The article on the five who run the German war effort is a hoot. Looks like it was written using a phone book. And inaccurate as hell. Ludwig Beck had been the Chief of Staff of the German Army prior to the Sudeten crisis, and was opposed to Hitler’s plans for expansion. He either resigned or retired well before Case White. He was also well out of synch with current military thought in Germany, arguing tanks wouldn’t work because there was no place to run telephone lines to on them.
Beck was an organizer of one of the earliest Army conspiracies to overthrow Hitler [starting with the Rhineland occupation, and going forward as far as the Sudeten crisis], and was a participant in Valkyrie. He was allowed by Gen. Fromm to commit suicide in the Bendlerstrasse when the coup failed.
Of great interest are the military planners excluded from the article: Rundstedt, Student [airborne ops], Doenitz [U-boats], Kesselring and Sperrle, and a junior General serving as Rundstedt’s C/S: Erich von Manstein und Lewinski.
I found the reference to Ludwig Beck interesting too. I know that he resigned in late August of 1938 just as things were coming to a head with the Czech crisis. But from what I understand they didn’t make it public. Maybe that is why this reporter still thinks that he is still somehow involved in the War Plans sector for the Nazis. His cautious nature didn’t work with Hitler’s aggressive standard and that played a major role in pulling him to become a conspirator against him. (Well, in my opinion anyway).