Central Europe

“ The relationship between Germany and central Europe is mercantilistic. Germany leverages the region's cheap labor and abundant raw materials to manufacture and export its finished products. Central Europe conforms, therefore, to the definition of a colony and an economic hinterland. From a low base, growth there - driven by frenzied consumerism - is bound to outstrip the northern giant's for a long time to come. But Germans stands to benefit from such prosperity no less than the indigenous population. ”

“ A translation of “Mittel-Europa,” a German work outlining a plan for a permanent union of the Central European nations. “The nucleus of the organization is to consist of the German empire and Austria-Hungary. To this nucleus will be added the Balkans, Turkey, and the present neutral states to the north of the empire. Thus a combination will be effected that comprises a great stretch of territory through the heart of Europe, binding the members together with ties of common interest. At the same time the enemies of the empire will be separated. ”

“ Before seeking to found a Greater Germany in other continents, we must create a Greater Germany in Central Europe.... In seeking to colonize the countries immediately contiguous to our present patrimony, we are continuing the millenary work of our ancestors. ”

“ Across the face of Central Europe, in generation after generation, there have passed the feet of marching men. Sometimes they have come, moving through on their way East or West, and have left behind them a trail of charred ruin: sometimes they have stayed to impose their rule. ”

“ CENTRAL AND NORTHERN EUROPE The almost unbroken mountain chain formed by the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkans, sharply separates the central land mass of Europe from the regions to the south. Central Europe consists, in general, of lowlands, which widen eastward into the vast Russian plain. Northern Europe includes the British Isles, physically an extension of Europe, and the peninsulas of Scandinavia and Finland, between the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Twenty centuries ago central and northern Europe was a land of forests and marshes, of desolate steppes and icebound hills. ”

“ There are three nations, however, which have not yet attained their freedom: the Poles, Czecho-Slovaks, and the Southern Slavs of Austria-Hungary. All these three nations have for a long time been making efforts to attain freedom and unity. They are, indeed, the biggest nations of the Central Zone; all three were free and independent in the past, all three possess a remarkable history, all three have done much towards the development of the civilisation of Europe. ”

“ Russia, to be sure, has 30 million more people, but its lack of railways, its paucity of population in tremendous territory, finally its backwardness in the economic, financial and cultural fields, gave German Central Europe a decided balance, not merely against Russia, but also against France. ”

“ From the north, east and west, a number of the most important lines of central Europe are focussed here, and swelling to a mighty mass, branch off again in every direction to the interior of Switzerland. ”

“ South-eastern and central Europe are complementary economic areas in a special degree. The industries of central Europe will draw upon the raw products of the south-east to an increasing extent, and the south-east will absorb in turn increasing quantities of manufactured plant from central Europe for the development of its own natural resources. ”

“ Just as, in the fifteenth century, civilisation had suddenly passed from the stage of the city-state or the feudal principality to the stage of the great nation-state, so now, while the European peoples were still struggling to realise their nationhood, civilisation seemed to have stolen a march upon them, and to have advanced once more, this time into the stage of the world-state. For to the east of the European nations lay the vast Russian Empire, stretching from Central Europe across Asia to the Pacific ”

“ But if one hundred millions of people in Central Europe can be made to see the evils of separation, cannot others? With our greater facilities of communication, with our increased commercial intercourse and our increased realization of the interdependence of nations (a manufacturing nation cannot get along without the food-producing nations, etc.) ”

“ Throughout its history, until the wars of 1914-45, western civilization had its headquarters in central and west Europe, with branch offices elsewhere on the planet. At no time after 1870 did any one European power occupy a position of easy superiority over its rivals. If Great Britain was top dog, France, the long established continental power was snapping at her heels. Germany was an expanding power of major consequence. To the North and East lay Russia, with its vast territories and its persistent pressures into East Europe and Far Asia. ”

“ The Central Empires held the land routes of South-Eastern Europe and Turkey was their vassal State, whereas the Allies disposed of precarious sea communications, which linked them with no more than the periphery of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans at three widely separated points. ”

“ GREATER RUMANIA We have three groups of minor nations in Central and Eastern Europe: those whose emancipation or extension of frontiers is at the expense of the Central Empires; those whose emancipation or extension of frontiers is at the expense of Russia; and the Balkan States, completing their emancipation from Turkey and establishing new frontiers at the expense of each other. Czechoslovakia belongs to the first category; Poland and Lithuania to the first and second categories; Finland and the Baltic States to the second category ”

“ The great stream of culture then flowed much more strongly in the central than in the outlying parts of Western Europe. The Latin nations, Italy and France, lay nearest the heart of civilization. But slightly less advanced in culture and in the amenities of life, and superior in some respects, were the Netherlands, Switzerland, England and the southern and central parts of Germany. In partial shadow round about lay a belt of lands: Spain, Portugal, Northern Germany, Prussia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland. ”

“ The most virile and aggressive power in the center of Europe is Germany proper--this term of Germany, including the whole of the Teutonic races, such as the German-speaking portion of Austria, Hungary (for your true Hungarian is a keen admirer of strength and force) , Holland, Switzerland and in all probability the Norsemen and Viking branches of the Teutonic clan, meaning Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Social and commercial aims and aspirations in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, independent as they are and probably always will be, still show a decided trend to Central Germanic cohesion. ”

“ Since 1956, Polish diplomacy, whether under Gomulka or under Gierek, has worked to this end. Despite frequent pauses and setbacks in the 1960s, the goal has been consistent: to seek a general settlement in central Europe which would remove Poland from the field of East-West rivalry in which the Poles have felt it would always play the role of a potential pawn. The specific proposals put forward were designed to exclude, or postpone, the reunification of Germany; at the same time these proposals generally have been accompanied by separate approaches, on a bilateral basis, to West Germany. ”

“ Although it is now relatively easy for East German citizens to travel in Eastern Europe and millions have taken advantage of this opportunity, there is little likelihood that the tight controls on travel to the West will be relaxed in the near future. ”

“ It therefore seems more useful to sketch in broad outline the physical and vegetational facts of East-Central and Eastern Europe in order to bring out the essentials of the setting of human life and the variation of that setting with the region so that peoples of diverging outlook and traditions have grown up in those regions. ”

“ Thanks to the yearning for freedom of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe the unnatural division of Europe is now consigned to the past. European integration shows that we have learnt the painful lessons of a history marked by bloody conflict. Today we live together as was never possible before. ”

“ Central and eastern Europe also provide a natural land nexus between west Europe and Asia and the Middle East. As China and India grow in economic and geopolitical importance, an enlarged Europe will find itself in the profitable role of an intermediary between east and west. ”

“ Even in political considerations, now-a-days, you have stronger motives to feel interested in the fate of Europe than in the fate of the Central or Southern parts of America. ”

“ To us to-day, Germany means the German Empire, one of the three or four best organized and most powerful of the European states. It is a compact federation, somewhat like that of the United States, made up of twenty-two monarchies and three little city republics. Each member of the union manages its local affairs, but leaves all questions of national importance to be settled by the central government at Berlin. ”

“ Osteuropaeische Zukunft ("The Future of Eastern Europe") , first appeared in January 1916, and the Wirtschaftszeitung der Zentralmächte ("Economic Journal of the Central Powers") on February 11th. whole press has been full of elaborate discussions of economic problems in their bearing upon the war and future reconstruction. ”

“ It is not difficult to understand why the Germans have found allies among the small nations—the fear of a strong nation and the hope of a reward for services rendered brought the Magyars, the Bulgars, and the Turks to their side. The territories defended or occupied by the Central Powers, extending from Riga viâ Warsaw, Budapest and Belgrade to Salonika-Kavala-Constantinople, represent, in fact, the greater part of the Central Zone of the smaller nations. ”

“ As Europe's largest economy and second most populous nation, Germany is a key member of the continent's economic, political, and defense organizations. European power struggles immersed Germany in two devastating World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and left the country occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. ”

“ Europe In the post-World War II period the Danes have shown some ambivalence in their relationship to their fellow Europeans. A politically and economically unified Europe is an enticing prospect, and yet for small, proud, prosperous Denmark the practical consequences of being part of such a Goliath are a cause for some doubt. For the Danes European economic integration is more attractive than political union, for Denmark must trade to live. ”

“ No one should flatter himself that he has grasped the elements of the history of western Europe unless he can trace in a clear, if general, way the various stages by which the states which appear now upon the map of Europe—the French republic, the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, and the kingdoms of Italy, Great Britain, and Spain—have grown out of the disorganized Europe of the ninth century. ”

“ A major preoccupation of Swedish foreign policy is the maintenance of good relations with the Soviet Union, but this goal has tended to be elusive because of the tensions in Europe engendered by the East-West struggle. Sweden's concern about relations with the USSR derives essentially from its proximity and overwhelming military preponderance in the Baltic area. In the early post-World War II period and at the height of the Cold War, Soviet-Swedish relations were little more than formally correct and were characterized by periods of extreme chill. ”

“ Since World War II, Switzerland's economy has adjusted smoothly to the great changes in output and trade patterns in Europe and presumably can adjust to the challenges of the 1990s, in particular, the further economic integration of Western Europe and the amazingly rapid changes in East European political/economic prospects. ”

“ Once the seat of Viking raiders and later a major north European power, Denmark has evolved into a modern, prosperous nation that is participating in the general political and economic integration of Europe. ”

“ In particular, East Germany relies on the other Eastern European countries to support the regime's drive to gain membership in various international organizations and to encourage other nations to establish official relations. The Communist nations of Eastern Europe have been willing up to a point to support the GDR in attaining these objectives because they clearly regard the existence of a separate East German state to be essential to their own security arrangements. ”

“ Once one of the wealthiest of the Yugoslav republics, Croatia's economy suffered badly during the 1991-95 war as output collapsed and the country missed the early waves of investment in Central and Eastern Europe that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. ”

“ The Riksdag is vested with the power to remove the government or an individual member of the Council of State immediately by a vote of no confidence. The only defensive move open to the government in such a case is to announce new elections within a week. The implementation of these reforms puts Sweden in step with the growing number of democracies in Western Europe which have embraced the idea of a directly elected unicameral legislature more responsive to the electorate. ”

“ Discontent and Dissidence Sweden's stable and open society offers few opportunities for the growth of subversive organizations capable of presenting a serious threat to the state. The absence of deep-seated social and economic grievances, universal literacy, and a standard of living second to none in Western Europe have contributed to the development of a socially and politically stable society in which all political parties except the Communists are committed to democratic principles. ”

“ Above all, Gierek's approachability, pragmatism, and stated dedication to a just reward for hard work are the same qualities that earned him the respect of Silesia's industrial workers during his 13-year tenure there.
As a group, the new Polish leadership is the only one in Eastern Europe in which the postwar generation predominates. Most of the new leaders are not products of the "revolutionary" tradition, the resistance movement, or Soviet training, but rather of the universities and educational institutions of Communist Poland. ”