POWER POLITICS: Danger Spot

As Adolf Hitler last week showed more grimly than ever his determination to press his demands against Poland (see col. 3), the Free City of Danzig, the old Hanseatic town on the Baltic, became Europe's chief danger spot. Danzig is 95% German. It is ruled by Nazis. It is politically (if not economically) free from Polish rule. Students of the Treaty of Versailles have long criticized the detachment of Danzig from Germany at the World War's end and the placing of the city in the Polish customs union. If it is accepted that Austria, the Sudetenland and Memel belong to the Reich, then by all logic Danzig should again be in Germany. A German seizure of Danzig would, indeed, be a poor casus belli for the new British-French-Polish "Peace Front."

Britain and France, however, have specifically guaranteed to help Poland to defend herself against any action which Poland considers a threat to her independence. Last week the Polish Government, having learned much from the Czecho-Slovakian lesson, let it be known that it would consider a seizure of Danzig a threat to Polish independence, that the Third Reich could not have Danzig without fighting for it. While reports from London and Paris said that the British and French Governments would advise the Poles to "negotiate," the Poles were determined not to accept mediation on the Czech pattern.

The tough Poles appeared ready & willing to fight for Danzig or any part of Poland. Several Polish divisions lay outside Danzig ready to march in if the German Army made one false step in Danzig's direction. The Warsaw press urged the Government to copy Herr Hitler's tactics and assume a protectorate over Danzig. Since the Führer saw fit to denounce the Polish-German Treaty in a public speech, the Polish Government decided to answer him in kind. This week Foreign Minister Josef Beck and Premier Felicjan Slawoj-Sklad-kowski are to go before the Polish Parliament and say their say about Herr Hitler. An unnamed spokesman for the British Cabinet declared: "If Poland fights, Britain and France will fight, too."

While Poland and Germany thus prepared for a showdown, journalistic prophets were busy. New York Times Correspondent G. E. R. Gedye journeyed from Europe to Manhattan to declare "war inevitable." Scripps-Howard Foreign Editor William Philip Simms was more explicit. He wrote from Washington he had "secret information" that Führer Hitler was thinking over the possibility of sudden, simultaneous moves against Poland, Egypt, Suez and Gibraltar. Added" Editor Simms: "A sinister aspect of the report is that Marshal Hermann Göring, hitherto regarded as a moderate in opposition to Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop and [Police Chief] Heinrich Himmler, is now said to favor a lightning war." Meanwhile, scarcely less ominous were actual diplomatic and military maneuverings: