Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

CONQUEST BY PEACE 607race and class arrogance. It was the fear of a lurking danger, but also thearrogant contempt of her new leaders for French democracy and theirsecret admiration for National Socialist energy, which made Poland theweakest link in the ring of French alliances.One of the first aims of German foreign policy was inevitably toshatter this ring; true, the attempt took time, but the final success wasterrific and seemed to confirm Hitler's conviction that in the enddomestic politics decided the foreign policy of a country. This finallyproved to be true in the case of Poland as well as in that of Italy.In several points Fascist Italy already supported Germany; both wereagreed that the Peace of Versailles would have to be revised. Bothnations possessed large quantities of that international dynamite knownas 'national minorities,' and this gave their political strategy a certainsimilarity; moreover, both declared themselves to be have-nots, cheatedby the plutocratic world. Italy's chief national dynamite was located insouthern France, with roughly a million Italian-speaking people, and inthe French protectorate of Tunisia; the German minorities extendedfrom the Baltic and the mid-Volga region, through eastern and centralEurope, down to northern Italy. Here a contradiction arose whichseemed to cross the common interests of the two countries. To be sure,no German leader had sacrificed the quarter of a million Germans in theSouth Tyrol with such enthusiasm as Hitler; but at the same time, nonehad so emphatically claimed the right of self-determination for theseven million Germans in Austria.Thus began a contest for Austria between Italy and Germany, and fora time it seemed uncertain whether the conflicting foreign interests ofthe two countries or the inner cohesion of fascism would gain the upperhand. When Hitler seized power in Germany, the two last parliamentarystates of Central Europe, Austria and Czechoslovakia, found themselvessurrounded by anti-democratic powers: Poland, Hungary, Italy, and nowGermany. Austrian democracy survived German democracy by only afew weeks; however, it was not German but Italian fascism which tookcontrol, and the methods were not those of the German model but of theItalian. Austrian fascism did not fight by means of elections andplebiscites;