Most people in Danzig wished to rejoin Germany while the Poles were unwilling to see any change in Danzig's status. As German consul in Danzig, Dirksen often clashed with the Poles. As consul in Danzig, Dirksen played a prominent role in the "postbox war"—a lengthy struggle over whatever the postboxes in Danzig should be painted red and white (the colors of Poland) or red, white and black (the colors of the right in Germany; red, black and yellow are the colors of the left in Germany)—the latter selection of colors was a sign of the right-wing inclinations of the senate that governed the Free City of Danzig. As the head of the Polish sub-desk within the Eastern Desk at the "Auswärtiges Amt", Dirksen played a key role as an aide to foreign minister Gustav Stresemann in formulating German policy towards Poland, and in 1925 Dirksen was one of the leading advocates of using economic pressure to force Poland to return the Polish Corridor, Danzig and Upper Silesia to Germany. At the beginning of 1925, Dirksen wrote that Poland would only return the Polish Corridor and Upper Silesia if Poland was "weak", which led him to suggest that Germany together with the "Anglo-Saxon powers" should follow a strategy of weakening the Polish economy to make Poland as militarily as weak as possible. Though the "Auswärtiges Amt" knew in fact that there was no evidence that Poland was seeking war with Germany, the Wilhelmstrasse seized upon any rumors of Polish military movements towards the German frontier to portray Poland as an aggressive and expansionist state that was a menace to the peace of Europe, which was part of a broader public relations campaign waged in Europe and the United States that emphasized the theme of "Polish chauvinism and racial hatred". Dirksen had successfully argued that Germany's chances of regaining the Polish Corridor, Danzig, and Upper Silesia would be better if world opinion was turned against Poland. In a debate within "Auswärtiges Amt", Carl Schubert, the State Secretary of the "Auswärtiges Amt", argued against making loans to Germany conditional on the return of the lost territories, writing that "only force" would force the Poles to return the Corridor and Upper Silesia. Schubert argued that since war with Poland was not practical at the moment, Germany should make loans to Poland under onerous conditions with high-interest rates to weaken Poland economically and thereby reduce the Polish military budget until such a time when Germany was rearmed, at which point Germany would take back the lost lands via war.