NAZI PACIFISM

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 96, 20 October 1933, Page 8

NAZI PACIFISM

That man must be hard to please who can find nothing in Herr Hitler's interminable eloquence to his liking. If he does not like what he gets today he has only to wait till tomorrow when what he dislikes will be flatly contradicted, and if between the two he cannot find satisfaction the fault is surely not in the speaker but in himself. Yesterday, when the rest of the world was talking peace, and Germany's good friend at Rome—indeed, the only friend that she has left—had come forward in the role of peacemaker, Herr Hitler showed that he was not going to stand any nonsense of that kind by whooping up the military frenzy of his followers to a more dangerous pitch than ever. Herr Hitler told a Nazi meeting last night that Germany would attend no conferences, malte no alliances, adhere to no conventions, and sign nothing until full equality was granted. As to making no alliances, it would be possible to borrow the retort of the milkmaid in the song: " 'Nobody asked you, sir,' she said." Anxious as every nation is to avoid a clash with Germany, there is none that would not regard an alliance as a greater risk. The only German alliance that is within the range of practical politics forms no exception to this rule. The alliance which the supineness of the other Powers may permit Germany to conclude with Austria will be the same kind of involuntary "Anschluss" which the tiger was able to arrange with the young lady of Riga. It was at any-rate clear yesterday that the German Chancellor's love of peace is so intense that he is prepared to blow up his own ship and every other ship in Europe rather than submit to any compromise of his ideal. The less ardent lovers of peace who were compelled to feel yesterday that it is possible to have too much of a good thing may be relieved by the more conventional peace doctrine that reaches us from the same source today. The fiery pacifist of the previous day had so cooled down when he answered the questions submitted by Mr. Ward Price of the "Daily Mail" that butter would not have melted in his mouth. And fortunately he was able to speak not only for himself and for the Germany of today, but for the Imperial Germany which a jealous world has so completely mis* understood. We are teaching the Gorman youth to fight only internal evils. Germany's attitude to France always depended on France's attitude to Germany. When the German youth are taught to sing songs of vengeance against France and are permitted, if not incited, to make trouble on the frontier, the object is to encourage them not to reverse the result of a war which Germany did not lose, but merely to smooth out the domestic difficulties in the way of a pacifist German Government That "Germany's attitude to France, always depended on France's .attitude to Germaaiy," has a, pleasant.

sound about it, but it does not help us very much, even if it may be taken to imply that the same attitude is to be maintained under a Government which has proclaimed the old Imperial regime to be its model. The suggestion of humility and passiveness which it conveys was not fully realised even then. Tiie German treatment of Belgium in those days was justified on the plea that "the rabbit began it." Germany's attitude to the Belgian rabbit in August, 1914, was entirely dependent on its attitude to her, and as the rabbit had the bad taste to begin it the principle left her no option but to respond. Thus it was, as the magnificent mendacity of the Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment is perhaps teaching the German people, that the World War began. It is to be feared that the Fatherland is sur T rounded by similar dangers today. There are harmless looking but really venomous rabbits on every frontier which threaten to shatter its halcyon dreams of peace. Perfidious little Austria with her Napoleonic little Chancellor is giving the Nazis the most serious trouble at present, but Denmark and Switzerland and others are eagerly awaiting their chance and may be relied upon to take it if Austria is not "Anschluss"-cd pretty promptly. If all Germany's neighbours would only imitate her perfect calm and do nothing at all till somebody else does something, how much nearer the millennium the world would be! Another of Mr. Price's questions actually went so far as to suggest that Germany herself might have aggressive designs on one of these troublesome neighbours of hers, but it created no embarrassment for the Chancellor's conscience in his pacifist mood. Mr. Price: Does Germany intend to recover the Polish Corridor? Herr Hitler: No sane person believes the Corridor to be one of the greatest achievements of tho Peace Conference, bnt nobody in Germany thinks we are going to war with Poland over it. It is indeed very good news that nobody in Germany is now thinking of what for years has been a capital object of German policy, and what Herr Hitler himself has done more than any other man to encourage. Six months ago a Warsaw correspondent wrote to the "Manchester Guardian" (Weekly Edition, April 28):—. Since Hitler's accession to power the relations between Poland and Germany have gone from bad to worse. . . . Hitler has done more than any previous German Government to encourage the old enmity between Poland and Germany. But writing from Warsaw to the "Saturday Review" of August 19, Mr. Robert Machray reported that a great change had come over Poland during the last twelve months; that her previous nervousness had been replaced by "confidence in herself and her destiny"; and he assigned as the chief cause "the quite extraordinary improvement in her relations with Soviet Russia."

With no fear of Russian aggression Poland can turn her whole attention to Germany, and, oddly enough, Mr. Machray quotes her Foreign Minister (Colonel Beck) as applying to Germany exactly the same formula that Herr Hitler had applied to France: "As Germany acts towards Poland, so will Poland act towards Germany." Germany dares not act towards Poland as she proposed to do a few months ago. Soviet Russia is a security for the peace of Europe. Herr Hitler's present pacifism in regard to the Corridor is sincere.