Friends & Foes

Who rules over the mouth of the Vistula rules over Poland better than the King of Poland himself.

Thus commented Frederick the Great of Prussia, who himself was a leading carver in the 18th-Century first partition of Poland. His words have not been lost on a 20th-century admirer, Adolf Hitler, who has lately demanded for Germany the Free City of Danzig, at the Vistula's mouth. Unfortunately for Herr Hitler, Poland's present rulers can also read and they showed last week in many ways that they too appreciated Frederick's maxim.

> Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Josef Beck did his efficient best to scuttle Pope Pius' proposed five-nation conference to settle the Danzig question, lest the Dictators confer as successfully as they did at Munich.

> The Polish Government moved to bar any discussion of Danzig from the League of Nations Council session meeting late this month. The Poles want no mediation at Geneva, either. Danzig affairs are handled at the League by a committee of three: Britain, France and Sweden. The League of Nations High Commissioner for Danzig is Dr. Karl Burckhardt, a Swiss professor of law whom Fuehrer Hitler, in his last speech, called "incidentally a man of extraordinary tact." Dr. Burckhardt's "tact" consists largely of a do-nothing silence. Unlike his predecessor, fiery Sean Lester of Eire, who barked long and hard about the Nazis' repeated violations of Danzig's Constitution, Commissioner Burckhardt has uttered public words in Danzig only once and then subtly to quote from an inscription on a Danzig building: "The high things must be kept high and the low things low." His hearers could only guess at his allusions, but among the "low" things which took place in Danzig in violation of the Constitution were the suppression by local Nazis of opposition parties and the imprisonment of Socialist, Catholic and Jewish (though not Polish) enemies. In fact, things got so "low" last January that Dr. Burckhardt, who was placed in virtual quarantine by the ruling Nazis, suddenly left, returned for only several days in March and then got the League's permission to leave more or less permanently. The League Committee of Three has not got around to considering Danzig's case now for two and a half years and it is not likely to do so this session.

> To Warsaw from a much publicized diplomatic swing to Ankara, Sofia and Bucharest went Vladimir Potemkin, the U.S.S.R.'s Vice Commissar for Foreign Affairs. Retired Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinoff and Colonel Beck always rubbed each other the wrong way. Colonel Beck had not talked diplomatic matters over with a Russian since 1934. But Comrade Potemkin was different.

A member of the family of the great Prince Potemkin, adviser to and lover of Catherine the Great, in Tsarist days Vice Commissar Potemkin was a professor of mathematics, later went into the diplomatic service. As Ambassador to Italy he became known for his knowledge of Roman antiquities and in France he helped negotiate the French-Soviet mutual aid pact. He is tall, distinguished in appearance, a good linguist. Colonel Beck welcomed the Vice Commissar, and Comrade Potemkin, according to the Warsaw press, picked up from Colonel Beck enlightening details on a deal which Herr Hitler had tried to make some weeks ago with the Poles. The Fuehrer, it was said, had promised Poland a cut in a Nazi dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Although no written agreement resulted from the Potemkin visit, Polish-Russian affairs were left friendlier than they had been in many a year. With the breakdown of a Polish-German commercial agreement expected, Polish-Soviet trade will probably grow. While Poles were still suspicious of aid from Red Russia, a few German bombs falling on Warsaw could reasonably be expected to make them change their minds and welcome all the guns and warplanes they could get, from anywhere they could get them.

> Meanwhile, in the game of preparation for conquest that Fueiihrer Hitler was playing in & near Danzig, the Poles showed themselves as tough as the Nazis. Before the Fuehrer grabs new lands and riches his lieutenants generally stage numerous frontier "incidents" which are supposed to show that the Fuehrer's patience is being taxed by cruel treatment of his people in the territory he has his eye on. The Poles played the same game. When the German press described a "mass flight" of Germans from Polish "terrorism," Poles charged that hundreds of their citizens were being driven daily from Silesia and East Prussia.

> The Nazis redoubled their attempt to weaken the Polish customs control of the Danzig-East Prussian frontier. Nazis had already tried ordering German merchants to refuse to sell foodstuffs to Polish officials. A more direct method was tried last week: a Polish customs officer's house was bombed, a Polish stationmaster was attacked by "unknown assailants."

> Warsaw and the rest of Poland solemnly commemorated the fourth anniversary of the death of Marshal Josef Pilsudski, Polish hero and dictator, but not Danzig. There the Nazi Senate prohibited any ceremonies on the ground that in the present tension they could not guarantee order. Polish retort was that since the Germans could not keep order, the Polish Army should move in and do it. When a Polish bookshop proprietor displayed the old Marshal's picture his windows were smashed. Nazi police conveniently arrived too late to arrest the vandals.

More alarming than any other incident was the arrival in Danzig of the same husky young Germans who "toured" Czecho-Slovakia and Memel just before Adolf Hitler moved in. Estimates of Danzig's "tourists" last week ranged from 1,000 to 30,000. Some of them wore Storm Troopers' uniforms. Danzigers who have been serving in the German Army also turned up back in Danzig, having received "furloughs." Danzig police leaves were canceled.

For the Poles in Danzig there was some encouragement in the arrival at Gdynia, the all-Polish port only twelve miles northwest of Danzig, of Polish artillery. And just to keep the record straight the Polish Government reiterated its oft-repeated firm stand: "Any attempt to alter the present state of affairs in Danzig will have as an immediate effect immediate action by the Polish military forces, which at present are in a state of readiness for war."

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