GERMANY'S METHODS

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 191, 15 August 1939, Page 8

GERMANY'S METHODS

THE ATTACK FROM WITHIN.

In a calm and dispassionate manner, without rhodomontade or verbal fireworks, Ibut -with chapter and verse for every statement he makes, Elwyn Jones, author" of "The Battle for Peace," reviews in a Penguin Special 'The Atta-ek from Within," the evidence which discloses Germany's immediate and remote intentions, dierfoses from the words of the Xazi leaders themselves exactly what those intentions are. The exposure of the method of conducting the preliminary campaign from within the gates of the threatened area showe how thoroughly the German has mastered the strategy of the Trojan horse. This striking analysis of the world position to-day opens with the plain statement that Britain to-day faces what is /perhaps the most serious crisis in her history. The challenge is clear and inescapable, says Mr. Jones, and no amount of refusal to acknowledge its existence by abhorring "ideological struggles" can eliminate it. The conflict involves not only Britain but Europe, America —civilisation itself. Already the disintegration has gone far. Four free countries—Austria, Abyssinia, Czechoslovakia, Albania—have 4>een wiped off the map. Legally existing Governments a/re being undermined. Since Hitler's access to' Power in 1933 a King and a Chancellor, a Prime Minister and a Foreign Secretary, anubaesadors. generals, judges and members of Parliament have been assassinated. Interference with the affairs of other nations is established. Plunder on a grand scale is sweeping the world. Mussolini's "Nuisance Value."

After outlining German concessions to Italy—made becanse of Mussolini's "nuisance value" against England and France in the Mediterranean—the author quotes Professor Max Gruen, German traveller and geologist, who, after a visit to Mussolini, said: "To-day Italy is England's strongest rival in the Mediterranean, Gibraltar is threatened, the transport of French troops from bhe colonies is almost impossible. When this has happened Germany will play hell with France in a way that that country has never experienced during the whole of her history. . . England will have to swallow whatever Germany and Italy set before her. The whole world i* laughing at the impotence of England to-day. We demand what was stolen from us—our colonies. Italy will annex part of Southern France." Berlin is now preparing a plan for the domination of the Mediterranean based on the view that any Italian progress in that sea is a German progress. When will the huge military machine of the Axis be ready for action? The answer is that it will be used piecemeal. The strategy of the Axis ie to seize one strategic position after another— Spain, Bohemia. Albania." As Hitler once said: "I have no programine. I have only objectives and goals; All the rest ie tactics." Hitler now insists on the observance of "the laws, of blood." an oliservance which involves recovery of the "lost"' territory of Greater Germany. Hitler, in "Mein Kainpf.' , first enunciated this. idea: "To demand the restoration of the 11114 frontiers is from every [>oint of view a political folly which amounts to a crime. The frontiers of ]!)14 mean nothing at all for the future of the German nation. The disparity with England would not be reduced and there would not even be any real curtailment of the importance of Fiance in world politics." Those who think that Hitler can be bought off with the return of the ex-German colonies will be doomed, in Mr. Jones' view, to a disillusionment as bitter as Mr. Chamberlain's over Czechoslovakia. Hitler will willirfrly accept the return of those colonies, from which he can prepa.re attack on other territories in Africa. There is probably nothing Hitler would welcome more than a "colonial Munich." But it will not satisfy him any more than the Czech Munich satisfied him.

The. technique of attack from within is not a new technique, but it is applied to-day with a ruthleseness without historical parallel. Having asserted racial "righte," Germany proceeds to demand "satisfaction" of those rights, "satisfaction" as in the of Austria and Czechoslovakia, involving the total conquest and elimination of independent States. Mr. Jones describes the formation of Nazi "cell"" abroad and t!ie associations subsidiary to them. In South Africa the activities have been so extensive thnt for its own "rotation the Oovernmont hn« been compelled to declare the organisation* illeernl. In .-'ll the for-'or German colonies there in >\ network of N':k' : or;>n"i-•tioii. and pro-Hitler projiajruidH i<= ■ -nread anonjr the nations. Oennniw in Pnland have ))een ortranteed apainst the Polish State ever since 1034 and are nrtranise 1 as a cadre for civil war. In Yugoslavia esjiitmarre, pmpapanda and sedition are well organised, in Holland the Dutch Oovernment ha* taken frequent action against Nazi conspirators, in Belcrium 6O.OfM> Oormaivi ojienly wear peaked cai>B and a swastika badjre, and tliey have nrjranwed a boycott ajrainst shf>pkee|>ers of Belpian etock. In Denmark the Xazi pro-pa-'randist machine i* directed towards the "oppressed"' (Jermau minoritiee in Schleswipr, in Norway and Sweden Oerman residents are repiiuentcd in the N:;zi movement and a local proiip of the party exists in every important centre. In Switzerland tho Avork of Nnzification ie particularly active, and economic pressure is very heavy. And in all these countries Oerman efforts to control the Prees by direct threat, by 'bril>ery through advertisement and by requests for censorship—of newspapers and of films, too. which are in any way anti-Xazi.