Word: zaisser
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Dates: during 1949-1949
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After World War II Zaisser returned to Germany, became Minister of the Interior in Saxony. Last August he received a new title: Chef der Abteilung für Schulung bei der deutschen Verwaltung des Inneren (Chief of the Division for Training Connected with the German Administration of the Interior). The title was a fancy cover for his real job, head of the Bereitschaften-cadre army...
...Zaisser's army has a planned initial strength of 45,000 men. It began as an elite officer-training cadre for the Volkspolizei (People's Police), which was-and is-an ill-organized, straggling, desertion-ridden mob of 250,000 men. In the year it has been in operation, the Volkspolizei has proved to be unreliable for the Reds' long-range purposes...
...Zaisser removed from the People's Police a hard core of former Nazi officers, carefully screened P.W.s and recruited youths. Then he set them up in Bereitschaften under direct control of the Russians. The ready squads, of 250 men each, are armed with rifles, submachine guns, machine guns and light artillery. In equipment they have a better start than did the bootleg German army of the '20s, which was also founded on a cadre of the best officer material...
...Hans Zaisser's army nucleus worries democratic Germans in the West. They can see compulsory military service in the Soviet Zone around the corner, with a full-fledged War Ministry in the puppet Communist government of East Germany...
...immediate effect, they concede, is chiefly political rather than military. Zaisser's army is impressive proof to them of Soviet Russia's earnestness in the struggle for Germany and Europe...