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Crosswords. Something was certainly brewing in Germany and in the German Army. There were many indications that the Wehrmacht's Prussian aristocracy was fed up with Hitler intuition and Gestapo intrusion. But there were striking inconsistencies in the stories from Germany—the same kind of inconsistencies which have marked such reports since 1940. Example: a commonly accepted story has been that Haider & Co. fell out with Hitler over the Russian campaign and urged him to withdraw while there still was time. Yet Gustav Siegfried Eins, reporting Haider's dismissal, said the immediate reason was that last autumn he opposed a proposal to withdraw from Russia and concentrate on an all-out Mediterranean offensive. One change in Nazi command was apparently for merit alone: the Luftwaffe's new fighter chief, 30-year-old Gen eral Adolf Galland, was credited with upward of 100 enemy planes, had won the cherished Knight's Cross, and was now Germany's youngest general.
Propaganda Brew? Last week, for reasons known only to the Berlin Government, the official radio deliberately exaggerated the scope of recent changes. It "announced"' that 44-year-old General Hans Jeschonnek was now chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff, that Admiral Kurt Fricke had become chief of the Navy's General Staff. Actually, Jeschonnek has been chief of the Luftwaffe staff (under Inspector General Erhard Milch) since February 1939, and Admiral Otto Schnie-wind, whom Fricke allegedly replaced, has had another post (Fleet Chief) since 1941. Berlin, in short, was again manufacturing news for propaganda purposes.
Berlin would like nothing better than the impression abroad that Hitler and his generals will lose the war by fighting among themselves.