The Collector of Opinions

GERMANY The Collector of Opinions

From every nook in Germany they came. There were 119 generals and 40-odd colonels--much of what is left of the stiff-necked high command of Hitler's Wehrmacht. They met early this month in a smoke-filled beer hall in the U.S. zone city of Stuttgart; their host was a self-styled "aristocrat and man of the world": Ernst von Reichenau, brother of the Nazis' famed Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau.

Most of the brass were the kind whom Bonn promises to bar from the new German army, or would be vetoed by other nations under the terms of the European Army Treaty. Typical was Luftwaffe Colonel Hans Ulrich Rudel, the one-legged Panzerknacker (tankbuster) whom Goering improbably credited with one Russian battleship, two heavy cruisers and 532 Red army tanks in 2,500 sorties. Decorated with the Wehrmacht's highest combat honors,* Rudel escaped to Buenos Aires at war's end, sold his memoirs (Nevertheless . . .) and, despite his wooden leg, bested all comers as tennis player, swimmer, skier and mountaineer.

In Stuttgart's smoky beer hall, Panzerknacker Rudel seemed to feel that he was back in the Stuka dive bomber with the European Army (EDC) as his target for the night. "We cannot join these Western schemes," he shouted. "[They would mean] the immolation of the German people . . ." Added General Adolf Wolf: "America wants to use us as additional horses . . ." Anyone who cooperates with such designs, said Wolf, "will expose himself . . . as a man without honor or comradeship."

After five hours of speeches, and much eating and drinking, Host von Reichenau rose to speak. He offered the assembly a program: reject the European Defense Community, reunite Germany, cooperate with the East. One man alone rose in opposition. To General Kurt von Tippel-skirch, onetime corps commander on the Russian front, Reichenau's plan seemed suicidal. "We have been reproached here for lack of courage [to fight against the European Army]. I take courage to speak now even at the risk of finding no applause. A state without power never in its life will get back its rights. The Russians will never give us back the [rest of Germany] if we have no power." General Tippelskirch's argument: only in the European Army can Germany find strength. Hastily Host Von Reichenau withdrew his program, but predicted that it would yet be approved by most of the officers present.

Intrigued by the question of where Von Reichenau, publisher of a money-losing monthly, got the cash for his "old soldiers' private soiree," and by the Moscow echoes in his speech, Allied Intelligence agents questioned him last week. Reichenau's explanation: he had salted away $1,000 a month during his 20-year stint as a military adviser to the Chinese Nationalists. Protested Von Reichenau: "It is absurd to accuse an aristocrat of cooperating with Communists . . . As others find pleasure in theater and dancing . . . I am a collector of soldiers' opinions."

* Golden Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

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