HERR HITLER'S GOSPEL
ADDRESSING the German nation on Saturday Herr Hitler proclaimed—as a discovery made for the first time in the history of mankind—that of all the tasks with which man is confronted the grandest and most sacred is to preserve his race ; man was not required, added the Fiihrer, to decide why Providence created the races ; it was sufficient that it did. Some centuries earlier another speaker, not unworthy of attention, declared, also in a public speech, that Providence, or as he put it God, had made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. The gulf that yawns between those conceptions of human destiny is the gulf that yawns between Germany and the rest of the world today. Herr Hitler in his speech to the Reichstag might have done something to bridge it. If anything he left it wider than before. Most of the nations of Europe are trying to make nationality something that is distinctive and not divisive. In Herr Hitler's hands it must be inexorably divisive. The gospel of self-sufficiency is proclaimed afresh. Germany cannot be dependent on imports, for that means putting trust in other nations, and Germany can trust no one but herself. Hence the Four Years' Plan must be carried through without let or deviation. There can be no limitation of armaments, for only Germany can judge of what her danger is, and the possibility of reducing the danger by agreeing with other nations that they shall limit their arma- ments too has no place in Herr Hitler's philosophy. In the very act of disclaiming Germany's isolation he demonstrates it as not merely as a result but an intention.
That is what makes the Reichstag speech so calamitously barren. Britain and France and other States are striving to knit, if not the world, at least Europe, together. Germany stands aloof from any such general effort. Herr Hitler affirms his desire for co-operation with Britain and repeats his assertion that there can be no conceivable object of dispute between Germany and France. He declares his readi- ness to guarantee the integrity and neutrality of Belgium and Holland for all time. But he conspicu- ously omits Czechoslovakia from the States with whom Germany professes to be in friendly relations, and the attacks on Bolshevism are charged with all and more than all the old familiar venom. References to the League of Nations are vague and on balance derogatory, and when the League does initiate an enquiry into access to those raw materials which Germany says she is denied, Germany will have no part in it. Meanwhile she continues arming. The scale of that endeavour, and the extent of the subordination of every human activity in Germany to preparations for a possible war, are impressively de- monstrated by an enquiry which The Banker has just carried out, and which gives reasons for believing that in the four years since Herr Hitler came into power Germany has been spending the equivalent of £625,000,000 a year for specifically military purposes.
Other nations, it may be rejoined, are arming too. That is true, but for one reason, because the scale of German rearmament compels them to. Germany is justified in insisting that she could not remain dis- armed while the rest of the world was armed, and that when Herr Hitler did offer limitation, both in I934 and. in 1935, he received no response. That. Ger- many was entitled to armaments on the scale of other European Great Powers is undeniable, and that France, through the mouth of M. Barthou, did most unwisely repulse Herr Hitler's 1934 offer is un- fortunately true. But today a different France, supported by that Britain with which Herr Hitler is so eager to co-operate, is urging armament limitation and Germany is refusing to consider it. Is it that Germany is claiming equality with Russia—with three times Germany's population and thirty times Germany's expanse of territory to defend ? Herr Hitler's hint that Mr. Eden should address himself to Moscow might suggest that. If so, the answer is clear. Russia is ready to discuss the limitation of armaments. She never left the Disarmament Con- ference as Germany did ; she will be on the com- mittee which is to try and gather a few scraps from the wreckage in May. It is Germany alone which refuses today to consider armament limitation as a fit subject for international discussion.
These are the hard facts, and the nations in Europe which seek general peace and their own salvation must take account of them. Herr Hitler professes himself as eager for peace as anyone, but Germany under his guidance is pursuing a policy which makes war all but inevitable, unless it can be shown that the odds against successful aggression are such that even the most fanatical Nazi leaders would shrink from the risk. When a great nation, exposed to no external threat, subjects its people relentlessly to increasing privations in order that the whole national resources may be thrown into the production of armaments, only one conclusion can be drawn. There has been no external threat to Germany. Russia is her only conceivable assailant, and Russia, which not only does not adjoin Germany but does not even adjoin Czechoslovakia, so loudly denounced as corridor for a Russian attack, is the recipient, not the author, of threats. No sane man has ever suspected Russia of territorial ambitions in Europe ; but men presumably reputed in Germany as sane have repeatedly advocated German expansion at Russia's expense. Herr Hitler has no doubt to continue to paint the Bolshevik menace in lurid colours for internal reasons (though he steadily renews trade treaties with Russia), and the result is that Germans, increasingly cut off from the world by their inability to travel or import foreign books and by the suppression of foreign as well as home news distasteful to the Administration, no doubt believe genuinely that the existence of Russia is sufficient reason for all the sacrifices they are compelled to make for unlimited rearmament.
Herr Hitler has made the policy of Britain and France clear. Both Mr. Eden and M. Blum have held their hands out to Germany. Herr Hitler has grasped neither. To K. Blum'S speech of a Week earlier he did not so much as refer. He is fully entitled to take his course, but his course sets other courses too. If there is any ground for the belief that Germany will make war if she thinks it safe, she must never be allowed to think it safe. No nation in Europe dreams of aggression against her. The much-vilified Franco-Soviet Pact means nothing un- less France or Russia is attacked. But if Germany should attack, she would have to reckon with the mobilisation of overwhelming force against her—and she could place no reliance on Italy, for Italy would never risk action against the British and French fleets in the Mediterranean. In those facts lies for the moment the best security of peace. It is a humilia- tion to Europe that peace should have to rest on such a basis, but at least the breathing-space can be used in the search for a better basis. If Germany wants understanding, doors are open on every side. Mr. Eden has opened them. M. Blum has opened them. Dr. Benes has opened them. The so-called Locarno conversations are still waiting for Germany, and for her only. Meanwhile the Western States must rearm, and pay the price it costs. But that does not dispense them for a moment from the duty of striving ceaselessly in spite of everything to achieve a comprehensive European settlement.
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