FRONTIERS OF GERMANY

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXIX, Issue 9520, 8 May 1940, Page 3

FRONTIERS OF GERMANY

(CHANGES OCCUR FROM CENTURY TO CENTURY NO NATURAL BOUNDARIES “Any other European nation, the English, French, Italian, even the small independent nations of German origin, like Switezrland and Holland, are quite determined and have arrived at a specific way of life which they pursue,” writes Professor F. li. lieinemann, PIi.D., in “The I-libbert. Journal.” “They are, first of all geographically, undetermined. There are no natural frontiers like the mountains of Switzerland, Spain, Italy, or the sea, as in England. The German frontiers are not fixed; they have changed from century to century. Germany, the centre of Europe, became the meeting point of tlie peaceful and hostile penetration of foreign Powers. It was often the battlefield on which it defended itself against foreign invasion or the melting-pot of foreign civilisations. It is the centre of a circle, the radius of which again is not determined. Europe itself lias neither natural nor spiritual unity. This uncertainty about its founder, the feeling that it may easily be invaded by a combination of surrounding nations and thal it has still to find its definite frontier is of fundamental importance for the understanding of tlie German nation and of the European unrest.”