Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-01
GERMANS INSIST CHANGE
IN TREATY ONLY HOPE
Adjustment of Eastern Frontiers Would
Prevent Drift Back to Conditions of
1914 in View of Thinking Majority.

France, already alarmed by the agita-
ton and menacing gestures OF the Hit
lerities, is in no mood to permit its one
sure ally, Poland, to be crushed and,
concomitantly, the German army to re-
cover all its freedom from treaty re-
Strictions.
Hope in Soviet Army.
In their hearts many Germans hope
that one day the Soviet army will come
crashing through Poland and permit
Germany peacefully to reoccupy Brom-
berg and Thorn, as we'll as Danzig. In
the same way not few have looked
with ill-disguised satisfaction at the
growing bitterness between France and
Italy, again calculating that if France
were involved with Italy, Germany
would be free to deal with Poland, but
better informed Germans fear that the
real consequence might be a French
defensive offensive into the Rhineland.
Moreover, a second paradox, Ger
many not only does not want to engage
in war but every economic and indus
trial interest of Germany would in
evitably be injured by any Continental
struggle, which would interrupt the
progress of recovery, dislocate markets,
purchasing power of all countries.
Every German material interest, by
contrast, can be served only by peace
full development and general co-opera-
ton within all the Central and Eastern
European areas.
As for a war of revenge on France,
as for any direct hatred of France
which would block peaceful combina-
ton. not only does that not exist but,
on the contrary, the old issue Of Alsace-
Lorraine has been dismissed, the ira
ditional suspicion has diminished, and
the necessity for peaceful cooperation
is universally acknowledged. But France
must either drop Poland or exert suffi-
Gent pressure to compel Poland to COM
ply with German purposes, which means
retrocede the Corridor.
II Germans are today apprehensive
fearful, at the one moment passion
ately eager for peace and patiently con-
WINGED that peace is unattainable in
the long run, the explanation must be
found in the single fact that no Ger
man can conceive of permanently ac-
cepting the eastern frontiers or of per-
suading either Poland or the rest of
the world to agree to a revision. But
If peaceful persuasion fails, then in
the long last the German people see in
the League of Nations, the Kellogg
pact, all discussion of disarmament,
only empty and hypocritical devices.
They see and feel that a part of Ger
nlany-for to them the eastern prov
inceS, although lost, remain German
Is condemned to death; they see Ger
man land, German culture, German
population, doomed to extinction and
daily and visibly growing weaker.
Bitter Consequences Of War.
And their own present helplessness
IN the face Of what they term "the
dying German East" is at once the Bit
terest and the most intolerable conse-
quence OF a lost war. It is as if by a
conbination of circumstances Mexico
had recovered California, New Mexico
and Arizona and was now successfully
evletlng the American population and
replacing them with Spanish.
Know how remote, unreal and I'M
reasonable all this must sound to an
American audience which believes Eu-
rope should quit talking war and get
down to business, reducing its armies
and accommodating its quarrels. But,
unhappily, this is Europe, and while
most Europeans, beginning with the
Germans, would agree that, allowing
Tor a desperation foray of the SovietS
this Winter or next, the prospects of
any war in Europe for 10 or Is years
are slight, at the bottom of the present
unrest lies In the conviction that condi-
tons are now taking form which must
lead decade or two hence to a new
conflict. In word, what troubles the
German who desires peace is not the
prospect of immediate war, but the
growing belief that a real system of
peace cannot be established and that
his children will have to go through
the old horror again. And he believes
this because the Polish Corridor. to
mention which is automatically to open
discussion Of the next war in Europe
has in fact become the new nightmare
Of Europe's thinking people.
(Copyright. 1917