same facies for Aloposing of oppeation 2s ators of the modern type have just the aid the tyrants of other days, and neither' Hitler nor Mussolini are entirely free from suspicion that they have, when it suited them, murdered, of brought about the suicide men. with, temerity enough to~ Oppose, their Ideas." Fritsch, it will be remembered, fell in the course of the Polish campaign. He had) been deprived of his command, and, ike Uriah the Hittite, had been sent into the forefront of the battle, where he was shot through the back, while facing the enemy. The fact that was subsequently given a ceremonial burial means nothing whatever. Fritsch had earned the displeasure of his leaders and he Was put out of the way just as neatly as was Roehm and his fellows in the infamous purge Which marked the early days of the Nazis in power, burial with. military honours, Was just another Nazi method of pleading not guilty to the indictment for murder which Swept round the world.
Mussolini will never be able to shake off the necusation of having caused the murder of General Balbo. 'That, remarkable flying man had captured the imagination of the Tlallan populace by leading the big Italian fight' tothe United States and back. He aroused Mussolini's Jealousy, was sent, to Libya where he met his death so the Italian Government told the world, in a flying cident. Balbo was inconvenient to Mussolini, might have been a possible contestant for Power and' so, using a phrase undoubtedly often on the lips of an Italian gangster in America, he was "rubbed out." General von Schroeder, commander of the German army of occupation in Yugoslavia, like Balbo, also) led "accidentally" recently, What he had @one to call down upon him the wrath of Hitler fe-not yet clear, but his death is said to have removed another German general who was by mo means happy over the exercise. by Hitler of what. his fawning followers venture to term his military genius.
The latest mysterious death is that of General "Ernst Udets, of whom American sources report that he committed suicide a short while ago after the commencement of the German invasion of Russia, The reason fatter opposition to. the Russian venture. ven, was that he supported Goering in the
Goerinig was apparently too powerful a man for Hitler openly. to deal with, but he went into something in the nature of retirement and for some seeks past little has been heat of him in' comparison. with the enormous publicity he formerly. enjoyed. But Udets was smaller fry, even though he was a close fstoclate of Goering's and had been since the last war. He, it is reported, was placed under protective arrest by Himmler's notorfous Black Guard." Deprived of his command he was officially said to be on leave. He Killed himself. Why he did s0 is not yet Known, but it is thought, that he feared ge-something worse than protective arrest, aid so from despair over the failure of' the Nazis to carry out the swift Blitzkrieg which they planned against the advice of their own military experts, The Nazis officially denied that Udets ha committed suicide, but, failing to follow a method which they adopted in other cases, they did not arrange for neutral press correspondents to see Udets in the flesh. They would undoubtedly have done so had they been able, for no better means could possibly be found of disproving what, it Udets jot dead, would be no more than a silly 'There may yet be other German generals, who. may disappear from the scene, for Goering and, Udets were not the only' ones who opposed the invasion of Russia with wisdom which is. daily becoming more apparent, Tt has been stated that unless Hitler can gin the day over the Russians before the autumn the Army will take over control in Germany. That would mean the elimination of Germany's evil genius, and the possibilities are that, as such a likelihood approaches, those German military leaders from whom his successor would probably be chosen will need to take every precaution against being murdered, or should it more aptly be. said "suicided."*
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.