The Fat's in the Fire

Reichsmarshal Hermann G&246ring surrendered in state. The 36th Infantry Division's assistant commander, Brigadier General Robert Stack, met him by appointment on a country road in Bavaria, saluted smartly, and escorted him to division headquarters. Major General John E. Dahlquist, who is proud of his German, dismissed an interpreter, led the Reichsmarshal to a command trailer, and conversed with him in dignified privacy. Afterward the biggest Nazi scoundrel so far bagged by the Allies lunched on chicken, changed into a fresh uniform with twelve medals, and put up for the night at a nearby castle with Frau G&246ring.

A few days later G&246ring met the Allied press. Fifty-odd newsmen (and some visiting Mexican generals) saw him seated under a pepper tree in Augsburg, fidgeting with a pair of sky-blue gloves. The sun was hot; so were some of the questions. G&246ring sweated, constantly mopped his brow with a rumpled handkerchief. But he lost his composure only once, when a correspondent asked: "What about the Reichsmarshal's statement that if 'the Allies ever bombed Berlin, 'my name is Meyer'?" G&246ring reddened, mopped, fell silent.

Mostly the newsmen let him tell his story as he saw fit. Under the pepper tree, and in interviews with his military captors, he composed a fantastic tale.

For the Defense. According to G&246ring, only G&246ring made any sense in the Nazi hierarchy, and only he understood the Allies. Hitler was "narrow and ignorant." Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Reich's deposed Foreign Minister, was "a scoundrel." Rudolf Hess, a prisoner since he flew to Britain in 1941, was an unpredictable eccentric. After the attempt to kill Hitler last July, even Heinrich Himmler fell from grace. At the last, the man closest to the Fuehrer was Martin Bormann.

On April 24, said G&246ring, he asked Hitler to let him take over the collapsing Reich and negotiate a surrender to the Allies. According to" one of Hitler's stenographers, the Fuehrer had already nominated G&246ring for his job (see FOREIGN NEWS). G&246ring's own account differed: he said that Hitler raged, condemned him to death, reprieved him when G&246ring promised to give up all his honors and titles*

At Berchtesgaden, G&246ring added, the SS seized him and would have killed him if loyal Luftwaffe men had not rescued him. Just when he found time to arrange the loading of a 20-car armored train with looted art and treasure, G&246ring did not say.

The Prosecution. The stories of G&246ring's treatment angered a lot of Britons and Americans. "Once and for all," cried the London News Chronicle, "Hermann G&246ring is an evil, cruel murderer." In the U.S., the usually mild Christian Science Monitor thundered: "Here is no captive entitled to the usual military courtesies. This man has murdered and plundered on an international scale." Said Pennsylvania's Democratic Congressman D. J. Flood: "This schweehturnie...."

Goering himself was none too happy. He was said to feel that a dignitary of his importance should have been taken straight to General Eisenhower. After his first, bemedaled showing in news pictures, later photographs revealed him in a dingy uniform, without medals (see cut}. In London, the molasses-slow United Nations War Crimes Commission classed Hermann G&246ring as a No. 1 war criminal, said that he faced "an airtight case" on at least eight counts.

Thoroughly angered, General Eisenhower this week announced: "My attention has been called to press reports of instances of senior United States officers treating captured Nazi and high German officials on a 'friendly enemy' basis. Any such incident has been in direct violation of my express and long-standing orders. Drastic measures have been set in motion. -... In the name of this great force and on my own. I regret these occurrences."

*Among his titles: Marshal of Greater Germany; Infantry General of the Reichswehr; Min ister of Aviation; Director of State Theaters & Operas; Hunting Master of Germany; and Chief Forester of the Reich.

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