Evening star., 1938-09-05
Zero Hour.

OF all the fateful days the world has
weathered since Adolf Hitler came to
power, none exceeded in portent those
which set in at Nuremberg today, as the
Nazi party congress convened in annual
session. On its proceedings, or rather
on the international program which Der
Fuehrer lays down therefor Nurem-
berg. like everything else under the
swastika, is purely one-man show-de-
pends in very literal sense the imme-
diate issue Of peace or war in Europe.
Traditionally utilized as a sounding
board for PRONUNCIATION of German pol
icy, both domestic and foreign, this
years Parteitag assumes unprecedented
significance because 1t comedies with
the critical phase Of Germany's contro-
versy with Czechoslovakia. Fresh from
Berchtesgaden conferences with the
suedeten viceroy, Konrad Henlein,
Chancellor Hitler, who has also been in
contact with Prime Minister Chamber
lain's emissary at Praha. Mr.. Runciman,
is supposedly ready to tell jittery world
whether Czechoslovakia's offer to give
its German citizens local autonomy ON
the Swiss cantonal system is acceptable,
or whether the irreducible minimum is
the Carlsbad program, that is, full SOW
ereignty under Nazi control and aban-
donment of Czechoslovakia's alliances
with France and Russia.
To the last as Nuremberg approached,
there were reports that conciliation had
won the day; that the final word had
not been spoken at either Praha or
Berlin, and that this weeks rabble-
rousing hullabaloo would pass into his
tory with no greater menace to peace
than some stentorian Hitlerian reaffirm-
alton of the immutability of Nazi pur-
poses to right Sudeten wrongs. In the
democratic capitals there is reluctance to
place much faith in this rosy forecast,
accompanied, as it is, by acceleration Of
the German mobilization and continu-
ance in FULL vitriolic blast of Goebbel's
anti-Czech press propaganda.
1t entails no precarious excursion into
the realm Of prophecy to weigh those
palpabilities which generate Hitler's war;
mindedness. They spring from the
prime factor of Germany's progressive
economic deterioration and the political
upheaval bound to ensue if it is not ar
rested. The Nazi regime envisions as it's
indispensable bulwark against internal
collapse a continuation of the external
triumphs inaugurated with the bloodless
conquest Of Austria. Czechoslovakia was
to be the next booty in the "Drang mach
Osten' campaign-obtained by the
Czechs' submission, If possible, but by
war, if necessary.
The last thing dictatorship can tol-
crate is loss Of prestige. To beat an
ignominious retreat in Czechoslovakia,
after the grandiloquent build-up of the
past six months and more, would be in
sufferable from Hitlers standpoint. It
would not only ungild the Nazi lily but
denote the bursting of the whole Gen.
trail Europe bubble, blown so blatantly
in "Mein Kampf" and sedulously hoated
ever since as the goal which the Reich
must attain at all costs-the goal for
which Germany has been piling up its
prodigious ornaments.
If fulminations at Nuremberg dis
close pacific instead of warlike Hit
Ter, it will only mean that his advisers,
especially the Army chiefs, at the elev-
enth hour manage to convince him
that Germany is not yet in position to
re-risk the folly of 1914-1918-war
against an alliance certain to include
Czechoslovakia, France and Russia, to
begin WITH Great Britain, in all prob
ability, eventually, and Rumania and
Yugoslavia as likely, sooner or later.
Nor is the possibility of a faithlessly
neutral Italy, as ready to back the win
ner as she was in 1915, despite the Rome
Berlin axis, left out of account by the
Nazi general staff. When the Germans
last essayed to lick the world, they had
also to reckon, before the gamble was
over, with the United States.
A general European war over Czecho-
slovakia would not be deemed by the
American people, without further provo
cation, cause for their participation as
belligerent, but from the outset there
is no shadow Of doubt that their sympa-
thies would be overwhelmingly on the
side of the democratic allies. Next to a
formal declaration of Great Britains
readiness to stand by France in Czecho-
slovakian German hostilties, hardly
anything is better designed to cool war
ardor at Nuremberg than the realiza-
ton that such a conflict could not and
would not leave this Nation unmoved.
One attraction about Maryland as a
significant debating ground of the New