DANZIG

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 66, 22 August 1939, Page 6

DANZIG

POLAND'S POSITION

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS

"A statement published in the semi-official 'Kurier Czerwony' disposes—once and for all, it is hoped— of the suggestion attributed to Nazi sources that the so-called Danzig question should be settled by plebiscite," says the Warsaw correspondent of the "Scotsman."

"It needs neither plebiscite nor torchlight parades," the statement asserts, "to demonstrate the German character of Danzig. The fact has always been recognised by the Polish Government, and was plainly admitted by Colonel Beck, the Foreign Minister, in iis speech before the Sejm (Parliament) on May 5.

"What Poland is concerned about is the safeguarding of her rights and interests in the Danzig territory. These are guaranteed by international treaties and embodied in agreements between the Polish Government and the Danzig Senate. They have also been repeatedly recognised by the Third Reich, so that, it is stated, there is nothing in connexion with Polish rights in Danzig that that could be changed by plebiscite or 'one-sided decisions.' The statement moreover, warns all those concerned that any attempt to change the status of Danzig by 'an adventure' would be disastrous, because the strategic position is such that Polish forces could occupy the city long before military assistance could arrive from East Prussia. It is pointed out that Polish forces now deployed along the southern and western borders of the Danzig territory possess—in comparison with East Prussia—the advantage of excellent road and railway connexions. 'Our interests in Danzig are thus well defended,' the statement says.

Mr William Forrest, the Warsaw correspondent of the "News Chronicle," in a message to his paper, says: "No plebiscite, the Poles point out, can alter the geographical fact that Danzig stands at the mouth of the Vistula, Poland's only great river, and that whoever holds Danzig can throttle Poland at will. The Danzig Nazis themselves reject the suggestion of a plebiscite. 'The views of the citizens of Danzig,' writes the Nazi organ, 'Vorposten,' 'are already known to the world.' What the real views of the Danzigers are no one, of course, can tell. 'Danzig bleibt Deutsch' and all the measures which have been taken in Hitler's Germany to suppress free speech and opinion have been faithfully copied in the 'Free City.' Danzig has its force of black-uniformed S.S. guards. It is not from inside the Free City, but from outside that the solution of the Danzig problem will come. Herr Arthur Greiser, President of the Senate, has publicly placed the fate of the Free City in the hands of the Fuehrer, and now calmly awaits the fiat that' will decide "the destiny of the German East, on which our destiny depends.'

"The Poles, too, are calmly awaiting the Fuehrer's decision, confident as they are that if the German troops in East Prussia get the order to march on Danzig the Polish Army will be there before them. To reach Danzig from East Prussia the Germans would have to cross the Vistula, and they could only do this by the Polish bridges at Tchew, 20 miles south of Danzig. These j bridges are now strongly guarded. From north, west and south all the road and rail approaches to Danzig are held by the Poles, while from the fortified tip of the long narrow promontory of Hel, Polish batteries dominate the sea approach to Danzig. At the end of March, before the Polish mobilisation, Danzig might have fallen to a sudden blow. That, says the Poles, is no longer possible." "German historians, when they choose to be objective, admit that Danzig was part of the Polish Kingdom for centuries. But even if history is left out of account, on the principle that 'once upon a time' has no relation to the present, the same method cannot be applied to geography," asserts Dr. S. Wolf, in the "Contemporary Review." . "Geographical facts and their geo-political concomitants have an eternal valid-

ity and are not a product, but the cause of political events. One unalterable geographical factor is represented by the fact that Danzig is situated at the mouth of the Vistula, a river that is 100 per cent. Polish. There is hardly another great river in Europe, apart from Russia, which is so completely and intimately linked with the history and the life of the country as the Vistula is linked with the history, government and life of the Polish nation. The Danube is an international river, common property of many peoples— Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania; the Rhine is a boundary river, and therefore automatically associated with war and warring interests; the Elbe, though a German river, lacks the great significance of an only great German river, while the Oder flows through Germanised territories which were once Slav. But that the Vistula is as Polish as the Thames English, or the Volga Russian, or the Mississippi American, is a fact that admits of no doubt whatever. With the Vistula, which flows from south to north, Poland gravitates towards the Baltic. And at the mouth of the Vistula lies Danzig. The attitude that it would be possible to remove the mouth of the Vistula from the sphere of Polish influence could only serve one ultimate purpose—to sever a vital artery in the body of Poland and thereby slowly but surely ruin the country as such."