Word: commandant
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...Brauchitsch became chief of Group Command 4 in Leipzig, the jumping-off place to the top jobs in the German Army. By then the Army was in a turmoil. Hitler was impatient to begin his grabs and the Army knew it was not ready. Loyalties were split between the Army and the Nazis, and there was sharp disagreement between those who were willing to back Hitler in a bluff and those who counseled delay. Brauchitsch kept mum, but when the purge came and Blomberg and Fritsch lost their jobs,* his good friend Reichenau recommended him to Hitler...
...General Brauchitsch is supposed to have told Adolf Hitler: "Mein Führer, if you want to use the Army to support a bluff by military pressure, you can depend on us. For more serious business, we are not yet ready." A few days later he had taken over command of the Austrian Army. In September 1938, he said the same thing in almost the same words-and marched into the Sudetenland at the head of the German troops. He occupied Bohemia and Moravia last spring, but still the Army was not ready. Last month, as motorized divisions began concentrating...
...kind of warfare that Germany is now waging, preparations are twofold, and the first preparation is defense. Without its Westwall, where a major battle was in progress last week (see p. 28), Germany might have been overrun almost as fast as it overran Poland. As soon as he took command of the Army, Brauchitsch began pressing for the completion of the fortifications in the West. Not until the Westwall was completed could Germany strike in the East. Hitler observed: "It will make the French Army a prisoner in France...
Douhet believed that early control of the air is essential for quick victory. This was proved in Spain, where Germany tested many theories and where Franco took two years to get control of the air, then won hands down. By 1937, when General Brauchitsch took command at Leipzig, it was already pretty clear that to deliver a lightning blow Germany needed not only a superlative air force, but plenty of motorized strength...
...Swiss frontier at Lake of Constance (see map). It has been under construction for three years and at one time last spring half a million laborers worked on it 20 hours a day. "The world's cannon and artillery cannot break through it," boasted the German high command as it was being rushed toward completion this summer. But in principle the new Siegfried Stellung is just a three-ring version of Colonel Lossberg's old zonal defense system...