Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

606 DER FUEHRERof his country, which, like Mussolini, he had to tolerate in the first yearsof his rule. This armed intellectual bore a political responsibility whichmight well have given him cause for gloom. None of Europe's largernations has, up to the most recent times, suffered so hard a fate asPoland. Through one hundred and thirty years she had not existed as asovereign state, but as a mere victim, torn into three parts, owned andoppressed by Russia (which had the largest share), Austria, and Prussia.After her resurrection through the First World War, she had looked forprotection to a military alliance with France and to the League ofNations; but Polish confidence had been weakened by Locarno, anddestroyed by the failure of the League to protect China against Japan in1931. Half in despair, Poland began to help herself. First, in July, 1932,she concluded a 'non-aggression pact' with the Soviet Union. ThenPilsudski dismissed August Zaleski, Foreign Minister, who still favoredfriendship with France, replacing him by a personal follower, ColonelJoseph Beck, who, in 1921, as a student at the French military academy,had been obliged to leave France because the French authoritiesregarded him as a spy. Wholehearted friendship for France was scarcelyto be expected of Beck, and, indeed, immediately after his appointmentin November, 1932, he made it known that Poland was prepared toconclude a pact of non-aggression with Germany as well as Russia. Atthe Geneva Disarmament Conference, Poland and France began to voteagainst each other. When the French consented to 'equal rights' forGermany, Poland again felt betrayed by France and exposed to theGerman menace; when finally France proposed the creation of a Leagueof Nations army, the Polish delegation withdrew its support, for inPolish eyes the League was no more than a guaranty of unreliability, apretext o£ the great powers to evade their own responsibility.One of the few things that the League did do with a certain energyserved only to make it more distasteful to the Poles: the League did takean interest in the welfare of national minorities. Poland, among herpeople of thirty-four millions, not only had millions of Ukrainians,White Russians, and Germans, but over three million Jews, the highestpercentage of Jews in all Europe. This fact imbued many Poles withanti-Semitism and a mixture of