Evening star., 1947-03-10

(Here Is the story OF the Hitler
Stain tDooing and estrGngensent, told
by one OF the historians ,Dlto dug it
out by talking to German generals
and Ndzi leaders after Gernany's
defeat. He is Dr.. Harold c. Deutsch,
University of Minnesota history pro-
lessor, chief of research and analysis
in the OSS mission to Germany after
We day, and counsel for the State
Departments special interrogation
mission. DR.. Deutsch stresses that
until ,pe haze the Russian side of
the story it is of necessity a one
sided account, hotDeDer much it has
been checked and cross-checked."
History reveals no diplomatic revolu-
ton more startling than the accord be-
tween Germany and the Soviet Union
in the late summer Of 1899.
For six years previously the hostility
of the NaI and Bolshevik regimes had
been accepted as the one fixed element
in the international scene.
Hitler's public and private pronounce
ments had bristled with denunciations
of the Soviet paradise" and Moscow
had been eloquently abusive in reply.
BY 1896, Hitler In his intimate circle
was preaching the inevitability of q new
European war--if his ambitions for Ger
many were to be realized. The goals he
set forth were all to the east and south
east, SO it was assumed he eventually
would clash with the Soviet Union.
During this period, nothing upset him
more than to be reminded of Soviet
power, which he regarded as exagger-
ated. Gen. Georg Thomas, chief of the
war economy department Of the German
supreme command, graphically de-
scribed to me the verbal spanking ad-
ministered to him and other members
of an economic mission which visited
Russian industrial plants in 1888 at the
invitation Of the Soviet government.
(Gen. Thomas was involved in the
July, 1914, conspiracy against Hitler
and sent to a concentration camp.
He was recuperating from maltreat-
ment at the hands of his captors
when interviewed in a hospital by
DR.. Deutsch in 1945.)
The German delegates had allowed
themselves to be misled, Hitler told
them contemptuously. His policy, he in
sisted, was Interchangeable: eternal con-
f1ict with the Soviet Union. Members
of the German embassy in Moscow who
spoke words of warning were denounced
as half Russian"
Munich the Turning Point.
The real turning point in this policy
was the Munich conference of 1885
The SovietS, driven into political isola-
ton, were forced to reappraise their po-
Sition.
Hitler, on his part, was confirmed in
his mounting contempt for the weak
ness and indecision of the western pow.
ers and at the same time grew enraged
over their reluctance to disinterest
themselves in the affairs of Eastern Eu-
rope.
Foreign Minister Joachim Won Rib
bentrop (first of 10 Nazi war leaders
to be hanged Oct. 16, 1916, following con-
viction at the Nuremberg war crime
trials) went so far as to forbid any ex-
preston in the foreign Office of the opin-
ion that Britain would fight in behalf
of Poland
Hitler saw the advantages of playing
upon the anxieties of the western powers
by raising the threat Of a German
agreement with Russia.
The question now at issue concerned
Poland (the object Of so many deals
between Russia and Germany in the
past) and this suggested the possibility
Of a sudden shifting of diplomatic seem
cry.
That Stain might welcome proposals
for realistic arrangement" was in
.dicated by him on the eve of the German
annexation of Bohemia and Moravia
March Is, 1880. Even violently con-
trasting forms of government, the Soviet
dictator had said, should not prove q
hindrance to cooperation between states
having common material interests.
At this juncture Hitler still appears
to have hesitated. But the stiffening
of Britain's attitude after the seizure of
Bohemia and Moravia, which involved
the guarantee to Poland March 81,
1882 and the first overtures to Russia
to join with the western peace bloc"
put an end to these hesitations.
Late in March or early April, Hitler
called in the commander -in-chief of
the army Gen. Walther Won Brauchitsch,
and told him:
Please sit down and get grip on
yourself My next step will come un-
expected to you. am preparing to
make visit of state to Moscow"
The first public sign Of the alteration
in his policy came in q speech to the
Reichstag on April %, 1898. Even casual
On tha