THE POSITION AT DANZIG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 12

THE POSITION AT DANZIG

The terms of the announcement that Herr Foerster, leader of the Danzig Nazis, would make an important speech this week were calculated to excite speculation. Herr Foerster was reported to have stated that he was reserving a surprise for this occasion. As reported by cable his utterance appears to have chiefly comprehended a fervent reiteration of a familiar tale, and to have been singularly lacking in the element of surprise. Apart from vituperation directed against Poland and AngloFrench “ meddling,” it consisted in the essentials in an emotional declaration of the conviction of the Danzig people that “ liberation is at hand, and that Danzig will again return to the Reich,” and a melodramatic message to Herr Hitler assuring him that they look to him confidently in face of threats of a Polish attack which they are determined to resist. If, as seems probable, it was a correct report that the Danzig meeting was held at Herr Hitler’s express desire, and that he laid down the lines of Herr Foerster’s speech, the purpose in his mind would appear to have been broadly that of impressing Poland with the danger of continuing to show an obdurate front, and of attempting to magnify the excuse for German intervention. So far as Herr Foerster has been the mouthpiece of Herr Hitler he has not been impressive. The Polish commentary that his speech has not changed the fundamental issues, and would indicate that Herr Hitler has not yet made up his mind, seems to be shrewdly based. A surprise in the speech would have consisted in an announcement that Herr Hitler intended to take action of a kind that would render war inevitable. Talk of a Polish attack upon Danzig is a mere twisting of the possibilities of the situation. Nobody is better aware of that than Herr Hitler. It is a somewhat appalling reflection that the issue of peace or war, over Danzig, should rest upon the decision of one man, Herr Hitler, as to the course he will follow. In an illuminating article in the Nineteenth Century Review Mr Harold Nicolson expresses a belief that must be very widely entertained in suggesting that the whole apparatus of peace is to an alarming extent centred upon one single point, namely, the desires, emotions, and impulses of Herr Hitler. “We must realise quite calmly,” he writes, “ that the destinies of Europe depend very largely upon the temperament of a single man.” The Polish Ambassador to the United States, who has just returned to Washington from Warsaw, has emphasised how clearly it depends upon Herr Hitler whether peace or war is the outcome of the Danzig dispute. It is difficult to believe that at this stage the German people should not understand the full implications of a step by Herr Hitler, forcibly to include Danzig within the Reich, Yet according to the Berlin correspondent of the Daily Telegraph it is still believed in the German capital that, if the worst comes, Britain and France will not support Poland. The resolute attitude of Poland is clear. The Polish position as regards the Free City is summed up in the explanation that, while racially German, Danzig is economically Polish, and that, if fortified, it could be used to strangle Poland. As for the nledges given to Poland by Great Britain and France the Nazi leaders, at least, can be under no misapprehension. It is enough that Mr Chamberlain’s recent words should be recalled: “Let no one make the mistake of supposing that we are not ready to throw our whole strength into the scale, if need be, to resist aggression, whether against ourselves or against those whose independence we have undertaken to defend.”