In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

122 9 hitler Takes power I knew quite well that there were rugged and trying years ahead for me in Germany. —Truman Smith, on events in 1935 The chief of staff’s enigmatic pronouncements must have puzzled Smith as he prepared to take up his post as military attaché. After all, MacArthur had been a brigadier general when just thirty-eight and superintendent at the United States Military Academy a year later. Smith was about to turn forty-two in 1935 when he had his audience with the great man. Others had noted that as early as 1911, MacArthur was inclined to “strike attitudes to impress the spectators.”1 In letters to his wife from the Pacific in World War II, General Robert L. Eichelberger, who referred to MacArthur as the “Big Chief” or “Sarah” (for Sarah Bernhardt, the histrionic actress), wrote, “Shortly after I arrived in Australia, General MacArthur ordered me to pay my respects to the Australians and then have nothing further to do with them,” a xenophobic or anti-British order akin to his warning that Smith not “end up in the British pocket.” MacArthur famously ordered Eichelberger to combat command with these words: “Bob, I’m putting you in command at Buna. Relieve Harding [Major General Edwin F. Harding, one of Marshall’s men, then commanding the 32nd Division]. . . . I want you to take Buna, or not come back alive.”2 One is inclined to recall admonitions about not sleeping with corpses and not coming back alive, particularly if conveyed melodramatically and directly by one’s Big Chief. Smith was disappointed by the two weeks of preparation spent in Washington in the Military Intelligence Division—after another monthlong voyage from Honolulu “on the aged army transport Republic, whose utmost speed was 12 knots.” That trip began in May and included social calls in San Francisco and Panama before hitler Takes power 123 ending in New York. He described his course of instruction on the duties ahead as “cursory and quite inadequate.” He learned something about codes and office administration, “but naught else.” He did, however, find his two weeks in Washington useful, in that he “saw at first hand how inadequately organized, staffed, and financed the Military Intelligence Division was.” The MID was, in his words, “the orphan branch of the General Staff and [of] the army as a whole and military attachés lacked prestige and were little regarded or listened to.” Colonel Barnett, chief of the attaché section of MID, had handpicked Smith because of his qualifications for the job, and he had figuratively twisted his arm by sending a second letter to encourage him to take the Berlin assignment. Kay, as noted earlier, had reservations , but that did not deter Truman. He knew the job was important , however inadequate the immediate preparation for it. Even as he was preparing for the posting, the press was reporting that a vast rearmament was under way in Germany. Smith declared, “I decided that come what might, I would make my voice heard in the War Department even from faraway Berlin.” Through his research and writing about Germany and Hitler at the Army War College and scanning current reports from the Berlin attaché’s office, Smith could tell that “the Hitler rearmament was not only large, but that a revolution was proceeding in matters of organization, weapons, techniques, and tactics. This realization spurred me on.”3 His appreciation of the hard work that lay ahead—to observe and report German rearmament and the military revolution that would strengthen Germany’s political position and possibly lead to war—contrasted sharply with the commonly held notion that attach és were engaged in a Noël Coward scene of cocktail parties, clever repartee, and elegant uniforms. Furthermore, Smith unfortunately arrived in Berlin after his predecessor, Colonel Jacob W. S. Wuest, had departed. That meant that Smith was denied the direct hand-over, debriefing, and useful insights he could have had from a man who had personally observed Hitler and the Nazis from 1929 to 1935, during which period they took and consolidated power. Further evidence that in MID one hand did not know what the other was doing was the fact that the Smiths were aboard a slow boat from Hawaii to New York just as Colonel Wuest was addressing officers of the War Department on 10 May 1935 regarding conditions in Germany. He reported that the German people strongly [18.220.106.241] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 00...

Share