Hitler and Khrushchev

...Hitler's proposals for world peace and disarmament are almost forgotten today...

...Thus Hitler gained valuable time, for he alone knew that there was not going to be any disarmament...

...It wants peace also because of realization of the simple fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe the principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of a nation Whoever lights the torch of war in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos...

...Even among some whose credulity does not reach as far as this, there has been a tendency to argue that a disarmament agreement would be worth while even without an effective system of inspection and control, because it would be enforced by world opinion—that same world opinion on which idealists once relied to restrain Hitler...

...The historical image of Hitler as the maker of war has made all his earlier reassurances seem empty and futile...

...If the West capitulates in Berlin, Khrushchev will only be encouraged to further aggressions...

...Germany, he said, "is ready to renounce all offensive weapons if the armed nations on their side will destroy all offensive weapons Germany is ready to disband its entire military establishment and destroy the small amount of arms remaining to it if neighboring countries will do the same Germany is prepared to enter into solemn pacts of non-aggression, since it does not think of attacking anyone but only of obtaining security...

...How successful this policy was is revealed by any study of what was called "appeasement" in the period before World War II...

...But the Western democracies will convict themselves of incorrigible folly if they believe that...

...Just as Hitler would have no more demands to make if he were only given his way over Czechoslovakia, so Khrushchev will never trouble the world again if he is only given what he wants in Berlin...

...By parading the national grievance he rallied German domestic support for his policy of rapid, uncontrolled rearmament, while at the same time encouraging the Western powers to believe that he might be brought back into the Disarmament Conference if adequate concessions were made to him...

...When Khrushchev tells Prime Minister Amilio Fanfani of Italy that aircraft using the air corridors to Berlin in accordance with existing agreements will be shot down...

...Reference to the speeches of Adolf Hitler in the period before he plunged the world into war reveals striking similarities of tactical method, rhetorical appeal and even phrasing...

...In a totalitarian system of the Nazi or Communist type all the processes of the state are enveloped in secrecy and there is no possibility of public scrutiny of official activities which the government desires to keep hidden...

...Khrushchev's resort to the language of open menace over Berlin has, of course, put a strain on the faith of those who trusted in his will to peace...

...So convinced was the British Prime Minister that Hitler was at last satisfied that he told those who came to meet him on his return to London, "Yes, it is peace in our time...

...Nevertheless, there is a similarity between the two situations: Hitler did not seek merely to regain for Germany equal rights with other states to military conscription and arms of all categories...

...If the West can be intimidated now by nuclear blackmail, why should it not be used again and again to impose Moscow's will on the "hostage" nations of Europe and ultimately on the United States as well...

...If, however, the peoples of the West attach so much importance to inspection and control in a disarmament treaty, then the Soviet Union is prepared to make concessions to this prejudice and will call for "universal disarmament under strict inspection...

...Hitler himself instinctively understood this worldwide longing for peace and craving for words of hope...

...In the Hitler era disarmament negotiations never got far enough for the issue of inspection to become crucial...

...Hopes persisted that Hitler would be satisfied with a token demonstration of independent rearmament, and would ultimately agree to arms limitation...

...A little later, when Hitler violated the Treaty of Locarno by marching his troops into the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland, he again asserted that, although Germany was determined to "restore the honor of her people," she would now strive "more than ever" for "an understanding between the European peoples...

...When he took the decisive step in repudiation of the Versailles Treaty by decreeing the restoration of military conscription in Germany, he simultaneously made a speech to the Reichstag so full of admirably pacific sentiments that it won golden opinions in the press of the countries which would have to fight Germany four years later...

...He dangled before the eyes of the world alluring offers of peaceful settlement at the same time that he tore up treaties and carried out his coups de force...

...Two years later, when he had seized Austria and worked up the crisis with Czechoslovakia to the brink of war, he told Neville Chamberlain that his claim to the Sudetenland was his "last territorial demand in Europe...

...In addition, there are a considerable number of people in the West who, although not at all inclined towards Communism in their politics, are ready to believe in Khrushchev's offer, just as the London Times believed Hitler's peace appeal in 1935...

...Germany will never break the peace...

...There is also the opinion of the uncommitted countries to be taken into account, and they are often very susceptible to Communist disarmament propaganda...

...Then everything will fall into place again...

...The Soviet Union "struggles" for peace and strives to deliver mankind from the curse of war by complete universal abolition of armaments of every kind...

...A Study in Similarity Hitler & Khrushchev By G. F Hudson London A student of modern history reading the recent notes and discourses of Nikita Khrushchev on peace and disarmament must frequently have the feeling that he has heard it all before...

...But when Western negotiators try to get down to details of the proposed supervision it develops that all real inspection is espionage, that there must be agreement on disarmament before there is any control machinery, and that in any case the Communist states must have in one way or another a veto on any inspection of themselves...

...Even if the intelligence services of foreign powers can find traces of illicit forms of armament, their reports will be denied...

...when he resumes nuclear tests and boasts that the Soviet Union will soon have 100-megaton bombs...

...that he was ready to join in an agreement for limitation or abolition of all heavy arms "specially suited for aggression...

...As long as such hopes remained, no influential political leader in Britain or France was ready to advocate large increases in his country's war-making capacity, which would have to be scrapped if a disarmament treaty was finally obtained...

...he is an insolent blackmailer threatening a world war unless he is allowed to impose Communist domination on the people of West Berlin...

...Everything will fall into place again," and there will be perpetual sunshine after the darkness of the storm...

...We know what happens at the end of that road...

...when he declares that Britain, France and Italy are "hostages" to the Soviet Union because they will never dare to fight— then the world sees a different Khrushchev...

...Those who, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, clung to the belief that Hitler was really a man of peace and good will, with whom it was possible to reach a reasonable settlement, took up every favorable hint in his speeches as a promise on which a new world could be built...

...Hitler's method was simple in essentials, though varied and ingenious in its application...

...But they were taken seriously enough at the time in the Western democracies, not only by the popular press but also in official circles and by leaders of serious political opinion...

...If his demands are met, the freedom of West Berlin will be safeguarded by guarantees which will somehow be more binding than the agreements he has repudiated...

...When Hitler made his appeal for peace after proclaiming the restoration of military conscription in Germany, the London Times commented editorially: "It is to be hoped that the speech will be taken everywhere as a sincere and well-considered utterance meaning precisely what it says...

...The promise of a golden future is thus held out to the nations of the West if they will only yield on Berlin...

...An aggressive dictator who seeks to beguile the world with talk of his peaceful intentions must sooner or later, in order to get his way, make threats which are incompatible with these pretenses...

...Hitler, however, continued to talk peace...

...Moreover, the case of Berlin is held to be unique, and if it can only be got out of the way, there will be nothing else to obstruct the attainment of that happy harmony among nations which is so dear to his heart...

...These" considerations are very much in the minds of the Western statesmen who have to deal with Soviet disarmament proposals...

...G. F. Hudson, who served in the British Foreign Office from 1939 to 1946, is currently Director of the Center of Far Eastern Studies at St...

...The Soviet campaign for peaceful coexistence and total disarmament has indeed been an improvement, technically speaking, on Hitler's projection of himself as the champion of peace among nations...

...the general public awaited the speeches as events of far greater importance than anything that Germany under Hitler was actually doing...

...Hitler is long since dead, but if his ghost still walks the streets of Berlin, he must recognize that he has a worthy successor...

...But on the record of the Nazi regime, and with the evidence of the state of mind of Hitler and his associates which has become available since the War, nobody can seriously doubt that he would have cheated on any disarmament treaty he might have signed...

...Nor is it sufficient to say that the democratic country can itself rearm if it finds that the other party to the agreement is not keeping faith...

...For a democratic state, a disarmament treaty would become an obligation in law, and with an independent political opposition and a free press any serious violation of it would be exposed and publicly denounced...

...We have no territorial demands to make in Europe," he declared to the Reichstag...

...Nor will it be difficult for him to recall when and where...

...But in the autumn, on the pretext that the French were demanding a transition period of eight years before Germany should have complete equality of armament rights, Hitler abruptly withdrew the German delegation from the Disarmament Conference and announced his country's resignation from the League of Nations...

...The unfolding of his policy in action necessarily contradicted his earlier pacific assurances, but even then he did not give up his endeavors to lull suspicions and feed hopes...

...The Western powers are thrown on the defensive when they insist on asking what guarantees there would be that such a plan would be honestly carried out by all concerned if it were to be adopted...

...Hitler said that his racial theory excluded any wish to subdue or dominate any non-German peoples, for incorporation of ethnic strangers in a national state could only weaken it...

...War comes in the year after Munich...

...He must certainly see in Khrushchev's conduct of Soviet foreign policy over the last three years a performance worthy of his admiration...

...By the time its people are convinced that the pact is being broken, it may be too late to recover from a position of fatal inferiority...

...In the very midst of the crisis he has deliberately created, he tries to kindle hopes of an era of relaxations and good will which will follow if only this one difficulty can be surmounted...

...He knew only too well how to exploit it in his pursuit of a policy designed to gain for Germany a position of military superiority that would enable him to impose his will internationally...

...Antony's College, Oxford...

...He is no longer the folksy traveling salesman and fervent apostle of peaceful coexistence...

...When Hitler came to power in 1933, the hopes of the world were set on the Disarmament Conference then meeting in Geneva...

...However, it has not been so easy to convince Western public opinion, particularly certain high-minded columnists and newspaper editors, that there is danger in negotiating on such offers...

...In the same way, Soviet peace propaganda is certainly aimed at causing the West to reduce its armaments or abandon certain strategic positions without imposing in practice any parallel restrictions on Soviet power...

...Such queries, according to Soviet propaganda, merely slander Russia's magnificent intentions and reveal the vested interests of monopoly capitalism in the production of arms, and of imperialism in the use of war as an instrument of policy...

...that he would "adhere unconditionally" to the non-aggression pact which he had concluded with Poland...

...Still, Khrushchev presents himself as the man of peace...

...that he would not interfere in any way in the internal affairs of Austria or try to annex it...

...He sought to play on both the hopes and the fears of mankind, alternating promises and threats, or even combining both...

...On May 16, President Roosevelt urged the total abolition of "offensive weapons," defined as bomber aircraft, heavy artillery and tanks— the categories of arms which had been forbidden to Germany by the Versailles Treaty and which Hitler was preparing to produce on a massive scale for his new armed forces...

...After every repudiation of an agreement he offered fresh guarantees, and every demand was to be positively his last...

...he sought to obtain a lead over the Western democracies by playing on their hopes of a disarmament treaty and thus delaying their rearmament until it was too late for them to catch up for a long time...

...that he finally renounced all claim to Alsace-Lorraine and "solemnly recognized and guaranteed" the frontiers of France...

...Indeed, the political system of a totalitarian party-state gives it a decisive advantage over a democratic state with regard to the observance of such an agreement...

...There will not only be no nuclear tests but not even a threat of nuclear war...

...Germany, Hitler declared, "wants peace because of its fundamental convictions...

...In his own words: "Let us seek seriously in good faith a solution to the question of concluding a German peace treaty, so as to arrest in good time the sliding of states into the inferno of a rocket-nuclear war...

...Too late, his adversaries realized that while he pretended to be studying disarmament proposals he was going ahead with his own rearming, so that Germany's Air Force soon outnumbered those of Britain and France put together...

...The circumstances were indeed different from those of 1961 in that Germany was rearming in defiance of the unilateral disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, whereas there have never been any restrictions on the right of the Soviet Union as a sovereign power to arm as much as it pleases...

...In his speech to the Reichstag the next day, Hitler put himself forward as a rival champion of peace and disarmament...