CZECHOSLOVAKIA'S GERMANS
Commonwealth and Foreign From A. PRAGUE CORRESPONDENT
Prague, March 8th.
IT is too early yet to judge the practical effects of the agreement of February zoth between the Czechoslovak Government and the Activist Germans The resolution which the Govern- ment has passed must, from its very nature, take time to carry out. It is therefore only possible to describe the circumstances in which the agreement must operate and judge from them its chances of success and its probable results.
Perhaps the most important fact, and the most hopeful, is that it is the work of Dr. Benes, the President, and of Dr. Hodza, the Prime Minister ; their political reputations are staked on it, and that is the surest guarantee that every effort "will be made to carry it through, loyally and punctually. Furthermore, it is a resolution of the whole Government, taken before Czechoslovak public opinion as a whole. Not even from the most pettily chauvinistic quarter, nor from the more determined nationalism of Dr. Kramai•, has a voice been raised against it.
It follows, therefore, that the only Czech opposition which can arise is that of the small, jealous official who will feel his power and his security directly threatened by measures which give back to the German districts German officials, and withdraw from public works the Czech workmen and entre- preneurs who are working in the midst of German unemploy- ment. The Activists with whom the resolution was negotiated are demanding sanctions against such officials. Already they have protested against the employment of 20 Czech workmen on the railway line near Bodenbach. The resolution is the legal basis for all such complaints, and is the first step, as the Activists say, to constructive collaboration between German and Czech in the Czechoslovak Republic
To the opposition German party of Herr Henlein, who at present speaks for about two-thirds of the Germans of Czecho- slovakia, it is not the first but the last step, and their attitude to the new agreement is one of frank rejection. First and foremost they reject it because, although it satisfies most of the demands they have been making, they are piqued that the agreement has been reached not with them but with those very parties whom they call helpless and insignificant. There- fore they say it is a swindle, especially designed to take in the unwary English, that it will never be carried out, and, anyway, if it is, it is not really what they want. Rudolf Sandner, a Henlein Deputy, even went so far as to call it "something approaching National betrayal " (Volksverrat) and Herr Henlein made a long, uncompromising speech outlining the real demand of das Volk als Blut-Schicksal and Willens- genteinschaft.
This demand, of course, shorn of the phraseology of which Herr Henlein is as great a master as Herr Hitler, is autonomy. It is not the first time that the Sudeten German Party has demanded autonomy, though it is the first time it has been put forward with such precision. Hitherto the party has been fighting chiefly for the removal of grievances ; their removal now leaves it a choice only between a defensive and a more radical policy. For the moment it is hesitating. To choose the first is to rely on the Czechs not carrying out their promises ; to choose the second is to lose those of their members who are sincere in wanting only justice and the possibility of working loyally and peacefully within the Czechoslovak Republic.
It is impossible to understand the full embarrassment of the Sudeten German Party without understanding their position in international affairs. Willingly or unwillingly, they are the tool of German Foreign Policy. It is well known that Czechoslovakia, like Poland once, is (in National Socialist language) " a gaping wound in the side of Germany," and there are only two ways of healing the wound. One, which has failed, is to invoke the Bolshevik danger ; the other, which is failing, is to invoke the misery of German Minority. The Sudeten German Party has not been without its value an both connexions. It has lost all value as regards the first and is fast losing value as regards the second. Furthermore it is losing members through internal dissension. If these two ways of heating the wound fail, who knows but that German foreign policy may change and seek a direct under- standing with Czechoslovakia ? But the conditions which the Czechs would demand for such an understanding would be German recognition for the sanctity of their alliances and German non-interference in their domestic affairs. If these conditions were accepted, the happiest Sudeten Germans would be those who had tried to make this present agreement work and who had sincerely wanted, at an earlier date, an understanding, not based on dictatorship, between Germany and Czechoslovakia.
But if some of Herr Henlein's followers are eager instru- ments of Herr Hitler, others are not, and their sincerity is too readily doubted both here and abroad. The very number of his followers proves that Herr Henlein is expressing the bitterness of thousands of unemployed men and women whose poverty has made them catch at any political party and any political creed which offers them relief. That the Czechs are responsible for this poverty, no one pretends, but, that all has not been done to relieve it, the present agree- ment testifies. Czechs have been brought in to build houses and roads while Germans stood by with their hands, and precious little else, in their pockets. Children have gone hungry and grown ill because 20 crowns a week and assistance in kind is little enough to support a whole family. Men who are idle and hungry and see a Czech official working and eating, though they are many and he is one, feel bitter and angry and ready to hear that everyone in Germany is rich and good and the Czechs are wicked and cruet Because Czechs and Germans alike saw that this situation could cause nothing but harm, the present agreement was reached, and there is little time to lose in making it work— not only because the Sudeten Germans are hungry and bitter, but because the Germans across the frontier are not rich and good. Unfortunately, from its very nature, the agreement takes time to operate. It is estimated that the Germans have 40,000 officials too few, but 40,00o Czech officials cannot be dismissed. They can only be replaced gradually, and the process is slow.
Public works and assistance can concern Germans at once, but so small a country as Czechoslovakia cannot hope to employ over a quarter of a million unemployed on public works, even if these were the only unemployed in the country. The trade boom is helping a little : in glass, in the textile industry, in metal works—all of which are important in the Sudeten German districts—unemployment has fallen considerably. But more than this is necessary to bring vigorous life back to the German export industries of Czechoslovakia. The eco- nomic conditions which are necessary if the agreement is effectively to reconcile the German Minority are not in the con- trol of Czechoslovakia alone. Much more valuable than external exhortation and criticism would be the reopening of the lost Sudeten German markets in Great Britain, in the British Empire, in Germany, America and France.
These are the economic conditions of reconciliation between Czech and German in Czechoslovakia. The political conditions the Czechs and Germans themselves are fulfilling by a spirit of co-operation and tolerance. The party of Herr Henlein still stands in opposition, but if Czech and German are loyal to their undertakings, and if the policy of blackmail does nor go further in Europe, this party must collapse.
The heroism of Germans who in Czechoslovakia have resisted the misery of the crisis, the bitterness of Czech dis- crimination and the easy nationalism of Herr Henlein and have remained loyal democrats should be recognised. Thanks to the ideas of Masaryk, to the statesmanship of Benes and Hodza, German .democracy, in the hearts of the Sudeten Germans, has a last chance in Europe.
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