GERMANY AND THE SPIRIT OF PEACE
THE temporary interruption of the process of the exchange of notes and memoranda with Germany has given an opportunity fOr some shifting of attention from the foreground to the horizons of the European situation. We have been able for the moment to take leave of legalisms and formulas. To deride them is foolish and shortsighted, for all civilised life rests on law, and law to be binding must be stated in explicit terms. But behind law in this case stand certain determining facts, and it is well that they should be considered. What are they ? The first is the immediate and instinctive response evoked in this country when Herr Hitler speaks of twenty-five years of peace. The time- limit seems superfluous. We are bound like Germany by the Kellogg Pact, and unlike her by the League Covenant, both of which rule out war as an instrument of national policy indefinitely. But if Herr Hitler has the power and the will to give Europe peace for a quarter of a century, we can be well content with that. There is, it is true, the breach of the Locaino Treaty to dispose of somehow. To create a fait accompli and then take the position that what is done is done is an inauspicious prelude to agreements based on the sanctity of pledges. But assume that obstacle removed. Credit the representatives of this country and France with sufficient good will and diplomatic dexterity to get past the barrier of the broken treaty and on to the constructive business of making peace secure for twenty-five years as Herr • Hitler proposes. How far, if that happens, will they be negotinting with a Germany with which. they can enter into contracts on equal terms ?
That question is neither provocative nor super- fluous. It is fundamental. The broken treaty can be emphasised to excess. Actually Germany's action bears no resemblance either to Italy's violation of her covenants in the matter of Abyssinia or to our default in the matter of the American debt. No serious debater would pretend it did. For Germany to move her troops into part - of her own territory, obviously with no aggressive design, differs in toto from the invasion of a neighbour's country with tanks, aeroplanes and heavy artillery. On the other hand, the deliberate violation of a treaty faithfully observed for ten years past is quite different again from default in a financial obligation, parti- cularly when the principal cause for the default is the refusal of the creditor to accept payment in the only form possible from the debtor. Argu- ments of that kind only complicate a situation' already complicated enough. The one question to which it is essential to have an answer is whether Germany is setting out to make peace in the spirit of peace. There is good reason for asking that. The exaltation of the State since the Nazi regime was established is something such as the world has never seen before, in the time of Frederick the Great or any other. The State is God and the State can do no wrong. Now, so far as that is a matter between the State and the individual citizen it may reasonably be regarded as Germany's own affair, and no one else's. But is it that and no more ? Can it be that and no more ? Can the State, omnipOtent over every citizen in every depart- ment of his life, take its place as an equal member with half a hundred other States great and small in: the organised society of nations ? Can it in particular submit to possibly adverse judgements on it by an international tribunal, as France, tor example, did in litigation with Turkey, or Great Britain in litigation with Greece ?
A partial answer has been given to those questions by Herr Hitler in the course of his election calnpaign, and as far as it goes it is disturbing. Germany, it would seem, is to apply the doctrine of the divine right of the German State in the international 'no less than in the national sphere. Herr Hitler was reported by Reuter as saying at Leipzig on March 26th : " We interpret treaties as we think right, and we do not submit to the judgement of others," and by The Times as saying on the same occasion: " If anyone talks to me about paragraphs or the letters of a treaty I can only say ' You under-- stand the paragraphs in this way and we in that; but I am responsible to the German people and not to a treaty.' " The outcome of that doctrine, which finds expression in still more of Heir Hitler's election speeches, can be nothing but sheer anarchy. No conceivable inter- national agreement is compatible with it, for the theory that a nation is to be judge in its own' cause, and the only judge, is fatal to the existence - of a society based on the rule of impartial justice. Herr Hitler may be able to explain away such declarations. as have here been quoted. But if they do 'in fact' represent considered German polity, discussions of Air Pacts or non-aggression treaties or Geiniany's return to the League are futile.
And there is more to be explained than that. An article on a later page of this issue gives some indication of what the foreign policy outlined. in Herr Hitler's historic volume Mein Kampf is France the eternal enemy, Russia the holder of territories which Germans must seize and settle on. That may be Herr Hitler's policy today or not. There is good reason to believe that as regards France it is not. There is good reason why as regards Russia Russians at any rate should think it is. There have been numerous editions of Mein Kamp f; and various passages appear in some and not in others. But that is of little relevance. 'The • basic' fact is that Mein Kampf is the Bible of Nazi Germanv. Every Nazi family possesses a copy. On its 'doctrines Nazi youth is nurtured into Nazi manhood. The Germany of 67,000,000 people, which Herr -Hitler has just declared has spoken with a single voice, is a Germany of which Mein.-Kampf, with its deification of the State, its worship of power as power and its glorification of external aggression, is the watchword. No explanation Of the origins of the volume, or the state of mind. of the author when he wrote it, is' any' answer to the indictment against it. It has done its work and is doing it still. If Herr Hitler is sincere he will set himself studiously to undo it. For a nation schooled in the doctrines of Mein Kampf is plainly incapable of even that -inconsiderable limitation of sovereignty which acceptance of the pm-visions of the League of Nations Covenant involves. There is little doubt that Herr Hitler wants peace. There is less doubt that tens of millions of his people want it. But what kind of peace ? And in what spirit ? And cni what terms ? Do they want it as Britain and France and Sweden and Czechoslovakia want it. ? Herr Hitler has made these questions inevitable, and he can ease the situation greatly by giving them a categorical and satisfactory answer.
Previous page
