Europe

ON THE WORLD TODAY

GERMANY in war was the prime mover of Europe’s ruin; Germany in defeat still represents the key issue in Europe’s future. The difficulties which tax the wisdom of the Allies arise from two questions: (1) What is to be done with Germany now — as an occupied military state under military rule? (2) What is Germany’s role in the future of Europe?

Since the occupation of the Reich began, the victors have shown divergence in answering the first question. While the Russians pursue a policy designed to reintegrate the half of Germany occupied by the Red Army, the Western Allies in their respective areas follow policies which aim at maximum decentralization. American officials speak with nostalgia of a “pre-Bismarckian” Central Europe — as if eightyfive years of scientific, economic, and social change do not count. In Eastern Germany, friendliness between Russian troops and German inhabitants has been encouraged since late May. In Western Germany, the official policy of non-fraternization has just now been modified.

In the Russian zone, revival of German trade-unions is permitted. In the British and American zones — and in the French area also — revival of the German trade-unions is opposed. In the east, endeavors on the part of the Germans to reconstitute pre-Hitlerian political parties, conservative, liberal, or socialist, are approved and welcomed. In the west, such activities are discouraged.

Germany under Russia

One of the first steps taken by the Russians in their part of Germany, when occupation began, was to build up a German-language press edited by Germans under Russian supervision. Russia wants to know what the defeated enemy peoples have on their minds. She sees in a revived, closely supervised German press a means to that end. Four German radio stations went into operation on a twenty-four-hour schedule as soon as the Russians could assemble the necessary staffs — all chosen from carefully screened anti-Nazi Germans.

Even the time schedules set for the German radio under Goebbels are followed, in order to take full advantage of the listening habits of the German audiences. These stations provide the Russians with unexcelled facilities for skillful propaganda; but the propaganda is not permitted to overburden programs.

In Germany and Austria the Russians have found another trump which neither the British nor the Americans evaluate yet at its full worth: music. Concert halls have been reopened throughout the whole of Russian-occupied Austria and Eastern Germany. Orchestras and singers have been recruited from local talent and put to work. Theatrical troupes are likewise approved. In the background on all these programs stands a Russian political supervisor, expert in knowledge of the German language and of the art-form used under his guidance.

The purpose behind the Russian tactics is neither sinister nor mysterious. Russia simply intends to see to it that the Germans do the work and run the country for her, under Russian direction. Her policy is to convince the beaten foe that he will be treated as a human being and given rights if he proves that he is capable of using them acceptably.

At the same time, ruthless penalties are imposed by the Red Army for any infraction of the disciplinary rules laid down in the German territory. The order issued in June, stipulating the execution of fifty Nazi prisoners for every Russian soldier assassinated by German partisans, now covers assault, theft, and damage to Russian equipment or supplies. That Russia means what she says, no German can doubt. This combination of the olive branch and the hangman’s noose is proving successful throughout most of the area under Russian control. Significant testimony on that point is provided by American correspondents, who record a growing willingness on the part of German populations close to the demarcation lines between zones to return to their homes in the Russian-controlled territories.

Success of the Russian policy is undoubtedly furthered also by reiterated promises from the Russian Military Government that no one will be allowed to starve in the areas under its supervision, and by a stringent rule, which is applied remorselessly, that no known German Nazi official, of however modest rank, may hold an important political office in any town or city within the jurisdiction of the Russian forces. Instead, when such persons are identified, they are promptly jailed.

Germany under us

Compare this procedure with that followed in the American-held sections of Western Germany and Austria. Case after case is reported of the appointment of known—and frequently notorious—Nazis to executive and administrative positions in German cities and towns.

In Bavaria, two conspicuous supporters of Hitler have been given the highest executive positions in the province — which was the birthplace of the Nazi Party and the chief center of Nazi doctrine. One of them, at least up to early July, was actually Minister of the Interior for Bavaria by American appointment. This means that he has charge of the native police for the American Military Government! A procedure better calculated to preserve the essence of German fascism would be difficult to imagine.

The paucity of German-speaking personnel is still one of the great handicaps faced by the American administration. Doubtless it explains why no effort has been made in the American zone to handle native press and radio facilities in a manner comparable to that of the Russians.

The most formidable difficulty obstructing the American Military Government in Germany, however, is not the one represented by the language barrier. It is an all too familiar political and social illiteracy with respect to Europe.

These defects are by no means fatal, given the capacity of the Americans to learn quickly. Nevertheless, the situation raises questions about American policy, present and future, which promise to give everybody concerned some very uncomfortable moments. The dissolution of SHAEF into its component parts and substitution for it of the joint Allied control and governing commission at Berlin may prove more helpful in these matters than many suppose. The new commission should provide an excellent clearinghouse for ideas and experiences among its members.

Russia gets set

Russia, while sharing in major conferences whether at San Francisco or at Berlin, is not postponing peace settlements of her own. She continues to mop up frontier questions and political questions in her neighborhood with the same assiduity she displayed in such matters before Germany’s defeat.

Following the defeat of Finland, Moscow moved promptly to set the boundaries of that small neighbor where she wanted them. Having fixed the eastern frontiers of Poland at the Curzon Line, and with British and American support on that point, Russia is rounding out her solution of the Polish problem by reconstituting the new Polish government along the lines she laid down at Yalta, and by rolling the western boundaries of the new Poland tentatively to the Oder.

This means much more than an attempt to rehabilitate Poland in a manner calculated to fortify friendly relations between Moscow and Warsaw. It means, at the same time, total erasure from Eastern Europe of the great German land baronies, which have been the nurseries of the Junker caste since the days of the Teutonic Knights.

In those portions of East Prussia which Russia proposes to keep because of their strategic importance — Königsberg and its adjacent regions — as well as in the part of that former Junker stronghold which is given to the Poles, the process of breaking up great landed estates and distributing them in small farm holdings to the peasantry is being pushed rapidly to completion. The same procedure is being applied to Poland’s new territories to the west — in Silesia and Pomerania.

If Poland continues to be a main preoccupation of Russia’s policy-makers, that does not diminish their activities in other directions. The ceding of Ruthenia, the extreme eastern end of Czechoslovakia, to the Ukrainian Republic illustrates Russian procedures.

The overwhelming majority of the population of Ruthenia are Ukrainians. To reunite them with the newly created Russian Ukrainian Republic next door, it became necessary to apply pressure on the Czechs — who naturally would prefer to retain their pre-war federation intact.

By one of those strange “coincidences” which occur frequently in Eastern Europe when issues of policy are involved, the agitation of the Ruthenians for reunion with their adjacent Ukrainian brethren under Russian sovereignty began at precisely the moment the leaders of Russian-sponsored Poland decided to demand annexation of the Czech-controlled regions of Teschen, which are valuable because of their lignite mines. Prague’s quid pro quo for ceding Ruthenia to the Russian Ukrainian Republic is a Russian veto on the Polish claims to Teschen.

Russia and Turkey

This sort of byplay in Eastern Europe is completely overshadowed by the opening of the long-expected diplomatic tussle for control of the Dardanelles. The Russian proposals to Turkey have implications of a far wider nature than one might suppose. They include suggestions for return to Russia of two border areas in Eastern Turkey (which Russia ceded in 1921) and proposals regarding the Dardanelles which make it clear that Russia has resumed her centuryold policy of seeking unimpeded passage from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.

It would be a mistake to imagine that this move is merely the resurrection of one of the oldest disputes known to diplomacy. While British policy in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East revolves as usual around the issue of communications to India, and while the Turks strive to repeat their customary tactics of playing one great power against another, the realities of the present situation are by no means fully represented in precedents.

Russia is now the complete master not only of the Black Sea but of most of the Balkans. Italy’s power in the Eastern Mediterranean has been extinguished. France, which has an alliance with Russia, is weak; and her influence in the Levant States is consequently being jeopardized by the British and Arabs. The Arab League has bowed onto the stage in the Middle East. At the same time, American economic interests in that region — particularly in oil — have become important.

Russia reopens the question of the Straits not merely to hasten a new understanding with the Turks which will be more in accord with the present realities of Russian power. Her move serves notice upon Russia’s war partners, especially upon Britain, that decisions affecting the destinies of the Near East cannot be taken without her. It signals also a major setback for Britain’s policy in that part of the world.

The small border districts of Eastern Turkey, whose return to Russian sovereignty is one of the conditions laid down by Moscow for a new treaty of friendship, control the highly strategic northeast land gate from the Russian Caucasus into the Middle East. Drastic revision of arrangements governing the use of the Dardanelles by Russia is inevitable, given Russia’s power in both the Black Sea and the Balkans. Large Russian armies in the Eastern Balkans and Georgia point up that fact. The British themselves show their recognition of the shift in the power setup by their rush to establish air bases in the Greek-owned Aegean islands flanking the Straits.

Whose Middle East?

The freshening of the dispute between Turkey and Russia over the future of the Straits is also a setback to Britain’s expectations in the bitter quarrel over the Levant States which engages her and France. French efforts to bring about a five-power conference for settlement of this wrangle were snubbed first by London and then by Washington.

One explanation issued from London for this rebuff to Paris was that such a conference would bring in Russia, which has no stake in the affected area. This point was carefully reinforced by explanations that the only concern Britain has in the Levant is with her supply and communications lines for the Pacific war — in which Russia of course is not engaged.

Imperturbable Moscow blandly rejected this attempt at the diplomatic brush-off. First, in an official statement, Russia suggested that the quarrel in the Levant was a matter which should be adjusted through an inclusive conference in the spirit of San Francisco. When this hint bounced off the tough armor of British diplomacy, the Russians moved more aggressively.

Into the highly charged atmosphere of the meeting of the Arab League at Cairo, early in June, stepped the Russian Minister to Egypt. The Arab leaders were informed pleasantly that Russia’s attitude toward the question of the independence of the Arab States and the problem of the Levant should be kept in mind.

With respect to the first question, Russia had already defined her views at San Francisco: she favors the complete independence of all colonial peoples, without any strings of special privilege or treaty reservations whatsoever. To this welcome doctrine the Arab leaders would scarcely offer objection.

As for the second question, the Russian Minister to Egypt seems to have made it clear that, so long as any custodial power retains rights safeguarded by treaty in the states of the Middle East, —such as those retained by Great Britain in treaties with Iraq, Transjordania, Palestine, and Egypt, — Russia is indisposed to agree that the special rights of France in the Levant, represented by the fact of a League of Nations mandate, can be extinguished by use of British or Arab armed force.

What effects this warning had on Arab statesmen can be inferred from the hasty winding up of their conference and a noticeable diminution of their threats.