HERMANN REINECKE:Yes.
JUDGE HARDING:Was the Indictment in the German language served upon you at least thirty days age?
HERMANN REINECKE:Yes.
JUDGE HARDING:Have you read the Indictment?
HERMANN REINECKE:Yes.
JUDGE HARDING:How do you plead to this Indictment, guilty or not guilty?
HERMANN REINECKE:Not guilty.
JUDGE HARDING:You may be seated. Proceed.
THESECRETARY-GENERAL: The defendant Walter Warlimont.
JUDGE HARDING:Walter Warlimont, are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?
WALTER WARLIMONT:Yes.
JUDGE HARDING:Was the Indictment in the German language served upon you at least thirty days ago?
WALTER WARLIMONT:Yes.
JUDGE HARDING:Have you read the Indictment?
WALTER WARLIMONT:Yes.
JUDGE HARDING:How do you plead to this Indictment, guilty or not guilty?
WALTER WARLIMONT:Not guilty.
JUDGE HARDING:You may be seated.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Secretary-General, you may call the next defendant.
THESECRETARY-GENERAL: The defendant Otto Woehler.
THE PRESIDENT:Otto Woehler, are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?
OTTO WOEHLER:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:Was the Indictment in the German language served upon you at least thirty days ago?
OTTO WOEHLER:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:Have you read the Indictment?
OTTO WOEHLER:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:How do you plead to this Indictment, guilty or not guilty?
OTTO WOEHLER:Not guilty.
THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated. Mr. SecretaryGeneral, call the next defendant.
DR. FROHWEIN:If Your Honors please, I am Dr. Frohwein, and I am the defense counsel for the last defendant, who is Oberstatsrichter Dr. Lehmann.
I put the motion that the Tribunal rule that this defendant, Dr. Lehmann, will not be tried, and that the charge against this defendant be rejected because inadmissibliity.
I will briefly give my reasons for this motion. Dr. Lehmann was an American prisoner of war. He was not taken prisoner as a soldier, but he was formally arrested. He was brought into an American internment camp with a report on this arrest. He remained under arrest in the prison in Nuernberg. During the time of his imprisonment in Nuernberg, from 16 October 1946 until 12 May 1947, the Prosecution carried out an investigation of his person. For three months he was kept in solitary confinement. Concerning these investigations a report was made to the Prosecution. Thereupon, however, no charge was made, but instead Dr. Lehmann was brought, first of all, to a prisoner of war camp, and on the 30th of June 1947 he was released and set at liberty. For this reason, under Article III-1-d of Control Council Law No. 10, he cannot now be tried. This provision reads as follows: "The occupying authorities are entitled to put those persons arrested and requested before a court competent for such a proceeding, inasmuch as they are extradicting to another authority if a proper charge has been made. But if accordance with this provision anyone has been arrested either extradicted or freed, the authorities can no longer try him." The meaning of this sentence is whoever has been arrested can be put before a court by the occupying authorities if a proper charge has been raised against such a person. However, if a person is under arrest and is then either released or extradited to another power, then the occupying authorities can no longer put this person before a court. Therefore, if an investigation has taken place and the prisoner has been released, then the proceedings can no longer be carried out.
The Prosecution in this case has had time and opportunity to reflect and decide on their final resolution. Since this defendant was released the Prosecution is bound to this decision which was their own. I, therefore, consider that the trial of and charge directed against Dr. Lehmann is not admissible.
I have not been able to submit this motion in writing to the Secretary General because it was only this morning that I was admitted as defense counsel, although I had authority, and on the 12th of December reported as defense counsel, although I am contained in the list of those defense counsel admitted, which list the defendants received simultaneously with their Indictment.
THE PRESIDENT:The counsel states that he has not filed this motion. The motion should be filed with the Secretary General, and inasmuch as there is ample time without delaying the trial the Prosecution can answer under the rules, and if the Court deems it necessary the matter will be set for argument. Otherwise the motion will be ruled upon by the Court at or previous to the trial.
Mr. Secretary General, you may proceed with the next defendant.
THE SECRETARY GENERAL:Defendant Rudolf Lehmann.
THE PRESIDENT:Rudolf Lehmann are you represented by counsel before this Tribunal?
DEFENDANT RUDOLF LEHMANN:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:Was the Indictment in the German language served upon you at least thirty days ago?
DEFENDANT RUDOLF LEHMANN:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:Have you read the Indictment?
DEFENDANT RUDOLF LEHMANN:Yes.
THE PRESIDENT:How do you plead to this Indictment -- "guilty" or "not guilty?"
DEFENDANT RUDOLF LEHMANN:Not guilty.
THE PRESIDENT:You may be seated.
THE SECRETARY GENERAL:May it please the Honorable Tribunal, all the defendants are present in Court.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Secretary General have all the defendants pled to this Indictment?
THE SECRETARY GENERAL:Yes, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:The pleas of the defendants will be entered by the Secretary General in the records of the Tribunal.
THE SECRETARY GENERAL:Yes, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:Mr. Secretary General, is there any further matter, so far as you know, to be brought before this Tribunal at this time?
THE SECRETARY GENERAL:No, your Honor.
THE PRESIDENT:There being no further business, the Tribunal will recess to a date to be later determined.
(THE TRIBUNAL ADJOURNED AT 1040 TO RECONVENE UPON CALL OF THE TRIBUNAL) Official Transcript of the American Military Tribunal in the matter of the United States of America against Wilhelm von Leeb, et al.
, defendants, sitting at Nurnberg, Germany, on 5 February 1948, 0930-1630, the Honorable John C. Young presiding.
THE MARSHAL:The Honorable, the Judges of Military Tribunal V-A. Military Tribunal V-A is now in session. God save the United States of America and this honorable Tribunal. There will be order in the court.
THE PRESIDENT:Has the Marshal ascertained if all of the defendants are present?
THE MARSHAL:May it please Your Honors, all defendants are present in the court room, with the exception of the defendant von Roques, who is absent in the hospital.
THE PRESIDENT:You have no formal Report from the hospital at this time?
THE MARSHAL:No, sir.
THE PRESIDENT:Pending the receipt of a formal report the proceedings in this cause will go forward. After some considerable delay following the constitution of this tribunal and the selection of its personnel, this case now stands for trial. I will repeat what I had to say, in case it may not have been he ard. After some considerable delay following the constitution of this tribunal and the selection of its personnel, this case now stands for trial. It is understandable that such delay has occasioned some impatience on the part of the members of the tribunal, but notwithstanding such impatience they realize and have recognized that in a matter of the magnitude and importance of the action upon which we are entering, it would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible to have forecast the exact time when it might be undertaken. Some of counsel who will be engaged in the defense in this case have been engaged until last night in another case of equal importance, and the Tribunal, recognizing such fact, delayed opening this case that they might be free to render a full and proper service to their clients in the case they have just concluded and also to render a like character of service to their clients in this case from its very beginning. The judges on this case are aware of the gravity and importance of the issued involved in this case and in others like it, Thye are aware of the responsibility that rests upon them to ascertain, by the exercise of all the care of which they are capable and by use of all the ability they possess, what are the asserted facts relied upon to sustain the Prosecution's case, what are the asserted facts relied upon by defendants to sustain their defense, and out of this conflict - for there is always such a conflict in any legal forum - determine what are the true facts, and then to determine the law applicable to the true facts as they find them, and then render the tribunal's judgment accordingly.
The three judges who sit do not alone constitute the tribunal. Counsel for the Prosecution, counsel for the Defense, and the Secretary and other administrative and executive officers also are constituent and necessary parts of the tribunal, without which it could not, in any true sense, function as a court of law or render a judgment that would even approximate justice. Believing that all the constituent branches that make up the complete tribunal understand their functions and sense their responsibilities, it is the hope of the judges, and speaking for them, I urge upon all of you, that each separate functioning branch of the tribunal cooperate to the fullest extent possible with all other branches of the Tribunal to the end that there may be a proper and expeditious presentation both of the case and the defense, to the end that there may come out of this case the result that should be sought by all right-thinking men in any judicial forum: a judgment that on the facts and the law as nearly as possible approximates justice.
There are three preliminary and interloautory matters requiring disposition before the commencement of the trial. Each of these is covered by a written order of which doubtless both the Prosecution and Defense will be given copies, but that the issues may be determined at the proper time in this proceeding, I shall read the orders, which are short, as prepared for the record.
The first is an order on the motion attacking the competence of the tribunal.
The Court's order is as follows, omitting for the reading the formal caption on the order:
"The motion for the discharge of defendant von Leeb and the other defendants in this case, filed the 30th of December, 1947, on the ground of the incompetence of this Tribunal to try said defendants has been ably briefed by learned counsel for the movants, who are to be commended for their industry and ingenuity. The majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in re: Yamashito, 327 U.S. Reports, page 1, held that Part III, Article 63 of the Geneva Convention, relied upon by movants as supporting their motion, was applicable only to judicial proceedings directed against a prisoner-of-war for offenses committed while a prisoner-of-war, While this case may not be an authority binding us, we think the reasoning of the case is sound and therefore we concur in and adopt it as the law of this case. This makes it unnecessary to consider the other matters raised in opposition to the motion. Said motion is not well taken and the same should be and is overruled."
Here are the written orders -- or is the written order for the Secretary on that motion.
The second is an order on the motion for dismissal of defendant Lehmann from this cause. Emitting the formal parts of the order, it is as follows:
"Defendant Lohmann's motion for discharge, filed the 6th of January, 1948, is not well taken. The fact that said defendant was arrested, detained, investigated, interrogated, and then released, does not operate as a bar to a prosecution subsequently initiated. Article III, Section 1 (d) of Control Council Law No. 10 relates to the procedure to be followed by the occupying authority and does not confer any substantive rights on the accused or make applicable the defense asserted by the motion. The motion is over-ruled."
Here are the written copies of the order for the Secretary's file.
The third is the order on the report of defendant von Leeb's medical examination pursuant to application for the same by his counsel. Omitting the formal parts, the order is as follows:
"Pursuant to application by his counsel, Dr. Hans Laternser, for medical examination of defendant von Leeb to ascertain whether said defendant's health is such that he is fit to stand trial, the Tribunal on the 9th of January, 19-8, directed that such medical examination be made and the findings reported to the Tribunal. Compliance with said directive has been had. The said report does not disclose a health condition of said defendant such as to unfit him to stand trial for and to present his defense to the offenses charged. It is therefore ordered by the tribunal that said defendant von Leeb shall stand trial for the offenses charged against him in the indictment in this case."
These are the copies of the order for filing in the Secretary's records.
Late on February the third there was filed in this cause an application on behalf of defendant Walter Warliment with respect to the appointment of counsel. The tribunal has given some consideration to that, but is not at this time prepared to announce its decision, That decision will be announced very shortly, and pending our determination on any further action in the matter, his present counsel will continue to represent him before this Tribunal. That concludes, so far as the court is advised, the preliminary matters that should be disposed of in this session. If there are no other matters the prosecution may proceed with the opening statement.
GENERAL TELFORD TAYLOR:If it please Your Honors. Your Honor, the Prosecution will observe the injunctions of the court laid down this morning, and as to the matter of expedition, it is our estimate that we can put in the Prosecution's case in less than twenty trial days.
Your Honors, This year is the three hundredth since the end of the Thirty Years' War, which once was thought the most destructive in the history of man, and Nuernberg lies among its battlefields; a few miles from here Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein fought at the "Alte Feste". These thirty years left much of Germany devastated, and dislocated its economy for decades, But all that misery was the merest trifle compared to the havoc recently wrought in six short years, throughout Europe and the Orient.
The comparison between 1648 and 1948 is not original, and few will openly dispute its cogency. Men at war have ceased to toy with popguns and have taken to hurling thunderbolts, and civilization can no longer afford such self-mutilation.
It was the acute awareness of these truths, forced upon us by the first World War, which has led to the general condemnation of those who wilfully launch a war of conqoust as criminals in the deepest and most serious sense.
These proceedings at Nuernberg, in which crimes against peace are charged, are vitally important because the principles to be applied here are man's best protection against his own capacity for self-destruction. When we say that aggressive war is a crime, we mean it to exactly the extent to which we are prepared to treat it a criminal in a judicial proceedings. No principle deserves to be called such unless men are willing to stake their conscience on its enforcement.
In this proceeding, we ask the Tribunal to test the conduct of men who stood at the top of the German profession of arms. In most countries, arms is one among a number of callings. It is a respected and honorable occupation, and it will be an absolutely necessary profession as long as organized force plays an important part in the affairs of men. But it is the true and high purpose of this profession to protect, not to subject. The military art is never to be practiced for its own sake; the death and destruction which the use of arms entails is redeemed and ennobled only when the sword is the guardian and restorer, not the destroyer, of peace.
But in Germany, however, the military profession was not merely only among many. The German officer was accorded a very unique and exalted role. A century and a half ago, the Frenchman Mirabeau wrote that "Prussia is not a state that possesses an Army; it is an army that has conquered a nation." And it is because of the dominant part which military matters have played in the life and thought of Germany ever since the time those words were written, that this twelfth and last case before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals may well prove of greater importance to Germany than any other case heard in this court-roam.
In saying this, we by no means, mean to depreciate the significance of the issues at state in other cases which are being or have been held here. But the evidence here is closely related to one of the strongest currents in German thought, which may be aptly entitled "Arms and the German".
The defendants are charged not only with the unlawful use of war, but also with its abuse, The laws and customs of war, which mitigate its ravages, have never won more than lip loyalty from the German militarists. The German military manual openly scoffs at the Hague Convention as being derived from "humanitarian considerations which not infrequently degenerated into sentimentality and flabby emotion." The terrible consequences of this ruthless nihilism are not, even today, fully grasped. Millions of innocent civilians were slaughtered by troops under the command or control of the defendants and their colleagues, not in pursuit of any legitimate military objective, but in furtherance of the basest Nazi racial and social myths. The defendant von Kuehler, for example, as the documents prove, observed Christmas Day in Russia 1941 by authorizing the killing of 230 incurable invalids in an asylum at Makarjewo, on the basis of a subordinate report which stated that:
..... the inmates of the asylum no longer represent objects with lives worth living according to the German conception.
We have said that the military profession was esteemed above all others by many Germans and the German officers' corps included men of great ability and high character.
To those men we mean no dishonor in this proceeding. The issues here are far too grave to warrant any tricks of advocacy; the evidence is quite compelling enough and will provide its own eloquence. Those members of the German officers' corps who have the capacity for clear vision and the courage to face the facts will welcome this opportunity for emergence of truth.
In presenting the evidence under Count One of the indictment, the prosecution plans to deal summarily with the years prior to the advent of Hitler. But we must not overlook the fact that most of these defendants were not Nazis in the usual sense of the word, and that they are charged with the commission of crimes, not as party members, but as military leaders. The moral outlook and purposes which resulted in those crimes were not invented by Hitler, but were developed by the defendants and their prodecessors in the German officers' corps. Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes has observed that, in some circumstances, "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." And we believe that the story of the German Army since the first World War, very briefly treated, will do much to illuminate the issues in this case.
The most fundamental circumstance in Germany's military structure during the Weimar Republic was, of course, the Treaty of Versailles. Under part V of the Treaty, the Military, Naval and Air Clauses, precise limitations were prescribed for the size and nature of the German armed forces, and compliance with these provisions was to be ensured by Inter-Allied Commissions of Control. Such Commissions Military, Naval and Aeronautical O arrived in Germany in September, 1919.
The air clauses of the Treaty need not detain us long. Military and naval aviation was completely prohibited by providing that "the armed forces of Germany must not include any military or naval air forces".
The naval clauses were, of necessity, more elaborate. Like military aircraft, submarines were completely prohibited. As for surface craft, the Navy was restricted to six each of battleships and light cruisers, and twelve each of destroyers and torpedo boats. The tonnage of newly-built units was Limited: battleships 10,000 tons, light cruisers 6,000 tons; and the rate at which naval units could be replaced was also specified. The personnel of the German Navy was not to exceed 15,000 officers and men.
But most important for our purposes are the military clauses. By Article 160 it was stipulated that, after 31 March, 1920, the German Army should not exceed ten divisions -- seven infantry and three cavalry divisions, comprising not over 100,000 officers and men, and grouped under not more than two corps headquarters. The so-called "Great German General Staff" was to be dissolved and not "reconstituted in any form" The Army was not to be designed for any warlike purpose; it was expressly stated in the Treaty that The Army shall be devoted exclusively to the maintance of order within the territory and to the control of the frontiers.
Other provisions were intended to ensure that the "100,000 man Reichswehr" should not be used as a means of training a large reserve. Compulsory military service was abolished. Newly-appointed officers had to agree to serve for twenty-five years, and enlisted men for twelve years.
The armament and munitions limitations were equally important. Tanks and poison gas were Prohibited. Precise schedules fixed the maximum amounts of guns and small arms of specified calibres, and stocks of ammunition, which were permitted to be maintained. Within Germany, arms could be manufactured only at certain factories listed by the Allied Powers; all other munition plants were to be "closed down".
And, finally, special safeguards were provided by the demilitarization of the Rhineland. In Germany west of the Rhine, and east of the Rhine to a depth of fifty kilometers, no armed forces were to be maintained or assembled. Forts and field defense works were likewise forbidden within this area.
The organization of the German armed forces under the Republic reflected these arms limitation clauses. There was no German Air Force. The Army and Navy were brought together in a single cabinet ministry, which was pacifically named the Reich Defense Ministry, the Reichswehrministerium.
Sovereign authority over the Reichswehr was divided between the President of Germany and the Cabinet, acting through the Chancellor and the Reich Defense Minister. The President was the supreme commander of the armed forces. But because of the parliamentary form of governnent, the development and execution of government policies was in the hands of the Cabinet. Therefore all Presidential orders pertaining to the armed forces had to be countersigned by the Reich Chancellor or the Reich Minister of Defense.
The 100,000 man Army and the 15,000 man Navy were established on 1 January, 1921. The Army was headed by a general with the title "Chief of the Army Command" and the Navy by an Admiral entitled "Chief of the Navy Command". These commanders and their staffs were established within and as part of the Reich Defense Ministry, and in a governmental sense they were subordinate to the Reich Defense Minister; but, in the military chain of command, their supreme commander was the Reich President. The Reich Defense Minister himself had only a small staff, and most of the actual work of the armed forces was done by the staffs of the army and navy chiefs.
Because the first Reich President (Ebert) and the first two Defense Ministers (Nosske and Gessler) were all civilians, the army and navy chiefs were the military commanders-in-chief of the two services. Their staffs were organized much as were the army and navy staffs in other countries. In view of the prohibition of the Versailles Treaty there was no army general staff by that name; but, the functions of an army general staff were performed by the so-called "Troops Department" (Truppenamt) of the Army Command. Like any general staff, the Truppenamt had sections for operations, training, intelligence, and organization.
In the field, Germany was divided into seven military districts (Wehrkreise) corresponding to the seven infantry divisions allowed by the Treaty. In each Wehrkreis was an infantry divisional headquarters which also controlled all military activities within the Wehrkreis, such as recruitment, pensions, training, etc.
Again following the Treaty Limitation of the Army to two corps headquarters, the Wehrkreise of eastern Germany were grouped under a "group headquarters" (Gruppenkommando) at Berlin, and these in western Germany under a similar headquarters at Kassel. There were also three cavalry divisional headquarters without territorial jurisdiction.
Restricted by the Treaty provisions described above, the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic bore little outward resemblance to the mighty army of the Kaiser. But the purpose, the intelligence, and the energy and determination to salvage as much as possible from the wreckage and start to rebuild Germany's military might were not lacking, either in the Army or the Navy. They found their most effective focus in the Brain of the Chief of the Army Command, General Hans von Seeckt.
There is no occasion now to debate the merits or demerits of the Treaty of Versailles. The important fact here is that, whatever they might say publicly, von Seeckt and the other military leaders of Germany unqualifiedly rejected the Treaty, and all their plans were directed to its overthrow. Their immediate purpose, therefore, was to bring about as soon as possible a state of affairs which would permit Germany to recreate her once formidable military engine.
Von Seeckt's plan of campaign to achieve these ends was flexible, but was based upon about half a dozen basic principles. The first of these principles, designed to preserve the Army's prestige in the eyes of the German people, was intensive cultivation of the legend that the German Army was not defeated in the first World War. Thus, when Fieldmarshal von Hindenburg appeared before a legislative committee of inquiry in November, 1919, he testified that "In spite of the superiority of the enemy in men and material, we could have brought the struggle to a favorable issue if determined and unanimous cooperation had existed between the Army and those at home.
... The German Army was stabbed in the back.
It is plain upon whom the blame lies. If any further proof were necessary to show it, it is to be found in the utter amazement of our enemies at their victory."
Secondly, the traditions of the old imperial army were to be preserved. There was to be no "democratizing" of the new Reichswehr. Prussian concepts of discipline and "honor" persisted, and the preorgatives of the officers' corps were safeguarded. As a practical matter, the officers' corps remained closed to Jews. Despite the fact that the Reichswehr's oath of allegiance was given to the President of the Republic, the spirit of the officers' corps continued to be autocratic; monarchism was tolerated and was not uncommon.
Seeckt's third basic principle was that the Reichswehr should hold itself aloof from and above internal party politics in Germany. The Weimar Republic was a frail ship on a stormy sea. The economic aftermath of war, and in particular the disastrous inflation of 1922 and 1923, caused great unrest. Cabinets rose and fell and Chancellors came and went amid unstable political conditions. Rather than risk the Army's prestige in this maelstrom of party politics, von Seeckt wisely held the Army apart from any party and discouraged political party activity within the officers' corps.
But this is not to say that the Army was not a political fact or that von Seeckt had no political attitude. Quite the contrary; the Army was above politics because in a sense, it dominated them. Sedulously and skillfully, von Seeckt brought about, among the leading politicians of all parties, a feeling that the government was dependent upon the Reichswehr for its protection and to insure its continued existence. When industrial unrest and workers' demonstrations were quelled by the Reichswehr, von Seeckt appeared as the guardian of the Republic against Communism. When the much more serious threat of reactionary revolution culminated in actual attempts to overthrow the Republic -- such as the Kapp Putsch of 1920 and the Hitler-Ludendorf Putsch in 1923 -- the Army again emerged in the role of saviour despite the fact that military leaders were among the participants.
Fourthly, von Seeckt brought about close relations between the Reichswehr and the Soviet Union's Red Army.
The fact that the officers' corps was reactionary was not allowed to obstruct this policy. Since the Army's principal purpose was the overthrow of the Versailles Treaty, von Seeckt sought alliance with the one major European power that had no interest in upholding it. The Treaty of Rapallo, signed by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1922, set the official seal upon the unofficial close relations which already existed between the military leaders of the two countries.
Fifthly, von Seeckt saw that the Reichswehr could best compensate for its small size by keeping in the forefront on questions of military techuique. The greatest emphasis was put on the improvement of weapons and equipment, and on experience in handling the newer weapons, such as tanks. German officers were sent to Russia to train with the Red Army in the handling of heavy artillery, tanks, and other weapons forbidden to Germany under the Treaty.
The training of German officers with the Red Army was, indeed, only one of many ways in which the arms provisions of the Treaty were evaded and violated by the Reichswehr. And von Seeckt's sixth and last principle was that the Treaty imposed no obligation on the Wehrmacht to comply with its provisions, and should be violated in every way which would further the rebuilding of Germany's armed might. Contempt for the binding character of treaties was not an invention of Adolf Hitler.
For the time being, of course, rearmament had to be clandestine. In this hidden rearmament, von Seeckt found willing allies in various high political officials and in the huge armament firm of Krupp. With the assistance of Chancellor Joseph Wirth and the Reich Finance Ministry government funds were secretly made available to Krupp for illegal gun design and development activities directed by the Reichswehr. These informal arrangements were embodied in a "gentleman's agreement" on 15 January. 1922 between army and navy representatives and the Krupp firm which, as Krupp records show, was .....the first step taken jointly by the Reich Defense Ministry and Krupp to circumvent, and thereby to break down, the regulations of the Treaty of Versailles which strangled Ger many's military freedom.
The Navy did not lag behind. In 1922, with the approval of the Chief of the Navy Command (Admiral Bohnke), Krupp and other shipyards established a German submarine construction office in The Hague, under cover of Dutch incorporation. The purpose of this company (called the I.v.S.) was, as German naval records reveal to keep together an efficient German submarine office and, by practical work for foreign navies, to keep it in con stant practice and on top of technical developments.
By the time of von Seeckt's retirement in October, 1926, Germany's military and political situation was grealy improved. Hindenburg, the nation's idol, had become President after Ebert's death in 1925. With Hindenburg's support, Custav Stresemann achieved a measure of political stability within Germany; and, abroad, he joined in the Locarno Pact under which allied evacuation of the Rhineland began in 1926, and Germany was admitted to the League of Nations.
Within Germany, the prestige of the Army had been reestablished. The election to the presidency of Hindenburg -- a retired fieldmarshal and, in public estimation, Germany's greatest military hero -strengthened the Reichswehr enormously in a political sense. More practical military advantages accrued from the Locarno Fact; in the course of the Locarno settlement, Stresemann's arguments that the Inter-Allied Control Commissions should be wound up and withdrawn prevailed. In January, 1927, the last staff members of the Commission left Germany, and thereby Allied supervision of compliance with the arms limitation clauses of the Treaty came to an end.
New faces appeared in the highest positions at about this time. As Chief of the Army Command, von Seeckt was succeeded by General Heye, who, in turn,gave way to General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord in November, 1930. In 1928, Admiral Erich Raeder became Chief of the Navy Command, a position he was to hold for 15 years. In 1929, the growing influence of the Army was again shown when the civilian Minister of Defense, Gessler, was replaced by Groener who, though nominally a civilian, was a retired general and one of the leading military figures of the first World War.