2. Hitler had no
courage to surrender alive, and he had no courage to shoot himself either.
After his wife had taken poison, he had to kill himself, but he had no courage
to pull the trigger of revolver and had to call a General to shoot himself .
( 20 ) A
Sensible
Generals of Hitler.
It is also not
a fact that all the Generals of Hitler
were cruel , and had no sense of humanity. I am going to tell you stories of at least two such Generals who defied Hitler to save lives of their soldiers.
General
Guderian
In December 1941, when war was in full swing, the armies
under Guderian were surrounded by the Russian forces.
Now Guderian was
Field Marshal and was in charge of the Eastern ( Russian ) Front . On March 28, Guderian again went to
the bunker where Hitler was staying , met him
( 20
) The
Great Sacrifice of a German General’s Wife
General von Dexter
and his courageous wife Aloise
The year was
1944 , when the American, British, and
Russian forces were threatening German main land. Hitler had virtually lost the
war but was adamant to accept defeat and
wanted all German soldiers and officers to lay down their lives for a defeated
cause. Some of his Commanders sensing
defeat , simply put up a show of
resistance , but conducted talks with the advancing Allies for favorable terms
of surrender. When Hitler knew such instances , he flew into a rage and wanted
to teach a lesson to the surviving Generals
in case they ever thought of surrender. For Hitler the lives of soldiers
had no value now and it was better for them to die as they had not fought valiantly and so , they should die. Such was
his perverted thinking. In fact on 22
March 1944, he ordered destruction of all industrial areas of Ruhr, electricity
installations,, water works, gas works and all food and clothing stores before the enemies captured them. His War
Production Minister Albert Speer, was so much horrified that he contacted the
German Generals not to carry out this order of Hitler. Speer was called by
Hitler and as usual gave a long lecture to him, then spoke “ The war is lost , the people will be lost
also. It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for survival. On the contrary , it is best
for us to destroy even these things. For
the nation has proved to be the weaker ,
and the future belongs to the stronger Eastern nation ( Russia )In any
case only those who are inferior will
remain ( survive ) after this struggle,
for , the good have already been killed .
“ ( pp 230
Hitler : Military Commander
by Rupert Matthews )
Such was the
mentality of a dictator who ruled most
of Europe .
When the German Armies suffered heavy losses and the war
turned tables on Germany, the German
Commanders started thinking sensibly and
in some cases there were surrenders before the advancing American and British
Armies. Hitler wanted to stop this mentality and issued ordinance that stipulated that the families of such Generals, Officers who
surrendered or did not put up best efforts , will have to be either shot or
sent to Concentration Camps ( labour jails ). In other words the families of
the German officers fighting in armed forces were to be regarded as hostages,
this order assumed legal sanctity as Hitler was duly empowered
by amended Constitution to issue such
orders and with its pronouncement, it became law. This was called the
Law of Hostages.
General von
Dexter’s family composed of 5 members, 1. himself. 2. his wife Aloise, sons 3.
Friedrik von Dexter 4. Lothar von Dexter 5. Ernst von Dexter .
Out of these 1.
Friedrik , the youngest was killed in El
Alamein ( Africa ) 2. Lothar was killed at Stalingrad in Russia and 3. Ernst was
killed in Rostow in Russia.So now
he and his wife Aloise remained in the family.
General von
Dexter received order of posting at
Montravil, on the Belgian frontier on the English Channel coast , he would be Commanding Officer there and
Aloise would remain as hostage at home in village.
In military
terminology then, this place was designated as fortress and it was expected of
the soldiers to live fighting and die there. No escape or
surrender. There was no choice , either
you get killed or your families are shot.
Hitler had
devised another method of spying on the Generals, he posted officers from SS , hard core loyalists as
their superiors, and one Grupepenfuhrer
Frey was to be his superior.
The German forces
numbering thousands were encircled by American army , and there was no hope for
them, either be killed in military action
or be killed by SS men here , in fact two soldiers who attempted to
escape were caught and a court martial held and they were to be shot within
hours.
The news of
this predicament of the German Army
facing massacre at the hands of the Americans was broadcast by radios and papers and Mrs.
Aloise Dexter came to know of it as many days had passed after von Dexter had joined duties there. She
knew that there was no hope for the encircled German army , and her husband could not surrender
fearing her safety at home. The options were very cruel and either of them were
to be killed and along with von Dexter
ten thousand German soldiers were also destined to die. In
any case he can not attempt escape or surrender but would die fighting for a
lost cause .
On the 17th day of the seize, the
attacking forces launched a devastating attack , von Dexter was injured .If Dexter was killed
his superior Frey was to sacrifice the entire garrison of 10,000 soldiers , he was a true disciple of Hitler and meant
business of war well.
A German plane
flied over head and dropped a medal for von dexter for resisting the onslaught
of the American forces and a letter from Mrs. Aloise Dexter. General Dexter was
too tired but in the light of a candle read the letter from his wife. It read :
“ My
dearest - This letter brings you every good wish and my deepest love , you know you have had during all the years of our marriage. But, dearest, I am afraid this letter is going to add to your unhappiness. I have bad news for you..
No comments:
Post a Comment