The Mouthpiece Talks

Displaying a small white flag with a red cross on it, five men last week took a rowboat across the Elbe River to U.S. positions at Magdeburg. Out onto the shore stepped a jug-eared, thin-faced man in a carefully tailored Wehrmacht officer's uniform. He identified himself as Lieut. General Kurt Dittmar, "Mouthpiece of the Wehrmacht"--the highest ranking, most objective and (outside Germany) most seriously regarded war commentator on the German radio.

Dittmar said he wanted to arrange transfer of German wounded and civilians to the U.S. side. Major General Leland S. Hobbs, commanding the U.S. 30th Division, suggested that he make his humanitarianism official by persuading the Wehrmacht commander on the other bank to surrender. Dittmar was willing to try--but not to recross the river. He sent a note across. When no answer was forthcoming, he surrendered himself and his party, which included his 16-year-old son.

Thus safely captured, the mouthpiece talked. He said: 1) that the war really had been lost since last July 20, the day the bomb attempt on Hitler's life failed; 2) that Hitler and Goebbels were in Berlin, and probably would die there; 3) that Goring, who had been officially reported relieved of his Luftwaffe command because of "acute heart disease," was out of the picture--"Nobody talks about Goring any more"; 4) that Himmler was at Salzburg, in the national redoubt; 5) that the redoubt was an indefensible shadow fortress, a myth; and 6) that the war would not last more than a few days after Berlin's fall.

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