Evening star., 1938-12-07
BY JOHN T. WHITAKER,

Chicago Daily News Foreign Writer.
-Slovakia once crushed as
the bastion against German expan-
sion, Hitler's bayonets cast their
long shadows today over the whole
Of the Balkans.
With the conquest of Austria and
Czecho-S -Slovakia, the other countries
Of Central and Southeastern Europe
Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria
and Turkey-have been brought
into the German orbit.
Germany controls between 10 and
so per cent of the trade OF these
countries already and with her mill
tary position supreme she proposes
to weld them into single economic
unit, dependent upon and subser-
Went to Hitler.
In the words of DR.. Walther Funk,
the Nazi minister of economies, Ger
many has created an economic
axis" extending from the North Sea
to the Black Sea. Europe revolves
from now on around Berlin
Balkan axis.
What the Kaiser dreamed of do
ing and what three-Quarters of the
world fought to prevent, Hitler has
achieved in four years of power. The
slogans Of the past: German Nit
teleuropa and Drang Mach Osten-
German Central Europe and Ger
man expansion to the east-are the
realities of today.
Needed Resources Now Hers.
Oil. wheat. Ignite, timber, iron ore,
bauxite, fats-the resources Ger
many has needed to make her the
first military power of the world
are hers and they lie not over the
seas in far-f1ung colonies, but close
to the fatherland in q contiguous,
Well-knit area.
The vast rearmament which
threatened to bankrupt Germany
because OF its "uneconomic" outlay
on ''unproductive" enterprise has
been made productive; it is bringing
t. In as tribute the raw materials and
foodstuffs of Central and Southeast
ern Europe as truly as If those coun-
tries had been conquered by Roman
legions.
Those two great western powers,
France and Great Britain, who
served as a check upon Germany's S
expansion and lay between her and
hegemony over the continent, have
been reduced to secondary positions
by the Berlin-Balkan axis.
France has been stripped of her
eastern allies-Czecho-Sl Ru-
mania, Yugoslavia and Poland
while Great Britain has lost her fleet
an as instrument of power politics
since Germany, with the resources
of the Balkans, is no longer afraid
Of naval blockade as Hitler himself
20 eloquently boasted.
Not since Napoleon has Europe
fallen SO swiftly under single hand
and, as he builds the greatest eco
nomic unit in modern European his
tory, Hitler laughs at the so-called
democracies because he is confident
that they can challenge him neither
with their wealth nor with their
arms.
Balkans' Biggest Customer.
After an unnatural but astute
campaign, Germany buys from Bal
kan and Southeastern Europe more
than twice the total amount pur-
chased by Great Britain, France and
the United States together, and Hit
Ter boasts that his totalitarian sys-
tenn is "crisis-proof" and safer there
fore for the Balkans than the Glib
eral system" of the democracies.
This is not true. The Germans
are not building United States of
Europe. Their trade is not benefit
ing the Balkans but impoverishes
them and leads to their further ex-
ploitation. Germany does not have
a natural monopoly of the trade of
this area but has doubled her COM
merce there by unfair methods. The
Balkans do not look forward opti-
mistically to their absorption in the
German orbit but they are trapped
and helpless before the grandest
strategy in modern power politics.
This stategy was foreshadowed in
'Mein Kampf." 1t is based on the
notion that Germany has a spe-
cial historical mission and can ac-
complish this mission through q
policy of "blood and iron" Hitler
there lays down the necessity of
"definttive active settlement with
France in final decisive struggle"
not as a goal in itself but as a means
toward an end.