HITLER’S MIND

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4016, 23 February 1938, Page 8

HITLER’S MIND

WHAT IS BEHIND IT? QUESTIONS UNDERLYING EUROPE’S TROUBLES. What is happening in Europe? Why did Lord Halifax rush off so unexpectedly to Berlin? Why, when he returned, did the Prime Minister of France bring his Foreign Minister to London for an “exchange of views on the international situation?” Did it mean that the situation had suddenly become dangerous, that war threatened, or that some great crisis was in process of secret settlement? It meant nothing sensational, said Sir Arthur Willert, the authority on foreign affairs in the “Sunday Express.” It means he said that the British and French Governments are worried and justly worried, by the trend of events. Mr. Eden has proclaimed during the past year that the worst that could happen to the world would be for its principal countries to divide into two antagonistic groups. He said that the principal object of his diplomacy was to prevent this cleavage. He has failed in that object. Germany, Italy and Japan, the European dictatorships and the Asiatic militarists, are working together in partnership against the democracies. And they are working successfully. In China the Japanese armies plunge forward to the plaudits of Berlin and Rome while the democracies under Britain and American leadership meet at Brussels and bleat ineffective protests. In Spain, Germany and Italy, unimpressed by the activities of Mr. Eden’s Non-Intervention Committee, help General Franco in what they hope will be a successful bid for victory. It looks as if Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini agreed, when they met in Berlin not long ago, that Italy would support Germany in becoming •“top-dog” on the Continent and that Germany would support Italy in her Mediterranean ambitions and especially in Spain. In any case, Germany has recently intensified her efforts to gain the political and economic control of Central Europe. She has said enough in public to show that she aims first at Austria and Czechoslovakia. She hopes to control Austria through the Austrian Nazi Party which, helped by her propaganda and probably money, is getting stronger and stronger. Dr. Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, is the champion of Austrian independence. He is resisting German pressure to put Austrian Nazis into his Cabinet. The time may come when he will have to yield or there may be an Austrian Nazi coup. In Czechoslovakia Herr Hitler evidently relies upon increasing the influence of the German minority of about 3,000,000 in a population of 15,000,000 which in other ways is not entirely united. In regard to her other neighbour, Poland, Germany’s chance of establishing her influence may come, if the Fascist coup which many expect there comes off. And all the time she is working to establish her influence in the more distant countries down the Danube and is whipping up her own public opinion to clamour for colonies. It is all this activity and effervercence which worries Paris and London. What is really at the bottom of I spoke just now of the democratic and dictatorial groups of nations. The classification is more convenient than accurate. One ought to speak of the contented and discontented nations or of the lack-land nations and the possessor nations. Germany, Italy and Japan feel that the great landowners of the world, ourselves, the Dominions, Russia, France, the United States, China, are unfairly favoured monopolists. They want a share of our economic elbow-room.

That is the real motive behind the dictatorial alliance and not its muchadvertised desire to save the world from the inefficiency of democracy or the horrors of Communism. Italy and Japan have drawn the sword to obtain their ends. Germany is relying on peaceful methods. All three countries are, of course, influenced by considerations of prestige. Germany is obsessed by the idea of racial solidarity as well. That is why, in the end, Austria will probably belong to her and the German section of Czechoslovakia also. But, for the present, she is not likely to make spectacular pounces. For one thing there can be no reasonable doubt but that Herr Hitler and his advisers are as anxious to avoid war as anyone in Europe. The French are dismayed to see Germany back at her old game. Mr. Chamberlain’s interest in the Anglo-American trade negotiations is a sign that he wants to stiffen up our foreign policy. He agrees with President Roosevelt and Mr. Hull, the American Foreign Minister, that freer trading between Great Britain, the United States, and the Dominions

might be of the greatest service to the world. What matters now is that the demand for colonies has been more identified with the demand for economic elbow-room, and that if the AngloAmerican plan for collective attack upon trade barriers succeeds, a considerable amount of that elbow-room will come to Germany almost automatically.