Will Germany Repeat

World War I Murders?

By, HARLOWE R. HOYT providing only that someone else does the dying. It is known that the underground stored up a tremendous supply of arms and amBa-munition before the end of the war, just as they did before the armis tice of World War I; and it may be that they are amply prepared to take organized action, once the bars are let down and the restraining forces are withdrawn.

Significant is the news item emanating yesterday from Berlin to the effect that Dr. Wilhelm Hoogner, German minister-president of varia, is yelling lustily for help. The good doctor is laboring under the belief that he has been marked for assassination.

According to the Hoogner statement, a political plot afoot is to murder all Germans who associate with the armies of occupation and the Allied forces seeking to bring order out of chaos.

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That Bormann should be the one Nazi leader to stick it out and continue his resistance-providing, of course, that Bormann is alive-borders somewhat on the height of the Head of the plot, so the doc-ridiculous. Himmler might have tor continues, is none other than Martin Bormann, variously reported to have died with Hitler when Berlin fell; to have fled the city on that day; to have been bombed and drowned, and to have fallen into alien hands.

Whatever his fate. Bormann is very much alive. according to Hoogner's information. and heads a pack of 40,000 S. S. men, designated as the "Edelweis Pirates." This gang of underground workers has marked down 400 prominent German officials with intent of eliminating them from the face of the earth. What bothers Hoogner is that, like Abou Ben Adhem, his name leads all the rest.

Possibilities

been the one but, like Goebbels, he chose to go the way of all flesh. Rudolf Hes certainly could have played the role had he not flown into a trap laid for him by the British Secret Service. Any of a dozen might have done so. But Fate cast a part which, it is said, has fallen to Bormann.

Small Fry

For Martin Bormann was distinctly small fry. When Hess joined Hitler in 1923, his job was to spy on the new recruits and krep the old ones in line. Supervising the S. A. was Bormann, and the actual task was assigned to him by Hess. | When Capt. Franz Pfeffer was supreme leader of the S. A., Bormann had been his right-hand man. He was a tough baby who had served a year for participation in political murders and he made a big play about the homosexual inclinations of the Roehm crowd.

How well founded may be Hoogclaim ner's is something else again. It is possible that the story has been cooked up to help clear the skirts of the chosen 400 and so place them beyond the shadow of suspicion. ። pirates are Bormann set out to get Roehm thought to be gunning for them it and his crowd. He collected enough might go a long way to re-estabevidence to convict all of them for lish them in the good graces of the life and 29 years besides. He passed Allies. his material on to Hem who in And then, again, it may be true.turn dinned it into Hitler's The Hitler Youth roundup of March : The content was that Roehm last proves that many of the young building a personal following Nazis are bent on raising mer:7 : that he might soon take over the hell and only waiting for an opleadership to the disgruntlement of portunity to commit some overt act the Hitler elan. that really is a honey. The American officers there are not

but thees may make up the

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ready to de and

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By this Bormann gained first attention. Roehm, of course, whi murdered in his cell and Bormann. than before. became

more

I

trusted aide of Hesɛ. And when beetle-browed Rudolf made his flight across the channel, it was Martin Bormann who was given more authority than he ever had dreamed.' And so it came that he was with Hitler until the final hour. After that—nothing is known for a certainty.

But Bormann or no Bormann, Hoogner believes that political murders are in the offing as when the ill-fated Third Reich was riding to destruction.

(This is the first of three articles)