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

Chapter XXVII'FRANCE IS TO BLAME'WHEN SCHACHT LAMENTED HIS OWN BITTER FATE, whichcompelled him to destroy Germany's credit as the only way of savingGermany, it was no mere hypocrisy. These pleas of Schacht designatethe point at which Germany for the last time had the choice betweentwo ways to win the place in the world that was due her: the hard andslow way of using her growing power for peace and agreement, or themore showy way of taking it by force; which inevitably must lead totaking more than her due. She chose the second way. This way, nodoubt, had long ago been outlined in the plans of the new rulers; but itwill always be a grave question whether a happier destiny in thepreceding years would have preserved her from these rulers and theirdismally skillful methods.True, in the beginning, as in all politics, a thousand principles had tobe sacrificed in order that one opportunity might be seized. In theconflict between Hitler's Germany and her neighbors, of whichSchacht's trade policy formed a part, Germany tried again and again tokeep the peace and transform hostilities into friendships, because onlyin this way could her position in the heart of Europe cease to be aweakness and become a strength. For instance, National Socialistdiplomacy exerted great self-discipline in abstaining from setting off the'national dynamite' scattered through eastern Europe. Germany might,by invoking the right of national self-determination (the justice of whichwas incontestable), have raised claims on nearly all her frontiers. Therewere the German inhabitants of Danzig and those in Poland; there werethe three and a