Herr Hitler's Middle-Europe Plans
By LEWIS EINSTEIN
(former American Minister to Czechoslovakia) THERE was a time during the War when a German 1 could travel by express from Lille to Riga, and journey without 'interruption froin Antwerp to Bagdad.
This was the time when Friedrich Naumann wrote his Mittel-Europa and outlined a then famous plan for a German federated continent with its capital at Prague.
His book is nearly forgotten, but the plan may be closer to success today than when the Kaiser's armies were still marching to victory.
Opinion has been puzzled by the transformation of the warlike Hitler into the peaceful Hitler who plants flowers on powder magazines and complains that his intentions have been misunderstood. In the sanatorium of an exhausted Europe, statesmen are perplexed and would like to believe that the Nazi leader is repeating the pacific progress of the once fire-eating Mussolini. Italian griev- ances bear no great resemblance to the German, yet the F iihrer has talked peace far sooner than the Duce. As a leader Hitler has always alternated between periods of audacity with others of seeming moderation, and no poli- tician has ever been so frank in announcing his objectives, or displayed greater skill in giving calming assurances.
But are his early intentions so mysterious after all, and are his words deliberately insincere ? On the contrary, they impress one by their clear meaning. The Flihrer can well afford to be vaguely conciliatory over armaments, for the greater part of his preparations lie outside the scope of any possible pact, and the discussion of details would leave him with a bargaining power which can be used to sow dissensions while it distracts attention from his primary purpose. He can even afford to be con- ciliatory with France and Poland, for he earnestly desires the neutrality of both countries to allow him to attain his first great objective. The contradiction which exists between his pacifism and his warlike preparations can be explained by his belief that if only Germany is strong enough she may then be able to reach without war the goal which will make Hitler master of Central Europe, with a power comparable to that of Napoleon. For whatever else may be thought of the Nazis they arc un- mistakably forging an ideal military State.
There is no secret that Hitler's first goal is union with Austria, which the despised German republic made possible by clearing away the brushwood of ancient dynasties. Obviously he desires this without war. A totalitarian State like the Nazi cannot admit two separate Teutonic centres, and the existence of an independent Vienna, less dour and masterful than Berlin, is an offence to the idea of unification. Moreover, for Hitler personally union means more than it can to any other German. He suffered acutely from the humiliation of early Viennese experi- ences, and his enemies in Germany have always thrown Austrian citizenship in his face. Writers like Heinrich Mann point out that his emotional temperament and appeal to, hatred as a political instrument is far more Austrian than German. Apart from everything else, to Nazify the land of his birth would mean for him the great- est personal triumph.
The circumstance that most Austrians if consulted today might be against this is of little consequence to a party which has shown singular skill in obtaining majorities from the most unpromising beginnings. Nazi propaganda has vastly improved on its Bolshevik model, and although Germany alleges difficulty in paying her foreign creditors, she is said to have found three million pounds, the greater part of which does not figure in the budget, to spend this year solely on propaganda outside the Reich. The small Austrian official, for instance, is told that he will be richly. rewarded if he helps the Nazi cause to that final success which is inevitable, whereas by holding aloof he and his family will forever figure on their black lists. The more blatant features of this propaganda, such as the formation of an Austrian legion in Bavaria and the acts of terrorism committed, erred only by being too thorough. Yet how long can a small and greatly divided country suffering from terrible poverty be expected to hold out against a determined and unscrupulous neighbour ten times as powerful and able to bore from within ? The Nazi argu- ment is all the more persuasive because it makes appeal to a common Germanism, whereas those who favour Austrian independence are obliged to seek support from former enemies.
If Hitler has hitherto refrained from going to greater lengths this has been solely due to unwillingness to give Paris and Rome a common front before his own prepara- tions are complete. If he should later feel strong enough to persevere in the face of their opposition he could then throw on his enemies the onus of a seeming aggression committed against fellow-Germans and put forward his claim to stand as their defender from the foreign invader.
Yet, with or without the conflict which may ensue the day that Hitler succeeds in obtaining the Austrian succession, his next step is clear. As a country, Czechoslovakia is as dependent on her exports as England, and with Hitler in Vienna she would find herself surrounded on three sides by Germans. If she should refuse to come to such terms as would then be dictated to her by Nazi political interests in their relation to her own German-Bohemian minority of three and a half millions, her trade could be strangled. In the Middle Ages the King of Bohemia was also an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and, with Germans in her midst and surrounding her on ever side, Czechoslovakia could with difficulty survive, except by becoming a Nazi federated State. So long as Hitler threatens Vienna it takes a bold prophet to declare that his Ministers will never sit in a Prague cabinet. Even the Czechs, deeply repugnant as this possibility would be to them, in order to retain at least part of Slovakia might find surrender the lesser evil and look for protection against Hungary to Berlin rather than to the Little Entente, leaving Hitler to arrange a compromise between two countries both of which would henceforth depend upon the Reich. Hungary was formerly the spearhead of Germanism, and since the War has found her unalterable goal in the recovery of her lost territories, although she felt too weak to attempt this unaided. If the Nazis were at Vienna, with grievances similar to their own, the Magyars would then hope to find the powerful ally for whom they have been waiting to win back by force or intimidation their former frontiers. The recent foundation of a Nazi party in Hungary is ominous of what the future may bring forth in restoring Budapest to her old alliance with Berlin. In the basin of the Danube there live some sixty million people inhabiting six States. Three of these, Czecho- slovakia, Rumania and Jugoslavia—have tried to find a common strength in a precarious alliance. Two, Hungary and Bulgaria, have held aloof from the others, nursing their bitter grievances, while the sixth, a feeble Austria, with its capital also the natural capital of Central Europe, is torn by opposite factions. The independent existence of these States has been based on their maintaining sours rough balance among themselves under the League of- Nations, and never presupposed their being called on to resist a Great Power planted in their midst and able to utilize their age-long divisions for its own aggrandizement. All these calculations are upset on the day that the Nazis obtain possession of the natural capital of Central Europe. Vienna held by strong German hands must mean also the eventual German control of the entire Danube basin, for today there are neither Romanoffs nor Hapsburgs to restrain within reasonable limits a power which, like the Third International, utilizes a subsidized propaganda to find its supporters in every State. Will Hitler be able to forge a Third Reich of Napoleonic grandeur ? The fate of Vienna should provide the answer to this riddle.
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