Eyes on Memel

In connection with the Nazi campaign to regain Memel from Lithuania along the same lines as the Saar was regained, this article gives an authentic picture of the methods which the Nazi agents use in Memel, also known as the autonomous Klaipeda Territory, and their treasonable activities.

Having lost the war, the Germans were obliged to give up about eighteen per cent of their territory and about ten per cent of their population. These lands were surrendered to Germany’s neighbors, from whom the Germans in the past had acquired them in war.

In the past the Germans also took from the Lithuanians no small area of land, which forms about a third of East Prussia, and extended as far as Koenigsberg on the seaboard and as far as the Moser lakes in the south. This area constituted about 30,000 square kilometres. Today, too, not a few Lithuanians still dwell there, especially in the eastern portion.

Of this area formerly taken from the Lithuanians only 657 square kilometres have now been restored to Lithuania, less than a tenth. This restored strip is called the Klaipeda (Memel) Territory. A hundred years ago, according to the testimony of the Germans themselves, in the Klaipeda Territory and beyond the Niemen, about twenty to thirty kilometres to the West, there were scarcely any Germans. Here only Lithuanians dwelt.

But during the nineteenth century the Germans began vigorously to push the work of Germanization, mostly through the schools, administration and Church and they succeeded in Germanizing this region. It is true that in the rural districts of Klaipeda Territory almost everybody speaks Lithuanian, but in the towns and hamlets the German language largely predominates.

WEAK LITHUANIAN BUTT OF GERMANY

According to statistics of 1925, compiled by the autonomous organs of the territory, which are under German influence and for which it was important to demonstrate the Germanism of the territory, none the less fifty-nine per cent were shown as using the Lithuanian tongue in the home; and thirty-eight per cent German. Actually there will be two-thirds of the population using the Lithuanian language in the home. Only because almost everybody can also speak German it was not difficult to register them among the Germans.

Germany’s revisionist policy was from the very beginning in a special way directed to the territory. The Germans intended to begin revisionism from that territory. Obviously of all the States which had received a part of the lands separated from Germany, Lithuania was the smallest in population and the weakest in her material resources.

Therefore the Germans thought it would be most convenient to begin the recovery of the lost lands with the territory. Here they hoped to find “locum minimal resistentiae.”

WIDE AUTONOMY GRANTED MEMEL

The Klaipeda Territory having been attached to Lithuania, its juridical position was determined by an international treaty—the so-called Klaipeda Territorial Convention. The Klaipeda Territorial Convention provides that sovereign rights to the territory pass to Lithuania, who, on her side, in view of certain distinctive attributes of that territory acquired through prolonged alien rule, grants it a special autonomy.

The autonomy granted to the territory by Lithuania is wide. It embraces almost all spheres of public life: legislation, administration, justice, and the church. Not one other of the lands separated from Germany has received such wide autonomy as the Klaipeda Territory. And so Germany has taken advantage of this circumstance to attain her ends.

Since pre-war times all the most important positions of the territory have been in German hands. The administrative apparatus was formed from officials conveyed from the interior of Germany, who were to Germanize this Lithuanian territory, teachers, judges, German pastors, big estate-owners, and owners of business undertakings, also German immigrants. All of these constituted a high, privileged, ruling caste, body and soul devoted to Germany.

NAZIS RESORT TO TERRORISM

When Lithuania took over the Klaipeda Territory, Germany’s very first object was to help that German minority to maintain its positions. Actually, this minority, helped by Germany and directed by her, has not only maintained its positions, but by means of moral and economic pressure, bribery, and, lastly, terror, has so strengthened them that it has deemed itself able unobstructedly to pursue anti-State and treasonable activities. Every attempt on the part of the Lithuanian Government to restore a normal position and to put an end to irredentism has been depicted by Germany as an affront to autonomy.

What methods have been resorted to by Germany to support the minority faithful to her and to incite irredentism may be seen from the following examples:

Germany has secretly paid the officials of the autonomous organs of the Klaipeda Territory a special supplement to their salaries, pensions, and generally in order to recompense them for services on her behalf. Officials dismissed from the service for anti-State activities, on fleeing to Germany, would at once acquire German citizenship, remunerative posts, and the honorable title of fighters for the German East.

SCHOOL CHILDREN FED ON DOCTRINES

Various kinds of credit organizations have been established in the territory with German money, and these have rendered aid, allocated, expanded, contracted or taken away credits for merchants and farmers, according to their political attitude and activity. Those desirous of receiving credits and assistance had to belong to German political organizations, and to elect German candidates. The farmers were kept submissive particularly through a special livestock – purchasing organization, the Viehverwertungsgenossenschaft.

This organization purchased animals at high prices from the farmers who joined the party which, when the Nazis triumphed in Germany, was solemnly declared to have passed in corpore into the Nazi ranks. Germany used to allow to be imported unobstructedly, at a reduced duty, animals bought by this organization, whereas she prohibited the import generally of livestock from Lithuania.

There was not a single sphere left untouched by German propaganda. The school, in which German teachers inoculated the children with love for the Third Reich and its leader Hitler, the Church, and, lastly, the press, helped by Germany—all were serving to Germanize the country. It is not therefore surprising that the Germans used to win the elections, and used to compel the inhabitants to write petitions and complaints, and that, in a word, they predominated. Anybody who dared to resist risked being morally and physically crushed.

When the Nazis triumphed in Germany, one more method began to be used in the Klaipeda Territory in order to push German policy, terror. Meanwhile already one political murder has been brought to light, while others have been concealed. Having in their hands the administration, security organs, and the Church, this was not hard for them to do.

While supporting and directing anti-State activity in the territory, Germany, on the other hand, seized upon various methods of pressure on the Lithuanian Government to compel it to tolerate the existing position and to look through its fingers at the ever-growing irredentism. Every effort of the Lithuanian Government to restore, on the basis of its sovereign rights, a normal situation, was commented on by Germany, through the press, wireless, and meetings as infringement of autonomy and non-adherence to international engagements.

Concurrently with efforts to set world public opinion against Lithuania, Germany resorted to various kinds of economic repression and even open threats. Armed Nazi bands used to demonstrate on the Lithuanian frontier, abusing Lithuania and her Government, and vowing to occupy the territory by force of arms.

LITHUANIA NIPS ‘FAIT ACCOMPLI’

Democratic Germany had hoped to wrest the Klaipeda Territory from Lithuania and attach it by legal means by demanding through the League of Nations a plebiscite in the territory. Having everything in her hands and having worked several years more in the territory, Germany had hoped to win such a plebiscite. Stresemann and his fellow-thinkers therefore proceeded persistently along this path.

Nazi Germany, truculent, impatient, has resolutely begun to think about another method, violence. A plebiscite is a complicated affair. In seeking it, it is necessary to be able to convince the League of Nations, and to play well and skilfully. The Nazis, advocates of a policy of the clenched fist and violence, have begun to plan otherwise; to bring about a rising in the territory and to proclaim its union with Germany—to make an accomplished fact.

Here has been adopted exactly the same method as in Austria. Nevertheless, here, as in Austria, it has not succeeded. The Lithuanian Government detected the plan of violence and resorted to resolute steps lawfully to restore the position and peace. It must be surprised that notwithstanding all obstacles, it will succeed in doing this work. In that way will be eliminated yet another nucleus of unrest threatening to disturb peace in Eastern Europe.

In the 1850’s Hermann Goldschmidt discovered four minor planets in one night with but a four-inch telescope.