The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-05-19

rivers source near Lake Cons quarters.
 The question arose immediately Adolf Hitler's army crossed the Ba- varian frontier to keep order" in Austria while the Greater-Reich came into being. But Naz experts in economics and international law found themselves confronted with a different situation than in the case of other streams which the Fuehrer has made "all-German."
 Because of the peculiar character of the Danube and because Ger many wants to extend its domina- ton of Eastern Europe, it is indi- cated, the Reich's policy will be at once to emphasize its full sovereign ty over the German stretch of the river and to cooperate with other Danubian nations in regulation of commerce.
 Other Rivers Nationalized
 The Rhine, the Elbe and the Oder, which Hitler nationalized with a stroke of the pen in the spring of 1886, are primarily German rivers. Each had been declared "interna- tional" under the Versailles Treaty and placed under the control of a commission, because free interna- tional navigation on each was con- sidered essential to the commercial life of Poland, Czechoslovakia or the sections of central France which border the Rhine.
 When the fuehrer, who had just smashed the Versailles and Locarno treaties by reoccupying the Rhine land, declared the three rivers "all- German" no country save well-dis- posed Holland, which controls the mouth of the Rhine, was in a posi- ton to take political or economic &C., tion to bring pressure on the Reich.
 Germany is confronted with an entirely different situation with re- spect to the Danube, most coSmopo- Titan of rivers, which rises in Ger many, flows through Vienna to the Czech Hungarian German bor- der at Bratisiava, thence through Budapest to Belgrade, capital of Ju- goelavia, and finally forms the bor- der between Bulgaria and Rumania before 1t empties into the Black Sea on the Rumanian coast.
 Danubian Countries Concerned
 Each of the nations along its twist ing route is vitally interested, poli- tically and economically, in the fu- tuie of the river Each, to greater or less extent, could take retaliatory action if Germany attempted to re- strict navigation within the Reich borders to an extent harmful to the rest.
 This the Reich is not likely to do, in the opinion of qualified observers. In the first place, freedom of pas sage throughout the length of the river is more important to Germany, an industrial nation which needs the agricultural and raw products of eastern Europe, than it is to the other Danubian powers.
 In the second place, the eastward thrust" which German imperialists dreamed of before the World War has become an actuality in the Third Reich It aims at economic, and eventually political, domination of all eastern Europe, an end which probably can most easily be achieved by cooperation with the nations along the Danube.
 With Austria as spearhead stretching far toward eastern Eu- rope, Germany's commercial posi- tion in the Danube basin is virtual ly unassailable. No other nation can so easily penetrate its markets and gradually establish a powerful influence over economic and politi- cal life.
 Some of the Danubian powers, like Czechoslovakia and Rumania, are distrustful of Germany and must be won over or forced into line, if the dream of Nazi theorists-a Ger man dominated middle and eastern Europe-is to be realized. Jugosla-