NAZIS AND CZECHS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 128, 2 June 1938, Page 19

NAZIS AND CZECHS.

AN ECONOMIC DRIVE. i .

NO NEED FOR WAR—YET.

FRENCH " PROTECTION » PRATTLE.

(By PAUL C. SMITH.)

1 111. SAN FRANCISCO. Hitler's march on Vienna was the real beginning of German supremacy in Continental Europe. More than a mere emotional affection for a few million pure-blooded Germans induced Hitler to dare that march.

Planned for a period of months, that apparently sudden action went off with a precision possible only under the Hitler brand of regimentation. Every detail of the absorption of Austria, from the hauling to Berlin of Austrian gold to the ear-cuffing administered the most insignificant Jewish merchant, was a part of this relentles-s Nazi precision.

Just as precise is the Nazi comprehension of what now lies before Nazi Germany as the result of "union -, with Austria.. Already liquidated by the fast-moving Nazi liquidator, Austria's economic identity is no more. The Austrian National Bank is no more; the German mark has been substituted for the Austrian schilling. There is considerable doubt as to the ultimate fate of some £30,000,000 in Austrian loans held by investors abroad. Already there remains nothing Austrian in Austria except a few thousand "Loyalists" who gasp uneasily in the concentration camps, and the remains of a few hundred Jewish suicides who have found peace in the orthodox cemeteries. Everything else is Nazi German, or else.

The Four-Year Plan. The grinding mills of the new German gods hav*3 no time for sentimentality over the fate of a few thousand dissenters or a few hundred thousand "racially impure." They are too busy rolling out the destiny of a great people under the cold, mathematical terms of a blueprint known as the four-year-plan.

Inaugurated last year, directed by Field-Marshal Goering, the four-year plan is the German scheme by which the Nazis aim to establish the economic self-sufficiency of the German peoples — not the German nation as it lias been known, but the nation of the German peoples as the conceive it.

Before the Austrian coup, the difficulties of the four-year plan already were apparent. Shortages of raw materials such as iron ore and timber were matters of real concern to the administrators of the plan.

Austrian iron ore deposits are estimated by an Austrian engineer at 500,000.000 tons of fairly high grade ore. Since Germany is now the second steel manufacturer of the world, with an annual output of 16.000,000 tons, much of which lately has involved the use of low grade ores, the importance of this new supply is self-evident.

I More than one-half of Austria's area is covered valuable forests, constituting a timber acreage equal to nearly a third of Germany's former timber supply. In addition, Austria has magnesite deposits of such proportions that, in recent years, she has been supplying nearly one-half of the world's demands. Of lesser immediate importance, but of greater potential significance, are substantial lignite deposits and some petroleum development.

Economic Control of South-east Europe. Add to this picture the fact that Austria has had to import most of her coal supplies, the one which Germany has aplenty, s and several more pieces of the four-year plan jigsaw immediately form a pattern. Vast undeveloped hydro-electric power resources in the Austrian Alps also are of deep interest to Xazi plane. As important as these immediately apparent factors are to the Xazi scheme of things, there are others, less apparent, but of infinitely greater importance.

The mastery of Vienna gives Germany economic control of the communications of south-eastern Europe by road, river and rail. And this economic control means, to the co-ordinated forces, of the Nazi regimented machine, political and military control as well.

It must be remembered that, whatever the importance of the German army itself, the Nazi controlled economy is the greatest Avar machine in the w'orkl today. For that very reason no one dared march against Hitler when he marched into Vienna. And, for that very reason, it will not be necessary for Hitler to march into other territories for some little time to come.

Hitler will not hesitate, if Nazi welfare demands it, to apply the full efficiency of his economic machine to the job of politically pacifying any antiGernran elements which "may rear their heade in neighbouring countries. Through extension of the swastika hooks to the very vitals of south-eastern Europe, this pacification has become simpler. The normal trade channels of Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania and Yugoslavia can be diverted now nt the will of Hitler. Trade reports reveal that in 103< Bulgaria sent more than a half of her total exports to Germany, while Austria, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Hungary each sent more than one third.

Control of Political " Goodwill." Under an order such as the German order of the day, it is foreseeable that direct application of trade •'influences" under the control of the Xazi dictator are capable of producing political "goodMrt.ll" among the, bloc of nations so directly concerned. Likewise inherent in this picture arc the reasons why Hitler probably will not attempt the march of Czechoslovakia, at least for some time to come.

First, he knows that, the Czechs will not abandon their independence without a etiff fight. Such a fight would invite military disaster at a stage of the game when the Xazis cannot risk military disaster. And, besides, there is no immediate need for such an action.

Onthe one hand Nazi Germany has sufficient economic and political-diver-sion before it in the job of Nazifving Austria and the other Danubian "and Balkan countries with whom the new German Empire will conduct a trade under the new conditions.

On the ' other hand Germany is capable of conducting an almost equally relentless war against Chechoslovakia through manipulation of her economic relations, without the risk of further alienating world opinion by direct and always showy military action.

French Impotence. The ' degeneration of contemporary France has removed her completely fiojii any influence in Poland, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Yugoslavia.

These countries, even before Hitler's march on Vienna, were under the economic and political domination of the new Germany. Vienna has clinched the implied alliances for a long while to come.

Consequently French prattle about their determination to "protect" Czechoslovakia is prattle and nothing more. Czeehoslovakia'sTiravery and wisdom in the face of actualities to-day is one of the inspirations of the current European scene.

The odds against the Czechs are great. Already they have wisely indicated- a decision to discuss compromises which will meet some of the Nazi insinuations of interest in German minorities within Czech borders. But behind this wisdom is the determination to preserve the independence of their own people against economic and military aggression.

Next obvious step in the Nazi development is economic aggression against Czechoslovakia. How long before this may burst into military action is something more for the world to hold its breath about.

Another Heap of Tinder. . Czechoslovakia can put up a stout resistance to a uniformed army goosestepping across her frontier. It will at least command the moral support of the world. But the problem of resisting the underground economic attack inevitably to be directed from the Chancellery at Berlin is another problem.

Two-thirds of Czechoslovakia's allimportant world trade has been conducted in the past with Germany and Austria and the other nations now directly under the influence of German policy as a result of the absorption of Austria.

This situation constitutes another heap of the tinder strewn about Europe. France is powerless to stop the advance of the Nazi programme due to the internal disintegration which rapidly is reducing her to the unimpressive international stature of a second-rate Power. Her speeches will not deter Herr Hitler.

This is the story of the dangerous phase of the present European scene. It is e story of the star of Nazi Germany in the ascendancy, but it ie not a etory of a picture likely to produce the immediate return of the world war to the actual battlefields. That will come some time later.—(N.A.N.A.)