- 2 -                            
 
 
1934 and gradually to bring Danzig into the Third Reich by 
 
"peaceful means" without disturbing Polish economic interests 
 
in Danzig. He hoped that this policy would be tolerated by 
 
Great Britain and Franco while Rumania was also being brought,
 
with Polish cooperation, into the Gorman sphere of influence. 
 
A basis for the disintegration of the Russian Ukraine would 
 
thus have been assured.    Only then would the Polish Ukraine 
 
be "liberated" in its turn, and the full German claims be en-
 
forced upon Poland.
 
 
These plans were thwarted by the Polish alliances with 
 
Great Britain and France. Should the Western Powers now at-
 
tempt, with or without Russian help, to block his road to the 
 
East, Hitler will treat Poland as his most dangerous foe be-
 
cause she now stands: as Czechoslovakia stood last year, at 
 
the most vulnerable anglo of Germany's military position.
 
Poland must, therefore, be forced out of the anti-German coali-
 
tion by any and every means.
 
 
Hitler's immediate purpose is less to bring about a final 
 
revision of German-Polish frontiers than the association of
 
Poland with German "space policy" by setting up at Warsaw a
 
Polish Government as obedient to Germany as are the Hungarian
 
and the Slovak Governments. The only territorial changes
 
that Hitler would at once demand from Poland would be such as
 
to "guarantee" Polish subservience.
 
 
                            III.                            
 
 
Hitler hopes this can be done without war by a method com-
 
pounded of mobilisation, threats of aggression, propaganda and
 
diplomacy. The first step will be to bring Danzig into union
 
with Germany without provoking war. Despite the Anglo-Polish
 
alliance the British are expected to favour this "peaceful de-
 
velopment. Since the territory of Danzig is not Polish, and
 
there are no Polsih troops within it, Germany need take no mili-
 
tary action against Poland if Danzig procliams its union with
 
the Reich and is thereupon occupied by German troops. The onus
 
of military attack on Germany or Danzig would then fall upon
 
Poland together with the "moral responsibility" for such "aggres-
 
sion".
 
 
German propaganda attaches great importance to this con- 
 
sideration both as regards its effect upon the German people and 
 
in foreign countries.
 
 
Hitler reckons that Poland will shrink from this responsi-
 
bility especially if German diplomacy and propaganda can gain
 
the ear of Great Britain and Russia for a "peaceful solution".
 
 
Should the Anglo-French negotiations in Moscow yield no re-
 
sult or end in an "elastic" treaty, Germany would count upon a 
 
revival of "defeatism" in Western Europe and upon a decline in 
 
British and French readiness to "fight for Danzig".    Poland, it
 
is thought, would then have to keep quiet.
 
 
Hitler does not propose to occupy Danzig by any "brutal" or 
 
sudden stroke, however swift may be the successive phases of a 
 
"peaceful settlement".    His method is to boycott all Polish 
 
authorities and businesses in Danzig; to militariso the city by 
 
German "Free Corps" and police, Brown Shirts and Black Guards; 
 
to intensify the smuggling of arms and stores into Danzig from 
 
East Prussia, and to fortify the Danzig-Polish border so that 
 
the proclamation of actual union will be a more legal formality to 
 
regularise a de facto situation which Western Europe will already 
 
have tolerated.