Nazi Diplomacy

Southland Times, Issue 24109, 24 April 1940, Page 4

Nazi Diplomacy

THE White Paper issued by the Norwegian Government, of which a summary is printed this morning, tells a story that has become painfully familiar. As on former occasions, Hitler showed himself incapable of negotiating. He demanded the establishment of a puppet regime under Major Quisling. Although the Norwegian Foreign Minister admitted that the existing Government was willing to resign in favour of a new and “friendly” Government (a surrender that might have given Hitler the substance of his demands) he refused to make the slightest concession. Hitler probably counted on an easy diplomatic victory, and this time he tried a new variation of the well-known tactics of intimidation. It may be remembered that, when he was planning the annexation of Austria, he sent for Dr Schuschnigg and gave him a merciless browbeating until the Austrian Chancellor agreed to confer on Dr Seyss-Inquart a key position at the Ministry of the Interior. This was the first open step, towards

annexation: the rest of the story is now a part of history. The same kind of pressure was appliedwhen Hitler completed his conquest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Sending for M. Hacha, President of the Republic, he subjected him to third degree methods until the exhausted and terrified statesman signed away the liberties of his people. In the autumn of 1939, when the Nazis intended to invade Poland, Hitler again tried to snatch a bloodless victory. He agreed to negotiate with the Poles if an emissary “with full powers” arrived in Berlin within 24 hours. By this time, however, the theory of gangster diplomacy was becoming more widely known: the Polish Government declined to expose Colonel Beck to the mental torture that had been inflicted on Dr Schuschnigg and M. Hacha, and a few hours later German troops had crossed the frontier. There can be little doubt that, on the eve of the latest invasion, Hitler would have liked to summon the Norwegian Foreign Minister to an interview at Berlin or Berchtesgaden. But the Allies were watchful; there was no time for a final pressure that might have allowed Norway to appeal for help. Therefore Hitler carried his method to its logical conclusion. Professor Koht received the German demands some hours after German warships had entered Norwegian harbours. This was a diplomacy stripped of the last pretence of legality or decency. Instead of a shouting demagogue, the Foreign Minister was forced to hear the sound of gun-fire. It is to his lasting credit that he answered Hitler out of his own mouth. In rejecting the first ultimatum he reminded the German Minister “of the statement recently made by the Fuhrer that a people who humbly submitted to an aggressor without the slightest resistance did not deserve to exist.”