Death
In January 1942 von Reichenau suffered a cerebral haemorrhage, and it was decided to fly him from Poltava to a hospital in Leipzig, Germany. He is often said to have been killed in a plane crash in Russia, though Görlitz writes that the plane merely made an emergency landing in a field, and that von Reichenau actually died of a heart attack. His death coincided in time with a propaganda action conducted by the Polish underground (Operation Reichenau), whose goal was to discredit Reichenau, in the eyes of the German leadership, as a person who allegedly had been plotting to overthrow the Nazi régime, to sow distrust between the Nazi political leadership and its military command, and punish one of the German generals responsible for war crimes in Poland. This coincidence became a fertile ground for conspiracy theories, which allege that Reichenau might actually have been killed by the Nazi secret services.
Read more about this topic: Walther Von Reichenau
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Or if no thing but death will serve thy turn,
Still thirsting for subversion of my state,
Do what thou canst, raze, massacre, and burn,
Let the world see the utmost of thy hate;”
—Michael Drayton (1563–1631)