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Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 104, 4 May 1937, Page 19

BACK TO EUROPE

GERMAN POLICY TREND

AFTER BRITAIN'S ARMING

EXPANSIONIST AIMS

After straying for a while from the moorings erected for her by Adolf Hitler's book, "Mem Kampf," and getting into such exciting but, in results, rather disappointing adventures as intervention in Spain, the anti-Comintern pact with Japan, and a campaign for colonies, Germany apparently is returning to her.. original strategy, which might be summarised as domestic concentration for Continental expansion; sailing under the name of "revisionism," writes Otto D. Tolischus from; Berlin to the "New York Times." ':'.

Germany was lured into these ad-; ventures by the spectacle of British weakness and indecision which; enabled Mtissolini to walk away with Ethiopia' and thereby challenged imitation. But; this' phase came to an end with the announcement of the British re-arma-l ment programme, which took up the challenge and posted a warning. So, far in this sense the British programme seems to have marked a turning point in European ■as well- as German politics, and Germany returns from her foreign adventures with prospects of General Francisco Franco's victory and the inclusion of a Nationalist Spain in the authoritarian bloc as a gain and consolation, which were purchased, however, at the price of British alienation and an unmistakable British "No" to German colonial demands.

At any rate, the weight of Germany's foreign policy is emphasising more than ever the principle of wartime autarchy and the creation of an "unbloody empire of science through synthetic raw material colonies at home." HARMONY ACHIEVED.

In doing so the official policy of the German Government, which speaks for the German Reich, is also getting in closer harmony with the broader programme of the National Socialist Party, which undertakes to speak for the "German nation of 100,000,000 inside and outside the Reich." The difference between governmental policy and the programme of the party, which,; while legally incorporated in the State, considers itself greater than the State, has caused considerable confusion in some minds, as it was supposed to do, especially since the Spanish adventure was the result of the personal initiative of Hitler, who is both head of the State and of the party; but in general it may be said that, while govern--mental policy is necessarily dependent upon immediate political , exigencies,; the party programme is.above time and circumstance, and the party sees its main task in whipping ."the govern-, mental bureaucracy into carrying (> out the programme as fast as possible." Viewed in this perspective special significance must be attached to the : visits of Foreign Minister Constantm' yon Neurath to Vienna and General Hermann Goering to Poland on the one side and the attempt of the Czechoslovakian Government to conciliate the German minority, the Polish Government's new authoritarian programme of national concentration, the trip of Soviet Chief Marshal of Staff "Yegoroff to the Baltic States,,and the visit of Finnish Foreign Minister Holsti to M05c0w..... , ~. ;-. HUNT FOR WEAK SPOTS. Feeling herself still cramped within the borders of the Versailles Treaty after wiping out the last vestiges of Versailles at home, Germany renewed her cautious tapping on the walls surrounding her in a search for weak spots in order to start "revisionism" going, and though according to Hitler's frequent pledges this revision is to be accomplished in a legal way without resort to war, States which might be affected by it are looking to their defences. ■'~■-. Judged by results of the latest soundings, the prospects for revision are still as distant as ever. The attempts to use Germany's new army as a purely "diplomatic weapon" has merely given a new. impetus to the armament race all around. . Foreign Minister yon Neurath's visit to Vienna demonstrated that diplomatic relations between the "two German States" are correct, but it; also emphasised the differences between their ruling ideas to stay independent of the Third Reich as-well as the National Socialist Party. No greater success seems to have attended General' Goering's hunting trip to Poland. Depending on her own armament, which she is enlarging, and the fertility of her population, which is rapidly erecting an insurmountable population barrier to Hitler's dreams of eastward' expansion, Poland continues to pursue a policy of armed neutrality, reinsured by pacts on all sides. Official relations between the Polish and German Governments are cordial, but no more. Under the' guise of this cordiality Poland is merely intensifying her campaign of exterminating" her German, minority,' toward which the totalitarian. National Socialist regime, answersJinkind with respect to, 'the Polish-minority. in,, Germany. But General Goering and Marshal Smigly Rydz agreed at their conference that neither side would make any "back claims," ■ which formula may be assumed to cover the minority question as well as Nazi "co-ordina-tion" in Danzig. POLAND'S REAL COURSE. If, therefore, through the authoritarian regime and its anti-Bolshevist declarations, Poland seems to be inclining towards Germany ideologically, she is pursuing in practice a purely, even egotistically, nationalist policy for her own ends. One additional result of General Goering's trip is said to be that Germany has acknowledged the validity of the Polish-French allionce, directed against herself, just as France is said to have reconciled herself to the Polish-German agreement. It is merely in line with this policy that Poland, carefully maintains a continuous, if immaterial, quarrel with Czechoslovakia, which also lies in the path of German revisionist ambitions and with which Germany's relations are highly unsatisfactory, but which also is allied to both France and Russia. Obviously, Poland is going to keep out of trouble if Czechoslovakia gets into it—unless France also moves, which Warsaw doubts. That is the reason why Europe watches with considerable anxiety the violent German propaganda barrage against Czechoslovakia based, first, on alleged oppression "of the German minority, and second, on the alleged Bolshevisation of the country. Both charges appeal to the Third Reich's two most sacred dogmas—the preeminence of the German race and the crusade against Bolshevism. Meanwhile, the Soviets are obviously strengthening their fences on the Baltic shores,'where Germany seems to have suffered a reversal, especially in. Finland. And if aU this does not conjure up'the days and methods of Machiavelli, it may be revealed that many Eurv:>oan statesmen are in fact re-reading their Machiavelli now.