13 MAY 1938, Page 8

GERMANY AND EUROPE : III. IS IT PEACE ?

By H. POWYS GREENWOOD

ISUPPOSE the most burning question in foreign politics 1 today is whether the refrain, " For today Germany is ours, Tomorrow 'tis the world entire," which I heard for the first time in Vienna the other day, represents the real spirit and purpose of Nazi Germany. When I reached Prague, a few days later, I found the Czechs in no doubt about the matter. Czechoslovakia, they said, represented the last barrier against the German domination of Eurpoe and thence of the world. The world could not fail to see this and would certainly come to their rescue. To doubt the efficacy of the Czech alliances and their eventual support by Great Britain and even America was virtually treason, and articles or news in this sense in the Sudeten German or other minority papers were frowned on by the censorship. Here, I think, is the explanation of the extraordinarily calm, indeed " cocky," attitude of the average Czech in the face of the German danger, an attitude which carries with it a stubborn unwillingness to consider making really serious concessions to the Sudeten, since that would only mean the domination of Czechoslovakia by Germany and its eventual break-up after all. It would be better to fight now.

In Czechoslovakia, as in Austria and in the Rhineland, the fundamental problem of resurgent Germany is posed once again. On no impartial view can the issues of right and wrong be regarded as clear-cut. The Sudeten Germans, though better treated than most other German minorities, have serious grievances none the less. They were incorpor- ated in the new State in defiance of the principle of self- determination—since a frontier including the majority of them in Austria and Germany could have been drawn without bringing in many Czechs. Czech nationalism, too strong after centuries of repression for the wisdom of men like Masaryk and Benes, has subjected them to a consistent policy of pinpricking and petty annoyance in administration and business which must be just as galling to a formerly dominant race as actual persecution. They are expected to be ready to fight fin= the Czech policy of alliance with French- men and Slays to constitute a barrier against their own race. And finally, though this is hardly the fault of the Czechs, they have become economic " distressed areas " enviously watching the recovery taking place just over their borders in Germany, and now in Austria.

The Czechs, like the Allies on a larger scale, have delayed far too long in remedying these grievances. They failed to make loyal citizens of the Sudeten Germans—whether it was possible in any case is a moot point. And now they are confronted with the threat of force from seventy-five million Germans, on the crest of a wave of nationalism, backing a quarter of the population of their State. If they concede autonomy, if they withdraw the hated Czech officials, the Sudeten Germans, who are as fanatically German in spirit as Ulstermen, for example (who present a close historical parallel) are fanatically British, may only use it to stage some sort of plebiscite and join Germany all the same. If the Czechs change their foreign policy and abandon the Russian alliance under pressure, the momentum of resurgent Ger- many is still further increased and Czechoslovakia, together with the other Danubian countries, will pass finally within the German orbit. Yet without those two major concessions —and we should be quite clear about this—no peaceful agre& ment is conceivable. A fundamental factor in the situation is the unconcealed conviction in Berlin official circles that if it really comes to the point the French people will not march out from behind the Maginot line to preserve the domination of Czechs over Germans, whatever their Government may say. The Germans may be miscalculating, as they miscalculated first in the case of Russia and then in that of Great Britain in 1914. But, that is the view on which they intend to act. I could hardly have been told more plainly that either the Czechs would accept the Henlein demands or something very like them, or else there would be a rising of the Sudeten Germans which the Fuhrer would not allow to be repressed. And it is perhaps significant that it was a Reich German who prophesied the rising ; the Sudeten Germans I met were much more circumspect.

If this analysis is correct there are three possible courses which events may take, probably within the next few months. The first is, of course, a general European war with its incal- culable consequences. The second is unhindered German armed intervention in Czechoslovakia, in which case Bohemia would probably be split up : the German part going, of course, to Germany, while the Polish and Hungarian districts would go respectively to Poland and Hungary as tips for services rendered, and the truncated Czech and Slovak territories (if the latter did not go to Hungary) would remain to enjoy jointly, or more probably severally, a limited inde- pendence. The third alternative is a peaceful settlement satisfying both Germany and the Sudeten Germans, with all its implications.

It was very strongly impressed upon me in Berlin that with the settlement of the Czechoslovak question Germany would be near the end of her demands in Europe. " Gross- deutschland " had already been achieved ; the Czech barrier would have been broken, and German economic influence, together with a political predominance sufficient to maintain it and at the same time to secure the position of the isolated minorities, would inevitably spread throughout Danubia without Germany having to do much about it. The related problems of Danzig and the Polish Corridor could be left till the Polish Pact expired ; they could be settled without much difficulty directly between the two countries. There were, of course, Memel, Eupen and Malmedy and possibly Danish Schleswig ; but after all these were minor matters. The way would be clear for a peaceful settlement of the colonial question with Great Britain, and Germany would probably be prepared in return to accept a measure of arma- ment limitation or reduction.

I do not think there is much doubt that that or something like it is the programme. Whatever her ultimate aims may be, Germany needs a period of consolidation. The vast majority of the population would be glad of a rest from international tension, and even the extreme Party hotheads do not want a European war. An old friend of mine, prominent in German and well known in British business circles, insisted that there was far less talk of war and the risk of war among German business men than there was in England. The great achievement ofthe Fiihrer in German eyes is that he has achieved his ends peaceftilly.

In a remarkable Easter article, Herr Rudolf Kircher, the editor Of the Frankfurter Zeitung, tackles the question why Germany has been able to obtain so .much without war. His answer is "thit she is striving for her natural rights, and that it is only because it is so self-evident that justice is on her side that " the struggle for rights has not become an open struggle for power which could only have been fought out with arms." Her opponents were weakened by being on unsound and unnatural ground, so the threat of force sufficed.

The implication of this view, which is very widely held, is, of course, that there are limits to the present active foreign policy. The principal limit, stressed by all Germans and particularly by the Nazis, is implicit in the doctrine of race or " folk." Throughout Mein Kampf, and indeed through practically every manifestation of Nazi doctrine, there runs the fundamental view that German policy should concern itself with the German people. In one of Hitler's most startling passages he dreams of a future with 25o million Germans settled on European soil, but nowhere does he advocate that Germans should conquer and rule other races. Even the famous passages regarding the necessity of a final reckoning with France obviously refer by their context not to the conquest of France but to preventing her from acting as the eternal enemy of German unity and power. And hitherto Mein Kampf has been a remarkably accurate guide.

It may be that the momentum of success may induce Hitler to be false to his principles and to attempt to absorb other races into his Reich. It may even be that he may turn on the West and aim at a vast Empire, though nothing could be more contrary to the doctrine of Mein Kampf. But there is no evidence that he or his followers intend to take either course.