A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 124, 19 February 1941, Page 6

A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Nazi Enslavement

HITLER’S NEW ORDER

Rumania, Hungary and Slovakia, which entered the Axis Pact three months ago, appear now to be firmly incorporated into Hitler’s "new order —for the duration of the war, at all events. At present Hitler seems to be concerned mainly with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, witli what result should be soon apparent. The months since June ot’ last year have brought out in clearer and clearer light the general strategy behind Germany’s economic stranglehold. Here there is no change. The subject peoples of Europe are to produce the raw materials —agricul tural aud industrial —for the great German -war machine. The Subject Peoples Under a general German domination, there arc distinctions within the ranks of the subject peoples. There is a world of difference between Germany’s assurances to the Dutch that iu the “new order” “their character will not be obliterated but raised to a higher level,” and that their “individual character” has “an important contribution to make to the Continental commonwealth” and Germany’s policy toward Poland, where the Nazi attitude was brutally exposed by the Gov-ernor-General, Dr. Frank, at the Nazi Party Congress iu Cracow on August 15. “The party ... is called upon to safeguard for all time German domination in this country conquered by Germany’s armed forces. There will never be a Polish State again.” These differences spring primarily from strategy, says the "Economist." The Western fringe will continue to receive preferential treatment so long as Britain’s armed might remains intact. Th? Low Countries aud France may even be wooed by special favours in order to stem any general feeling of revolt bred of nearness to a free people. Czechs and Poles have no such strategic protection. Moreover, they are marked down as Reich lands. Their territories have been incorporated into Germany aud there can be no pity for the "minorities” thus created. Even in the West, Germany's control is more brutal and open in Alsace and Lorraine. which are destined to be integrated into the Reich, than in France generally. Working’ For The Reich Economically, it is the same story, for there is the same shift of emphasis as in the political sphere. In the East, the new order is exploitation, blatant and open. In the West, it masquerades as mutually advantageous commerce. By the time it reaches the Americas, it'is Utopia, In the incorporated territories, Poland and the Czech Protectorate, the Germans practise pure spoliation. The subject peoples’ farms, factories ami workshops produce for the Reich, their supplies are stripped for German stomachs. It was the boast of Greiser last summer that the Warthegau, which lias never before exported more than 20V,000 tons of grain, had sent 700,000 tons to Germany in the first year of occupation. We can imagine how much was left for the needs of the wretched inhabitants. Labour is exploited as ruthlessly. More than a million Polish labourers have been sent off to forced labour in Germany, many thousand* from the Protectorate. What , is requisitioning in Poland termed purchase further west. Germany’s negotiations with Denmark. Norway, and the Low Countries recall the old Balkan clearings, where in return for exports of raw materials the Balkan States received old armaments and new aspirin. Conquest permits Germany to dispense with both tiie armanients an’d the aspirin. The German balance in the new clearings is paper. Tlie procedure is suflicientiy well known. By paying their debt* la the local currency and by fixing the exchange rate at a level preposterously favourable to the mark, they have succeeded in creating inflation iu the West under the guise of legitimate trade. Direct Control

Behind the control given by the disorganization of local economy under the pressure of Germany's inflationary action, there is growing up a more direct control based on the steady acquisition of capital values in occupied territory. This buying up of industries has been practised for some years in the Balkans. Only its extension to all the conquered territories is new. To give a few recent examples, Wintershall A.G. hits bought up all oil rights in Hungary after buying out Standard Oil. Otto Wolff of Cologne has amalgamated wirli one of the largest Belgian steel companies. German textile industries have virtually taken over all Poland's textile industry, while tinheavy industries of Polish Silesia have been incorporated as Gorman companies.

Fimuiee—that sinister conspiracy from which Germany was to deliver Europe—plays its part. The Internationale Bank of Luxemburg, linked with tlie Dresdner Bank, has floated a new holding company to purchase and finance industrial concerns, ami its aim will be to exclude “foreign interests.” The banks and savings banks of Alsace-Lorraine have been detached from the French financial system ami linked with Germany. Situ-e the procedure is the same as that adopted in incorporated Poland. Germany's economic practice boars out. the evidence of tlie recent expulsions. Alsace Lorraine is not to remain with l-’rnni-e. The Nazi System There is nothing new in this vitreconomies. It is not merely the system which Ims been trumjieted about since tlte victories of June. It is the economy li hieli is inherent in the Nazi syst< ,u. Since the Nazi party started with seven men in a shack in Munich, its aim and methods have never altered a hair's breadth. The system is tlie apotheosis of power and the subordination of every aspect of life—political, social and.economic—to tlie pursuit of power. Hitler, starting tlte parry on the pennies filched from deluded workingmen, is the same Hitler who today conducts his larceny in the grand manner. Only the scope of Nazi policy lias extended. Ils dytmniism—of robbery and exploitation—has been consistently the same. And. since the condition of thi' cult of power is the wielding of force, and force depends upon an expanding armament industry, the subject peoples ot lairiqie need not delude themselves that they have purchased stability by their loss of freedom. The armaments drive is a machine which in Nazi hand' does not go into reverse. Politically the basis of Nazidom is activism, an ever-widening circle of conquest and domination. Economically. the re-armament programme is tlie condition of full employment and the seizing of spoil from conquered territory the means by which, precariously and desperately, the soaring unproductive expenditure of guns is offset by just enough looted butter to keep Germany's millions in working trim.