FOREIGN POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 35, 10 August 1933, Page 3

FOREIGN POLICY

WHAT HITLER INTENDS

GERMANY'S NEED OF SPACE

EXPANSION IN EAST

It is characteristic of the Hitler regime that there have been few-7-and these colourless —statements ou foreign policy as auch. That is not because Hitlerism has no foreign policy f it it rather because it sees no lino of demarcation between domestic and foreign policy. The latter is but the continuance of the former. When the "purification" and restoration of Germany are complete policy will pass ffont the domestic stage. When a rearmed Germany can speak with her enemies in the gate it will be time enough to talk of foreign policy as such. Till she can so speak, as Herr Hitler knows, from both the financial and the military point of view, there must be peace, says the German correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." What Germany's policy will be then it is not possible to say, but in ','Meitt Kampf" Hitler laid down the lines ot development with a clear intimation that the end would be a violent one* These lines continue the pseudoMessianism that the Pan-Germans took from their prophets before the war. Germany must expand, first, because she is and will increasingly be overpopulated, secondly, because the "German tribes" are not yet united within one frontier, and, thirdly, because Germany has a civilising, crusading mission. These were all familiar conceptions before, but they were taken up with almost mystical fervour ; after, the war. It was one of the new nationalism's prophets, Moeller, /who popularised the distinction between the "old peoples" and the''young peoples"—i.e., those saturated and without a future, and those' insufficiently endowed with • territory and'so with a future, Germany being, tit course, the outstanding example of the latter. ■ . ' , ■■'.' PROBLEM OF SPACE. "The German problem is entirely * problem of space," said Moeller, and Herr Hitler agrees: "Only sufficient space on this earth assures a people freedom of existenc* (page 730). . "The National Socialist. movement must find courage to gather up.. the strength of the nation for the advance on such a line as leads out of the'present constriction of the space in: which it lives to new territory, and so- for ever free it from the danger of dis-' appearing from, tho earth or becoming a slave to other peoples. It,■ must remedy the disproportion between our population figures and the • square. milage of our territory." (Page 732.) That is to say, German foreign policy; under the new regime intends,to'■;become expansionist. That policy is not—• Herr Hitler knows well it cannot begone of peace: .'.:■■■■'■■, "The question of the of lost territory ... is always primarily a question of the reacquisition eof political power. . . . The freeing of op. pressed districts which have been detached from a country does not depend on the wishes of the oppressed nor'on the protest of those who have been robbed but on the means of action left in possession of the dismembered ' country. ... Oppressed territories' ar« not restored to the bosom of the mother country by flaming protest but'by'* sword that is able to strike. To forge this sword is the- task of the leaders of domestic policy; to secure that it-be forged undisturbed, and to. seek com* rades in arms is the task of > foreign policy." (Pages 688-9.) - WEAPONS AOAIK. That is the first task of policy; as.it is phrased more bluntly later' on (p. 715): "We want weapons again"." To that end even the shameful Treaty: of Versailles will serve. It is; quite clear to Herr Hitler, who has a simple mind and by armaments means anna* ments and not conferences, parities, and the like, that Germany cannot rearm if her ex-enemies are determined that she shall not. The problem, then, is to divide the ex-enemies. There are two enemies whom it is impossible to reconcile, one is Prance and the other is "international Jewry." In his exposition of tho future policy of alliances there is unfortunately much more about the Jews and the "wise men of Zion," in whom Herr Hitler has 'a touching faith, than about Prance, and it is.not always easy to make .out whether Franco is considered as , a decadent power, which is formidable only if a member of a coalition, or as the one really deadly menace to Germany's rebirth as an armed Great Power. But, at any rate, France is irreconcilable. "France can retain. significance in the world only by the disruption of Germany." According to Herr Hitler, who is an authority on. history, Germany had hitherto adopted a defensive attitude to the. French attack and "has been driven from century to century from one position t<» another" (p. 766). She will never do anything else but retreat until "we cease to let tho German will to.live fritter itself away in a purely passive resistance but concentrate it for % final active settlement with France* (ib.). ALLIES NEEDED. That, however, cannot be done i» the present grouping of the Powers. Germany needs allies, and those can only be Britain and Italy. On Italy Herr Hitler is vague, but, having rather embarrassedly surrendered South Tyrol for ever to Signor Mussolini, he concludes that a triple motive of gratitude, anti-Semitism, and enmity to France will secure Fascist aid.' On Britain he delivers an historical lecture in which the old doctrine of the balance of power is made the eternal inspiration of all British policy. "To-; day, as always, England's traditional policy desires and makes •.necessary' » certain balkanisation of Europe" (p. 696). After the peace Britain saw France dominating the Continent; 'it may, therefore be confidently expected that Germany could count on at least, her passive support against France's traditional policy, "the balkanisation of Germany" (p. 696). Just how far the alliance is to hV effective Herr Hitler does not say. At one time he seems to envisage a France, cowed by tho forces arrayed against her, allowing Germany to go on realising her historic mission; at others, Germany's allies holding the lists, as it were, while Germany proceeds to have the final active settlement. But whether the settlement be bloody or not, Germany must proceed to it with her final claims clearly stated, for no settlement will really end the "barren quarrel between us and France . . . unless Germany sees in the destruction of Franco only a moans whereby our nation can obtain possible expansion" (p. 767). Where is such expansion possible* In the East, answers Herr Hitler. Here, snys Herr Hitler the historian, were the most abiding successes of German foreign policy—"the colonisation of the Eastern .M.ar.ch .by. the. Bajuwares . . . the acquisition ... .of East Elbia and the organisation of Brandenburg--Prussia by the-Hohenzollern" (p. 733). In the East alone can Germany profitably expand; Herr Hitler has little interest in tropical colonies and verylittle more, apparently, in Alsace and Lorraine. But there must be no '' hurra-patriotism about that expan- * sion; it must be governed by the sol* consideration of bringing "the squar* milage of territory into harmony witfc the population figures" (p. 735).'