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On April 12, 1945, when the Ninth Army reached the Elbe at Magdeburg, most of Hitler's army commanders were ready for surrender to the West because the whole defense system had broken down. We know this from postwar interrogations of high German civilian and military officers. This shows the error of appraisal that an American march to Berlin would cost 100,000 casualties. Of course, neither Eisenhower nor Bradley can be blamed, because they had to rely on intelligence reports. The miscalculation of the fighting power of the Nazi units when Germany was already completely disintegrated was no less a myth than the fiction stories of the "Alpine Fortress."
ROBERT M. W. KEMPNER Former U.S. Deputy Chief of Counsel in Nürnberg Lansdowne, Pa.
Selfless Zeal
Sir:
Only a severe space limitation could permit TIME, in its sensitive coverage of the tragedy of Dag Hammarskjold's death [Sept. 29], to omit all mention of Dr. Heinrich Wieschhoff, who was killed at the same time.
Dr. Wieschhoff, the director of the Department of Political and Security Council Affairs at the U.N., was the Secretary-General's African expert.
Few white men in the world knew as much about Africa as Dr. Wieschhoff. He earned a Ph.D. in African anthropology at Frankfurt, taught at the university's African Institute. He taught anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. During World War II he served as consultant on African affairs in the OSS. He wrote a number of scholarly books on African cultures and colonial policies.
Like his gifted superior, Dr. Wieschhoff was utterly selfless in his zeal for the welfare of others—one way to describe a saint? NARDI REEDER CAMPION Bronxville, N.Y.
Rutgers' Gain
Sir:
Whatever or whomever Stanford may have captured from Yale, it did not and will not take on Yale's Center of Alcohol Studies [Sept. 22]. Stanford is, however, the site of the Cooperative Commission on Alcoholism, which is a project within the university's Institute for the Study of Human Problems.
LYLE M. NELSON Director, University Relations Stanford University Stanford, Calif.
> New home for Yale's Center of Alcohol Studies: Rutgers University, in New Jersey.—ED.
Bats & Bears
Sir:
We have read with interest and not a little trepidation the article titled "Beware of Bats" in the Science section [Sept. 29].
Dr. Constantine spent well over two years here at Carlsbad Caverns, studying the resident colony of Mexican Freetail Bats and the outbreak of rabies which began in 1955.
We have kept in contact with him and are aware of the seriousness of the problem.
To prevent any direct contact with the bat colony, the roosting area of the Caverns has always been closed to the public. The Bat Flight Program has been observed by over 1,000,000 visitors. Here again, protection of the visitors and of the, bats has been observed by restriction of the visitors to an area not normally in the flight path.