulets of all the world's armies.

Adolf's Choice. Rundstedt's unenviable place in the west was taken over by Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, a slow-moving, 61-year-old officer who had done some fair to good defensive fighting in Russia up to last autumn. A Junker himself, dour Kluge, whom German soldiers call "Melancholy Baby," is a commander of considerably less standing than Rundstedt, may give Marshal Rommel a freer hand.

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