Background: The Nazi Party depended heavily on speakers to get its message across. Those speakers needed to be informed. This newsletter for speakers is from November 1942 . It consists of excerpts from a British magazine proposing goals for British foreign policy.
The source: Redner-Schnellinformation, Lieferung 48, 28 November 1942. The original is held by the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dortmund.
The following material provides confidential information for the Reichspropagandaleitung’s speaker corps. It consists of extracts from an English magazine that discusses our enemy’s imperialistic war goals as well as the division and rule of territory and peoples after this war. This essay clearly shows that England, as always, wants to put Europe’s peoples under its ruling yoke and that they learned nothing from Versailles and the resulting disordering of an entire continent.
The publisher of the magazine Nineteenth Century has developed a proposal for English foreign policy. The article is twelve pages long. We here provide the most interesting passages.
Because of its growing power, its unique position, and its still strong prestige, England is better suited than any other world power to determine the future of Europe, and of much more than Europe. Only England can be the arbiter of Europe’s fate without being the ruler of Europe. Moral authority, imperial power, and greatness, those are its characteristics, or can become them. If England were defeated, Germany would rule Europe. If Russia suffered a final defeat, defeating Germany would be much more difficult, but still possible. There can be no just and lasting peace without England. Europe is lost without England — Europe and much more. The goal of British foreign policy is — or at least should be — to defend the honor and interests of England and the British Empire. The truth is that when England defends its national Empire interests with sufficient armed force to lead an armed coalition to war whenever these interests are threatened, it benefits not only itself, but the whole of humanity. The truth of that is increasingly recognized by thinking men and women in the entire world.
If there is to be orderly freedom in Europe, the balance of power must be reestablished. To reestablish this balance of power and maintain it, Great Britain must again secure uncontested rule of the Mediterranean — and never give it up. That is absolutely essential for the security of our islands and the Empire. The war can be won in the Mediterranean Without controlling the Mediterranean, Great Britain cannot have a decisive influence in Southern Europe and the Balkans, which it needs if it is to be the arbiter of Europe’s fate.
The aim of Allied operations against Italy must be a special peace under the heaviest possible conditions. It [Italy] must naturally be disarmed, it must withdraw from the Balkans and surrender Istria (with Trieste, Fiume, and Pola) to Yugoslavia. The Greek islands must be given back to Greece. For strategic reasons, the island of Pantelleria must be surrendered. It has already lost Abyssinia. The future of Libya and Cyrenaica must above all be decided by the demands of British Mediterranean strategy, although that does not mean that Italy must be entirely excluded from the region.
The concept of “Central Europe” must disappear. It is a German concept. The existence of a Central Europe in whatever form, as well as an Austro-Hungarian state in any form (the two concepts overlap) would make Germany the ruler of Europe. The concept of “Eastern Europe” should also disappear, since insofar as it has a political rather than a purely geographic sense. It is also a German concept. Russia’s western border is the great dividing line in Europe. West of this border is one world, east of it another world.
The central zone requires an independent Poland with borders that are strategically stronger than those of September 1939 and a coast that will allow Poland to become a naval and land power. Poland would be the primary power of the northern group of the central zone with Warsaw as its capital. Czechoslovakia would be the primary power of the middle group, consisting of itself, Austria, and Hungary. The Czechs would have two primary tasks: wiping out pan-Germanism in Austria and revisionism in Hungary. The Balkans would form the southern group under the leadership of Yugoslavia (Greece cannot be seen exclusively as a Balkan country, since it has a special position as a Mediterranean power. There must be a permanent alliance between it and Great Britain). The central zone is the only possible area of cooperation between England and Russia after the war. With a secure central zone, both England and Russia will find their own security. As much as one may complain against fear of Germany and Russia, it exists and cannot be ignored. It is a force that must be reckoned with, perhaps one of the most strongest forces on the European continent. Even if the countries of the central zone decided to make the strongest possible voluntary alliance, they could not resist a German or Russian attack. Their fears would not go away and their alliance would not last. That is why it is essential for the creation and maintenance of a central zone that an unbiased great power with authority can act as arbiter and if necessary guide the defence of a European balance of power. England must be that power.
The Russians feel forced to defeat the central zone so that it can be forced piece by piece under their rule. That is why they oppose cooperation between Poland and Czechoslovakia, between Yugoslavia and Greece. That is why they oppose the Yugoslavian patriotic hero Mihajlovic and agitate communist partisans against his Chetniks, although they primarily have him to thank for the thirty divisions in Yugoslavia that the enemy otherwise would have had for storming Stalingrad. That is why it wants to annex Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the eastern half of Poland after the war.
The belief that the German problem can be solved only by slaughtering Germans is growing stronger, since the Continental peoples that have suffered German rule are determined to solve this problem, however drastic the methods may be, so as never again have to suffer anything similar.
Because England does not have a foreign policy, it prolongs the war, and the longer the war lasts the better Germany’s chances are. The situation of the occupied countries grows increasingly intolerable, and if after one or two more years they are forced to work with Germany, all just observers will forgive them. The longer the war lasts, the deeper the Continent’s nations will be divided between those that look to Russia and those that look to Germany — unless they look to England, which they will never do if it does not have a foreign policy. The mere thought that the war could go on, say for three years or longer, would strengthen movement toward Germany and away from England.
If the war lasts long enough, Germany will not lose it.
Germany can be weakened, but it cannot be made powerless forever. It can collapse from within, but to defeat it forcefully would be a mistake for the Allies in our opinion, and would eventually strengthen the spirit of national unity in Germany. The Allies must take over at least a part of western German industry and a part of Silesian industry. Its borders must be adjusted to the strategic needs of the victorious powers. But these measures as well as its disarmament will be in vain if the Allies, and England in particular, do not maintain superiority in military force. The balance of forces and the peace of Europe cannot be preserved if England is not strong and ever ready to wage war for a just cause. If England does not have a foreign policy the war may not be won, and surely not the peace.
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