Tuesday, April 17, 1945

The Charlotte News

Tuesday, April 17, 1945

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Germans had initiated a counter-attack against the approaching Ninth Army at the Elbe bridgehead established at Barby, five miles beyond the river, but were repulsed by the 2nd Armored "Hell on Wheels" Division and 83rd Infantry. The 2,000 German troops and 30 tanks had been moved from both Berlin and the Eastern Front to make the assault.

Another Ninth Army 2nd Armored unit accompanied by a 30th Infantry unit fought in strength against light resistance into Magdeburg, first entered April 11.

The Third Army captured Plauen, completing the bisection of Germany. An ultimatum of surrender had been rejected by the German commander of Chemnitz. Whether his reply was "Nuts!" is not provided.

The 90th and 20th Infantry Divisions advanced along a fifteen-mile front at the Czech border, as the 90th was within 4.5 miles of the frontier.

The First Army moved to within sight of Leipzig, capturing guns manned by German military mental cases, most of the Wehrmacht being indistinguishable, and women auxiliary troops. The 2nd "Indian Head" Division cleared Ranstadt, a suburb five miles west of Leipzig. The Ninth Armored Division moved into Rorsdorf, four miles to the east. The 69th Division moved against Leipzig from the south. Some 6,437 prisoners were captured.

From the Ruhr pocket, the First Army captured another 88,144 prisoners the day before.

The British had driven to within 30 miles of Hamburg and fifteen miles from the lower Elbe.

British tanks the day before had broken through barbed wire to liberate 20,643 Allied prisoners, including 2,644 Americans, from two separate camps, Stalag 11B and Stalag 357, side by side at Fallingbostel in northern Germany, near Walsrode.

More than half of Germany, 101,000 square miles, was now in Allied hands, either Russian or Anglo-American. Only 84,000 square miles remained under the control of the Reich.

During the previous 16 days of April, 3,699 Luftwaffe planes had been destroyed, including a whopping 1,116 just the previous day. The losses accounted for about half the reserve strength remaining to the German air force at the point the Rhine had been crossed at Remagen, March 8. Fully 486 had been shot down in combat. The Allies had lost 485 planes during the same period. All claims of kills were verified by Eighth Air Force review of reconnaissance films taken by cameras mounted on the fighter planes. The Germans had some 3,500 planes in reserve but no longer could get them into the air for want of fuel. Thus, they were sitting ducks.

The air war, for all intents and purposes, was over insofar as German air response.

Some 1,000 American heavy bombers attacked Dresden and along the Czech frontier.

Field Marshal Walther Von Model had committed suicide. He had commanded the Fifth Panzer and 15th Armies, Army Group G, now annihilated in the Ruhr pocket, nearly completely captured, with 253,000 prisoners taken, some of whom were policemen and some recently placed in uniform. His body had not yet been found. (It should be noted that Von Model's death marker in Germany lists the date of his death as April 21—which would make the Associated Press rather prescient.)

Whether Von Model met his "suicide" in much the same manner as had Field Marshal Erwin Rommel the previous October, that is by coercion of the SS, or committed an altruistic suicide, is not made clear. He had been previously a commander on the Eastern Front. It had not been determined whether recent reports that he had replaced Field Marshal Karl Von Rundstedt as Western Front commander were accurate.

Wes Gallagher reports from the Second Armored "Hell on Wheels" Division of the Ninth Army on the Elbe, that Friday the 13th had proved lucky for 50 American prisoners liberated from Shaken-Sleben, a German camp, most of them held for 27 months, veterans of the 34th Infantry Division and First Armored Division, defeated at Faid Pass in Tunisia on February 17, 1943 while under the command of General Lloyd Fredendal. The Second Armored had landed with them in North Africa in November, 1942.

One of the released prisoners had the spirit to ask to be allowed to search some of the German prisoners he saw being marched to the rear of the American lines. Though thin from starvation diets, all of those liberated were in good spirits.

They were especially enthused to see that in the two years since their green days in North Africa their fellow soldiers had learned how to fight and then some.

In Italy, the Fifth Army fought in heavily defended and mined areas south of Bologna, advancing in small increments of yards at a time. On the west coast, General Lucian Truscott's forces gained between a thousand and 2,500 yards, but on the right flank, advance was painstakingly slow. The General explained that the new offensive was to prevent the Germans from pulling much of their 25 divisions from Northern Italy back into Germany.

The British Eighth Army had been driving up the Po Valley prior to the Fifth Army advance begun the previous day, and had taken 6,000 prisoners since April 9 when it started its advance across the Senio River.

On the Eastern Front, the Russians had cut off the Seelow-Alt Friedland road at a point less than twenty miles northeast of Berlin, in the vicinity of Eberswalde, on the main highway to Stettin, and penetrated the German defenses beyond that point.

The First Ukrainian Army of Marshal Ivan Konev had launched a major offensive across the Niesse River to the south, along a 30-mile front from Forst to Rothenburg, in a drive to join with the Third Army. One crossing of the river had been effected at Niesky, 48 miles northeast of Dresden and 75 miles from the Third Army, while another was made 2.5 miles from Muskau, toward Spremberg, fifteen miles to the west on the Spree River, 46 miles northeast of Dresden and 76 miles from the First Army position at Wuersen. Another bridgehead had been established at Goerlitz, twelve miles southeast of Niesky.

Zisterdorf, 16 miles north of Vienna, had been captured by the Russians.

Ie Island, possessed of an airfield, three miles west of Okinawa, had been invaded by the Americans. The Japanese had been using the airfield for raids on American forces on Okinawa, but had crossed the field with trenches a few days earlier to render it immediately unuseable.

Planes from the American Task Force 58 struck the Ryukyus and Kyushu Island between Thursday and Monday.

Six waves of B-29's struck Kyushu on Tuesday, a total of 150 Superfortresses striking six airfields on the island.

Eleven B-29's had been lost from the raid of 400 on Tokyo the previous day.

Emperor Hirohito had generously donated to his ailing people 2.5 million dollars to repair bomb damage to the country. His humble and beneficent generosity obviously knew no boundary.

President Truman indicated at his first press conference as President that he was looking forward to meeting the heads of state of Great Britain, Russia, France, and China, but had not initiated as yet any such invitation. He expected to meet Foreign Commissar Molotov before the latter proceeded to the U.N. Conference in San Francisco, set to begin the following week. He was not planning to attend the conference—though he would ultimately address the body at its close following the formation of the Charter—and he stated that he would address the Conference by radio at its start.

He indicated his support for the Bretton Woods proposals to establish a World Bank and an International Monetary Fund.

In London, Deputy Prime Minister Clement Atlee, in July to become Prime Minister, stated in Commons that the British delegation would attend the United Nations Conference in San Francisco with an open mind, but intent on providing teeth to its enforcement mechanism by supplying it with an armed strength which could prevent aggression before it got out of the bag, that which had failed ensuing World War I.

Prime Minister Churchill delivered an heartfelt eulogy before Commons to President Roosevelt, "the greatest American friend we have ever known, and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world to the old." His death was a "bitter loss to humanity", but one which was "an enviable death", coming as it had on the eve of victory.

He told Commons that he had noticed at Yalta that the President was not in good health and that when they had parted at Alexandria, he "had an indefinable sense of fear that his health and strength were on the ebb." Yet, completing the 1,700 messages exchanged between them during the nearly five years during which Mr. Churchill had been Prime Minister, the last message recorded by the President, on the day of his death, "showed," he said, "no falling off in his accustomed clear vision and vigor upon perplexing and complicated matters."

He reiterated his personal sense of loss and keen friendship with the President, finding that his sense of the war had presaged most world observers on either side of the Atlantic, that he undoubtedly felt the Blitz of London more acutely than perhaps even Londoners, "for the imagination is often more torturing than reality."

At an earlier memorial service in St. Paul's Cathedral, attended by the King and Queen, the Prime Minister had broken down in tears.

On the editorial page, "Hope for Unity" expresses the belief that, while the loss of the President was irreplaceable and the grief immeasurable, there was the hope that from it, the country might become more unified. Issues which had arisen simply because of President Roosevelt's image, hated by many, adored by more, would likely dissolve and with them, the sharp edges of dissension.

It was, it assures, no discredit to FDR's memory, but rather simply a statement of fact that whenever he took a position, there were certain factions in the country which immediately came to the fore to rail against it, no matter how rational the position. There were members of Congress who had stood against the President because of the New Deal and their basic disagreement with its fundamental policy of large government helping the individual.

The piece believes that President Truman might effect a sounder relationship with the Congress of which, until January 20, he had been a member for a decade.

He had shown no hesitancy in going before Congress on Monday and addressing the membership in joint session. The editorial expresses the belief that President Truman would ask Congress for action, whereas President Roosevelt had told them what he wanted.

The result, it suggests, might be that the new President could achieve the goals of President Roosevelt with a facility, the result of such unity and mutual respect, which Mr. Roosevelt could not have ever accomplished.

The initial speech, lacking the polish and drama of his predecessor, was nevertheless obviously sincere and its seeking of sympathy and support forecasted positive relations in the future with the Congress.

"Let's Nix Franz" recommends putting captured Franz Von Papen, caught by the Ninth Army in the Ruhr the previous week, on trial for war crimes. Von Papen had headed the sabotage ring in America during World War I, leading a 40 million-dollar sabotage campaign, and had done so with impunity. He, along with industrialists Gustav Krupp and Fritz Thyssen, had helped to deliver the Reich into the hands of Hitler and the Nazis in 1932, and had been Hitler's mouthpiece for the duration of the Third Reich.

He had been responsible for the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, had tried to tender peace plans in Turkey and, earlier in the year, in Madrid, still acting as an apparent mouthpiece for Hitler. He was, insists the piece, a symbol of the evil of Germany.

It expresses the hope that he would be placed before a firing squad.

Though tried before the Nuremburg Tribunal for war crimes, Von Papen was acquitted on the notion that his offenses were political in nature rather than criminal. He thus escaped punishment and lived in comfort during his remaining years, dying in 1969 in Germany.

"Merger" comments on the amity established between the formerly warring factions of the Charlotte City Council, the Iron Dukes and the Blocks of Granite, their merger having been effected by Mayor Baxter. It was a good thing and inspired many to run for the Council who might have been deterred otherwise by the prospect of political dogfights. But, the unity also had with it the drawback that citizens who wanted to change things and get things done were no longer as apt to serve, which was why the unity would likely be short-lived.

The excerpt from the Congressional Record has Senator Lister Hill of Alabama and Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska explaining, in routine manner, the absence from the Senate of 25 Senators after 71, an unusually large number, answered present during a roll call to establish a quorum.

Drew Pearson comments on the pressure being brought to bear to let former Louisiana Governor Dick Leche, in prison for ten years for having purchased several hundred trucks for the State Highway Commission at a 10 percent surcharge, totaling $51,000, which was paid to him personally, out on parole and to drop other pending charges against him. He had served a third of his term and faced three other indictments, which included allegations of receiving a $15,000 boat, paid for by state funds, as a gift from a State Commissioner, using state materials and labor to construct buildings on his farm, and splitting $134,000 with Seymour Weiss from a hot oil deal on which the Governor was paid 10 cents per barrel, in exchange for selling to the arranger of the deal, Freeman Burford of Texas, a pipeline for $100,000, according to the Government, a disguised bribe to avoid applying extant Louisiana law against hot oil.

He next comments on the exchange in the House Foreign Affairs Committee between Republican Representative John Vorys of Ohio and Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas of California. To Mr. Vorys's remark that the war was about over in Europe, that only mopping up operations remained, Ms. Douglas, whose husband, Major Melvyn Douglas, the actor, was stationed in the India-Burma theater and had not been home in two years, responded that the war would be over when the husbands of American women would come home.

Among the "Capital Chaff" items, Mr. Pearson relates that so many German concentration camps were now being liberated that they were no longer making the news. The latest discovery had been an electric crematorium at Camp Shuthof in Alsace, designed by a Swiss manufacturer. The French had sought placement of this company on the war criminals list.

The Nazi gold bullion found, together with art treasures, in a salt mine in Merkers, was being held in Paris for the duration to avoid jurisdictional disputes with Germany after the war. The art treasures would likely be stored in New York for the time being.

A. I. Goldberg, substituting for Hal Boyle, provides a few of his impressions of the Seventh Army front. He had met up with Corporal Fred Rosenberg of Cleveland who had played first viola with the Cleveland Symphony. Now he was playing "Gypsy Airs" by Wieniawski, (or rather Sarasate), while serving as radio operator at Prosselsheim inside the Main River loop, east of Wuerzburg. He had come upon a rare Guarnerius violin and equally rare Tourte bow within the Festung Marienberg, the fortress overlooking Wuerzburg. He had turned them over to the AMG, received a receipt, and now was again playing his own violin which he had brought with him from his orchestral days in Cleveland under the baton of Artur Rodzinski. It was pock-marked with the initials of the G.I.'s in his outfit.

A woman Mr. Goldberg encountered knew Corporal Rosenberg from his time in the Cleveland Symphony and wanted to know how he was.

He next informs of meeting a distressed and bitter German woman, accusing the American soldiers of having bombed her out of house and home in Hamburg and pushed her to the south. She had looked at Mr. Goldberg, with his name printed in full on his helmet, with special detestation.

Samuel Grafton comments on the fact that the American people were wont in such times of the moment to invest in the new leader attributes of trust and wisdom, to make themselves feel secure during the inevitable insecurity of the interregnum, when the demise of one surrogate father needed the immediacy of replacement by another. He knew whereof he spoke, having lived through the death of President Harding in 1923.

The question was not so much, he suggests, what kind of President Harry Truman would make, but rather what the country would make of him. The country would afford him a honeymoon, something like the first Hundred Days of FDR in 1933. He would have virtual carte blanche in that period to accomplish that which he wanted out of the largess of the American people and the Congress. No one would seek to judge him for the first six months.

So, it would be incumbent upon the new President to assert the proposed membership to the U.N. and Bretton Woods agreements during that first hundred days. The country would defeat him on these critical issues only at peril of winding up with no leader for the remaining three and a half years afterward.

Not only was the country's will important, but so, too, was that of the new President.

Mr. Truman had, in Mr. Grafton's estimate, made a good start by getting right to the job even before President Roosevelt's funeral was complete, starting work in the White House offices right away. Some had criticized him for it; Mr. Grafton found it wholly fitting, assertive of the authority which was now his. He had immediately announced that the San Francisco Conference would proceed on schedule. He could have delayed addressing Congress for a week and no one would have blinked. Yet, had he done so, he would have appeared "tentative, faltering, uncertain". Instead, he now appeared willing to try to be President.

Having put the initial fear and awe of his responsibility out of his heart, the American people now owed it to him to displace the fear in their own.

President Johnson, no doubt recalling this lesson or having it recalled to him by advisers, would behave in like manner in the wake of the assassination of President Kennedy. The photograph appearing in newspapers Saturday morning of President Kennedy's famed pair of rocking chairs being loaded onto a truck outside the Oval Office resides in memory as bespeaking a seemingly callous and harsh immediacy to President Johnson's desire to move into the job. But, as in this time, the days were perilous, the questions of the motivation for the assassination, allegedly by a gunman who had defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, many, and thus the need to establish control of the Ship of State and not allow it to drift even for a day rudderless, imperative. Behind the scenes, President Johnson was humble and accommodating to Mrs. Kennedy, giving her all the time she desired to move the family from the residence quarters, already quickly vacated to a townhouse in Georgetown. The maneuvering to establish the Warren Commission as quickly as possible, also immediately ongoing, was an attempt to bring order to the investigatory process and squelch suspicions of a Soviet plot, even if, in its final effect, the precipitous investigation cut off full exposure of the facts surrounding the assassination, leading to decades of heightened suspicion of government, even of President Johnson himself.

Marquis Childs comments on the fact that speculation in hindsight would now begin to accumulate as to the state of President Roosevelt's health during the last year of his life. He comments that it had been an issue during the fall campaign. There had then been rumors that he had suffered a stroke, some even stating the precise date on which it had occurred. One had it that he had suffered a stroke on the day in April, 1944 just prior to leaving Washington for Hobcaw, the estate of Bernard Baruch in South Carolina, for a month-long rest. But Mr. Childs knew better, for on that date, he had talked with the President in person at the White House.

At that time, he had appeared a little tired and looked forward to some rest. But he had talked with ease for 90 minutes and shown no signs of infirm health. Mr. Childs saw no change from prior conversations, that he had been as sharp and incisive as ever.

He had discussed the goal of trusteeship for dependent colonial peoples, similar, the President had elaborated, to the situation in which a deceased husband leaves in trust to his wife the family estate, with a trustee left to run it. The nations with economic interest in the colonial dependencies would hold the trusteeship. He had encountered difficulty in convincing the various colonial powers to agree to this arrangement, reluctant to give up their privileges. The Dutch, however, had agreed to arrange self-government for the Dutch East Indies.

The President had also discussed his plans for the time following his presidency. He wanted to travel and write. He had been offered $75,000 per year by a magazine to provide one article per week, but he felt that too much.

At one point, he had related an amusing anecdote about the late Calvin Coolidge, during which he had performed his version of the New Englander's voice, which Mr. Childs had found entertaining.

At press conferences following the November election, the President had still appeared healthy and alert. In December and January, however, he had begun to appear tired and "visibly much older". He was especially tired prior to the trip to Yalta, which began just after the January 20 inauguration.

The President had undergone a check-up during the campaign, conducted by a distinguished physician having no connection to the Administration, in fact, a Republican, and, apparently, no indication of any ill health had been discovered.

Those who had seen him, however, just prior to his leaving for Warm Springs on March 30 had reported the President to have appeared "ghastly".

Mr. Childs concludes, "He was a man who had exhausted the store of his physical energy, and he paid the penalty."

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