Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Friday 9 August 1929, page 21


LUDENDORFF TURNS PACIFIST

"UNMASKING THE HIDDEN WAR-MAKERS"

General Erich Ludendorff, the "brains of the German armies," in the last two years of the world war, mili-tarist and one-time monarchist, has

turned apostle of peace. This trans-formation of the greatest strategist on the German side, and certainly one of the leading military figures of the war, is no more startling than his confessed conversion to "Rule by the people." The military chieftain who moved mil-lions of soldiers about on the fronts in France, Belgium, Russia, Roumania, Greece, Italy, and Turkey, like so many pawns on a chess board, declared the other day in Munich that war is im-moral and a crime "except for the pre-servating of a nation, or for freedom against oppression." Perhaps, speaking from experience, the General said that "the people are the tools and the fools of the war-makers, to them unknown," adding that he would devote the rest of his life to "unmasking the hidden war-makers." These "Super-national powers," as the former German militarist chieftain characterises them, are, he claims, the "Jews, Jesuits, and Freemasons.". Supe-rior in intellect, genius, strategy, and energy during the war, to his chief, von Hindenbirg, but lacking the lat-ter's strength of character, or possibly his judgment, Ludendarff has broken with all that remains of the former Imperial German military hierarchy, and travels over Germany like a fana-tical missionary, lecturing and preach-ing against the "super-national powers," whom, he asserts, are seeking to keep Germany enslaved, endeavoring to bring about war between Britain and America on the one hand, and between Britain and Russia on the other hand. On anything but friendly terms with the ex-Kaiser since the end of the war, in an almost ten-year feud with ex-Crown Prince Rupprecht of Ba-varia, having little good to say of the former Royal German Princes, who, he once declared, thought of themselves first, their dynasties and families next, and the German people last, Luden-dorff has turned his back on all his former friends, including Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, President of Germany, or they have turned away from him. Virtually military Dictator of Germany from 1916 to the autumn of 1918, his present activities against those powers which, he alleges, "know no national lines, frontiers, or sentiments," and his campaign to arouse the "old Germanic virtues—unity, freedom, morality, truth, sacrifice, patriotism, spirituality"—have subjected Ludendorff to attack, ridicule, or pity of a large part of the German press. "There will be no permanent peace un-til the people rule, rule in fact, not in theory. What they call the 'rule of the people* to-day is largely an illu-sion. Not until here is an end of secret diplomacy, secret pacts, secret meetings of responsible statesmen at Geneva as well as everywhere else, an end of secret organisations which in-sidiously influence the public mind and all relations between nations and people are determined in the full glare of pub-licity, will there be an end of war." So says the one-time reactionary leading German militarist, the real chief of the German General Staff, whose military rank was next to that of Field-Marshal. Scarcely 60, robust of health, a dynamo of energy, he is inspired with all the fire of a zealot.