The Germans and the East

Nazi Foreign Policy towards Southeastern Europe, 1933–1945

328 Nazi฀Foreign฀Policy฀towards฀ Southeastern฀Europe,฀1933–1945 Béla฀Bodo Historians of Nazi Germany regularly complain of their difficulty in keeping up with new literature in their field. The number of books published on Nazi foreign policy alone indeed runs into the hundreds, nonetheless, the majority focus on a limited number of themes: continuity and discontinuity in German foreign policy from Bismarck to Hitler; the scope of Hitler’s power and ambitions and the nature of decision-making processes in the Third Reich. Two metaphors of the Nazi state dominate such discourse; some historians imagine Germany as a pyramid with Hitler at the apex, decisions flowing from the top down; others see it as a molecule under a microscope, cells dividing, multiplying, and destroying one another randomly. In this short essay, I will ignore organizational history; instead, I will focus on questions that I believe more relevant to general readers: did Hitler’s foreign policy fall into the tradition of European diplomacy and late ninetieth and early twentieth-century Western imperialism? Second, did Hitler’s foreign policy toward Southeastern Europe represent, as most historian believe, a departure from the Wilsonian idea of national states or did Hitler, by helping to destroy the multi-ethnic states of Yugoslavia and redrawing the borders of Romania and Greece and, at the same time, by preventing the revival of old Hungary, in fact help to complete Wilson’s work? Did Hitler’s support for ethnic boundaries in Southeastern Europe have to do with his proverbial opportunism or did it stem from ideological convictions? Were there conflicts between ideologically based foreign policy and traditional diplomacy with its focus on economic exploitation and indirect control, and between the means that the Nazis used to achieve their goals and the traditional techniques of Western diplomacy? Did Nazi racism promote or hinder the effective economic exploitation of the region? In short, were Nazi policies toward Southeastern Europe truly an aberration or simply a continuation of traditional European diplomacy? Nazi Foreign Policy towards Southeastern Europe, 1933–1945 ◆ 329 My goal is to put Nazi foreign policy in an international frame and at the same time increase readers’ interests in the history of Southeastern Europe. While the essay is historical in nature, I hope that it also encourages readers to think about general issues such as the nature of alliances between small and larger states and the techniques that great powers often use to pacify world public opinion, keep traditional allies on their sides and obtain new allies. The history of German foreign policy towards Southeastern Europe provides a perfect example not only of victimization but also of the tendency of small states to exploit great power conflicts and act as accomplices to their crimes. The partisan wars in Yugoslavia and Greece between 1941 and 1945 are highly relevant : they shed light on the evolution of guerilla warfare from Chinese revolution to Algiers, Kenya and Vietnam and the present conflict the Middle East. The฀Evolution฀of฀Nazi฀Policy฀towards฀฀ Southeastern฀Europe฀before฀1939 For both political and economic reasons, until the early 1930s, the Weimar Republic showed only limited interest in the Southeastern Europe. The success of German economic policy in the 1920s was predicated upon increased overseas trade and the maintenance of strong economic ties with England and France. The Weimar Republic also looked to the West for political ideas; its democratic politicians had only contempt for the corrupt authoritarian regimes in the region. This Western orientation lasted until the coming of the Great Depression in 1929, which sealed the fate of the international trading system, discredited the idea of free trade and, at same time, changed German attitudes towards Southeastern Europe. The success of the new economic doctrine, i.e. protectionism and autarchy, hinged upon the development of trading blocs dominated by large states. Full sovereignty in this model was given only to the large states; small and medium-sized powers, on the other hand, were expected to follow the lead and adjust their policies to economic and political realities set by great power rivalries and the imbalance of power between rich and poor states. Because of a drastic decline in overseas export and growing trade deficit after 1929, the German government and majority of big businesses felt that trading blocks would serve their interest better than free competition. Their choice was made easier by the crisis of democracy and the concentration of power in the hands of the President...