A GRAVE CRISIS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 336, 18 January 1937, Page 3

A GRAVE CRISIS.

GERMANY’S POLICY.

Vital Decisions Will Have To Be Made. London, December 23. The Berlin correspondent of the “Observer” declares that the German Government is facing a grave crisis in the realm of foreign affairs which calls for the most vita! decision to be made since the Nazi regime came into being. "The fundamental question to be answered is: What is to he the future direction of German foreign policy?” he says. “Chancellor Hitler must decide whether he is willing to come to terms with the Western Powers on the basis of a compromise, or whether Germany is to withdraw into ‘Nazi isolation,’ pretending that her relations With Italy and Japan are substitutes for friendship with Britain and France. Common sense points to compromise, a standpoint. supported in private by Dr Schacht, German industrialists, and the bulk of the German masses. German capitalists are of the opinion that Germany’s economic salvation lies in an understanding with the Western Powers, while they also support normal trade relations with Soviet Russia. “The Nazi Radicals, trained to disapprove of compromise, because force is their accepted solution for all unpleasant problems, are said to be pressing for a decision ‘against the West.’ Whether they will be able to convince Herr Hitler that Germany ought to turn her back on i what they describe as these ‘impertinent’ Western Powers remains to be seen. Should such a decision be made, it will mean that German foreign policy will have definitely entered on a path leading into the unknown. Dr Schacht’s warning, correctly read, means that something i must be done quickly to appease these adventurous extremists. The Nazis feel resentment at the moment for several reasons. They cannot forgive Britain and France for getting together before concluding a Western pact on German terms. “They are angry at the comparative failure of the Nuremberg antiBolshevik campaign—designed primarily to isolate France and Czechoslovakia, as Italy and Japan were already anti-Communist. They are furious with France because she dares to cling to her pact with Soviet Russia, despite German advice to drop it. They are annoyed with Britain for not accepting the German standpoint towards the. Spanish civil war, while the failure of General Franco to capture Madrid irritates them.”