MANY VOICES

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 131, 6 June 1933, Page 7

MANY VOICES

SPEAK GERMAN AIMS

THE NEW FOREIGN POLICY

REVISION OF TREATIES

The foreign policy of Hcrr Hitler, as the leader of the successful National Revolution', is a peaceful one. But half an hour's conversation with representative National-Socialists will cause grave doubts whether this policy of the moment can safely be taken as the basis of anything in the nature of a tenyear international arrangement. If, •within half that period, there were to bo restored to Germany by agreement most of what she lost through the war 1914-1918, including full liberty of armament, it might be so. But there are very few people in Germany who believe things are likely to be as simple as that (writes the Berlin correspondent of "The Times" in that journal). Herr Hitler declared at Potsdam, that Germany wanted to bo the true friend of a peace which would heal the wounds from which all countries had been suffering; Captain Goering, speaking at Essen as Reich Commissioner for Aviation, said that "for the living it was a holy duty to fulfil the mission for which Germans had given their lives in the -war. If no other way could bo found they must be ready to redeem with blood a pledge written in blood." Here once again there would seem to be two voices speaking for Nazi Germany. This las happened so often that it is not unreasonable to put it" down to that verbal subtlety which was imposed on the movement by German political conditions if it was going to win, and has shown signs of becoming a habit. REMARKABLE MACHINE. The Nazi movement boasts with justification of having created what is probably the most remarkable propaganda machine ever known. Everything is turned to account, as the Reichstag fire and the Communist "material" were turned to account. Nothing was more characteristically clever than the way in which, after the earlier reports of genuine excesses had been met _by evasive and self-contradictory denials until, in face of authenticated foreign diplomatic protests, they could no longer be contested, a sudden wave of exaggerated Jewish atrocity reports of obscure origin was seized upon as an opportunity for a wave of indignant counter propaganda. There is an ingenuous desire on the part of the now Nationalistic Germany both to have its cake and to eat it. One Minister grows indignant at the natural assumption that with the constitutional guarantee of postal secrecy suspended letters might be opened. But another Minister thunders, with admonishing finger, that he knows all the arrangements and telephone conversations of foreign journalists. It is a bewildering Germany we live in today. Whole-hearted supporters, in the blindness of their exaltation, see no contradictions anywhere; the- surviving Press has no choice, and the individual sceptic does best to keep his ideas to himself. Many of the indignant protests made abroad by Germans during the boycott denying not only the reported "atrocities," but excesses of any kind worthy of note, were quite sincere. Their authors knew nothing of what was going on behind the veil of secrecy and could not, or would not, as good patriots believe such things possible in Germany or try to find out about them. FRONTIER REVISION. In the case of foreign policy, however, is it certain that the voices are so divergent as they sound? Germany has long "been persuaded that she has suffered more wounds than the other Powers, and Herr Hitler would have her the friend only of a peace that heals them all. Even the moderate, non-Nazi "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" says the ten-year political truce is an ideal most -devoutly to be wished for, tut that the German Government will have to attach clear conditions to its consent, and these are held to be Indicated by Signor Mussolini's plan—namely, equality in armament and the revision of the "Versailles Dictate" by means of an honest examination of conditions between States, tho perpetuation of which might endanger world peace. Captain Goering's "mission for which Germans gave their lives in the war" can hardly be less than the recovery of what was lost; and "if no other way can be found"—by means like the ten-year pact—the pledge must'be "redeemed in blood-" None of these expositions of foreign policy seems to offer much hope of Germany's consent to a pact shelving frontier Tevisio'n for a longish spell or maintaining discrimination against Germany in the matter of military aviation or any other arm. That is admittedly not the sort of peace she favours. In tho present mood of fervent patriotism, Captain Goering is by no means alone -trith his vision of blood. What was regarded as the domestic stain on Germany's national honour is held to have been wiped out with the crushing of the Weimar Republic; the one firm bond which remains while the new Germany is taking shape is the determination to wipe out the foreign stain, if not one way, then another. In influential and reasonable circles the view may be heard that war, especially in Continental Europe, is a natural, almost inevitable thing, and that next time Germany has every expectation of having the. means to win and every intention of winning. AGAINST PACIFISM. It cannot be too often emphasised that the political "cleaning up" process has been directed primarily at pacifism. The Nazi objections to tho Communists and other persons of "Left" sympathies lie less in their social, and economic theories, with which, indeed, tho Socialist side of National-Socialism has much in common, than in their, internationalism and anti-war outlook. Although it is clear, from the Nazi Press alone, that the anti-Jowish movement is to some extent dictated by professional jealousy, especially in the medical and legal professions, it is admitted by Nazis that- the main object was to root out the Jewish "intellectuals," who inclined to pacifism and internationalism. This object has largely been attained. Meanwhile, war is not wanted. Hopes are entertained of a fairly early attainment of a practical, if not formal, Anschluss with Austria and the consolidation of a "steel band" consisting of Austria, Hungary, Italy, and perhaps a rebellious Croatia, to the Balkans, cutting off the northern from the southern Slavs. Great Britain's friendship is much desired, and the attraction is held out of her food supply ■being supplemented from a German surplus in some future war in which she will not be on the opposite side and will be unable to feed herself. Gennino fears of provocation are apparently felt on both sides of the German-Polish frontier. It is hardly conceivable that the new Germany in its incompletely prepared state would allow itself, even for an otherwise desirable diversion, to be drawn into hostilities by, say, a provocative action by impatient and irresponsible German elements. As for Poland, is it the moment to present a suitable, perhaps the last, chance of preventive action, and is the Little Entente ready to collaborate? Also, is French public cpinion Teady to support a preventive jn§ l Tho probable answers to Jhese

questions are felt to be encouraging for the preservation of peace for the time being. Meanwhile, there is the problem, of satisfying the German masses -who havo been promised so much from the national resurgence. Policies are slow to emerge, if only because the- Government has obviously not assumed anything like permanent composition. The country as a whole is almost entirely uncler Nazi control, and it is generally felt to be only a matter of time, perhaps quite a short time, before the Nationalist-Junker group, and even the semi-military Stahlhelm, will have either merged themselves in the movement or been deprived even of the semblance of influence in the Central Government