THE "GERMAN PROBLEM"
105
statesman left in Europe, is the only one who
is
sincere when he says
that the "German problem
is
the center of the universe." For him
the war
is
really a national and not an ideological conflict. What
he wants for France is as large a share as possible in the defeat of
Germany. His appetite for annexation has been checked by the Re–
sistance; the new proposal, allegedly accepted by Stalin, which looks
towards the creation of a separate German State in the Rhineland
under Allied or French control, suggests a compromise between his
previous plans for annexations and the hopes of the Resistance for a
federated Germany and a European-controlled German economy.
Restoration has started very logically with restoring the endless
borderline disputes in which only a few old-time nationalists are
vitally interested. Despite the strong protests of the underground
movements of their respective countries, all Governments-in-exile have
put forth territorial demands. These demands, backed and possibly
impired by London, can be fulfilled only at the expense of the de–
fea.led, and if there
is
not much joy at the prospect of acquiring new
territories it is because no one seems to know how to solve the inherent
population problems. The minority treaties which were expected to
work miracles after the last war are utterly disregarded today though
no one has any confidence in the only alternative, which is assimila–
tion. This time one hopes to
so~ve
the problem by means of popula–
tion-transfers; the Czechs were the first to announce their determina–
tion to liquidate the minority treaties and to deport two million
Germans to the Reich. The other Governments-in-exile have followed
suit and pronounced similar plans for the Germans found on the
ceded territories-many millions of them.
But
if
such population-transfers actually take place they will be
followed not only by an indefinite prolongation of chaos but perhaps
by something even more sinister. The ceded territories will prove to
be underpopulated and the neighbors of Germany will find them–
selves unable to populate them properly and to profit from the avail–
able resources. This would in turn lead either to re-immigration of
German manpower, thus reproducing the old dangers, or to a situa–
tion where an over-crowded country with highly skilled labor-power
and a highly developed technique is forced into developing ingenious
industrial methods to keep going. The result of such "punishment"
would prove to be exactly the same as that of the Versailles Treaty,
also
thought of as a reliable instrument for crushing Germany's eco–
nomic power but which turned out to be the very cause of the over–
rationalization and amazing growth of Germany's industrial capacity.
Since in our time manpower is far more important than territories and
