According to Hitler

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

When we talk of new lands in Europe, we are bound to think first of Russia and her border states.

Thus runs a significant passage in Mein Kampf, Germany's Gospel-According-to-Hitler, which, written in jail in 1924, has called every turn on European history since 1932.

The new lands of which Hitler thinks most are those rich agricultural and mining areas in Russia, Poland and Rumania peopled by Ukrainians. Rather than pick up these areas one by one in battle or by bluff, the Nazis would be better served if they could incite the Polish, Rumanian and Russian Ukrainians to form an independent state--which the Nazis, having promoted, would puppetize.

Nazi agents, by intrigue and radio propagandizing, have agitated for a Greater Ukraine ever since Munich. Centre of the campaign is Carpatho-Ukraine, easternmost district of Nazified Czecho-Slovakia. Hungary and Poland also covet the strategic Carpatho-Ukraine, and there have been border fights on both frontiers of the territory.

What took place on the Carpatho-Ukrainian border last week, however, was no mere guerrilla scrap but several minor military actions and one small, desperate, pitched battle. The suspicion was that these were instigated by Germany and, besides being a warning to Hungary to lay off, were possibly the Nazis' first violent move toward setting up the nucleus of the Greater Ukrainian State.

In the dead of night, Czech soldiers at the disposal of the Carpatho-Ukraine Government, aided by armed members of the SIC, a militant political organization under German auspices, advanced on the border town of Munkacs, awarded to Hungary in the post-Munich territorial revision. Hungarian frontier police and troops met them. A battle began in which the Czech forces used tanks, armored cars and trench mortars.

It went on sporadically through the night and most of the next day. Czech shells plumped into a Munkacs church, two theatres, a hotel. Seven Hungarians were killed, nine wounded. Four Czech soldiers were also wounded before the invaders withdrew.

This week Czech forces sent another barrage of incendiary shells into the Hungarian village of Nagygejoce, near Ugnvar, 25 miles west of Munkacs. Hungarian and Czech army delegates finally arranged a truce, agreed to exchange prisoners and captured materials.

Meanwhile, Polish Foreign Minister Josef Beck made an official call on Fuehrer Hitler at his Bavarian retreat. Timidly Diplomat Beck, who has his hands full trying to balance Poland on a tightrope between Nazi and French democratic influence, inquired into Germany's intentions toward his country.

On his part, Herr Hitler ordered Nazi broadcasts aimed at Polish Ukrainians toned down, temporarily at least. On his part, Foreign Minister Beck was reported to have agreed to: 1) formal annexation by Germany of Danzig, already completely Nazified but still nominally under League of Nations supervision; 2) special status for the Germans in Memel, still part of Lithuania, but actually ruled by local Nazis directed from Berlin.

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