" MY FUHRER'S AIM "
Sut,—May I draw your attention to the fundamental differ- ence which exists between the Prussianised Austrian Hitler and other Germans, such as Bismarck or even the Kaiser? The aim of all former German statesmen was to build a great, a greater and even a very great Germany, but yet a Conti- nental Power, placed by all-mighty geography in the centre of Continental Europe. But now Hitler is reaching for the stars of world power, his aim is world power for Germany, as he said himself in Mein Kampf: "Germany will either be- come a world power or will not continue to exist at all. But in order to become a world power it needs that magnitude which gives it the necessary importance today." In compari- son with Continental power, world power implies sea power. Only States bordering on the ocean and commanding the seas are in a position to obtain an empire: Great Britain and France, as well as in previous times Spain or Portugal, but never will, nor can, Germany, centred in the midst of the European continent, become a world power unless she reaches the sea. To rule the world you must rule the waves. As the English Channel can easily be blocked and Germany blockaded, Hitler chooses now the only other outlet: the way through smaller and weaker States, the broad Middle Euro- pean corridor to the Mediterranean.
It was a German diplomat who was frank enough to corro- borate Hitler's ambition for world domination when I met him in one of the Balkan States this spring after the destruc- tion of the Czecho-Slovak State. He asked me about British policy. I explained the British aim of establishing an inter- national order in which all nations may find security, justice and peace. He laughed at this " British cant " and pitted against my thesis of " co-operation of free States " the Ger- man practice of " domination of satellite States." This German diplomat went so far as to say : " We need all the States between the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Mediter- ranean for our Lebensraum; they have got to be in our orbit as vassals and protectorates of Germany." When I challenged the slogan of Lebensraum by pointing out that no nation is able to be self-sufficient and that in order to obtain so-called " self-sufficiency " you must dominate Europe and the world as well, he interrupted me : " That is exactly what our Fiihrer is aiming at." On my reply : " But this means war," he boasted : " Then we must have war and shall be glad to win it." When asked whether his view represented the German official policy, he agreed, and produced the whole literature ,.‘f one of Hitler's intimate henchmen, the Nazi philosoph:r Rosenberg, of Baltic descent, and Hitler's additional gar- ments as well, justifying " this divine mission of Nazism to vassalise " all the States in the East, North-East and Sout':- East of Germany, between the Baltic and the Mediterranea and to impose upon them in lieu of their own national cultur Prussian National-Socialism, which hardiy differs from Russ: National-Bolshevism. World domination by force and aggro - sion or world-co-operation through law and order—that
the issue before us.
Hitler's means and ends turn the Northern demon's the,. '• into reality : " Und folgst Du nicht willig, so brauch Gewalt! " This may not come as a surprise to anybody w ' knows that Hitler, who for years studied the career Napoleon, has recently collected the literature concernir.: Genghis Khan, the Asiatic conqueror of the Middle Ages.
In view of Hitler's expansionist aims to the East, the Non' East and South-East, as confirmed by his henchman mention i abc.e, it is relevant to stress today the fact that, just as Nal,,,leon's military downfall was caused by his Moscow ad....nture, so Hitler's political defeat has been inaugurated by ,lis Moscow agreement, cutting him off from all the lands
dreams—round the Baltic, the Black Sea and the Near
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