CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND BERLIN
BERLIN, where a formidable number of German . deputies have been lying in prison or concentration camps for years untried, has in the past ten days been clamant with indignation because in Ciechoslovakia two deputies, German-speaking Czechoslovak citizens, are alleged to have been struck by policemen's truncheons in the course of an election fracas. The incident itself was completely trivial. The steps taken to exploit it in Germany lend it sufficient importance to make a clear understanding of the relations between Czechoslovakia and Germany necessary, for the dangers to peace in Central Europe are too serious to be ignored, and the efforts continuously exerted in Berlin to maintain unrest in Czechoslovakia do much to accentuate them. There are plain enough reasons for that. Czechoslovakia is a democracy, the only real democracy east of the Elbe, and democracy is poison to dictatorships. Moreover, Czechoslovakia is the single effective obstacle to the extension of Germany's political influence down through south-eastern Europe to its traditional and eternal goal, the Near, or even the Middle, East. Impenitently democratic, linked by sympathy no less than prudence with France, and by prudence with Russia, strongly armed in proportion to its population, Czechoslovakia maintains an unaggressive and confident existence irreconcilable with the achievement of Germany's historic Drang nach Osten.
' Hence the ceaseless fusillade of German propaganda against Dr. Benes and his countrymen, with a section of the German-speaking population of Czechoslovakia as spear-head of the attack. To disentangle truth from misrepresentation, consider for a moment what the composition of Czechoslovakia is. It is a State of mixed nationality. Czechs and Slovaks, between whom dis- tinctions but no fundamental differences exist—as is sufficiently shown by the fact that while the President, Dr. Benes, is a Czech, the Prime Minister, M. Hodza, is a Slovak—account for approximately to out of a total population of roughly 15 millions ; 31 millions are so-called Germans, and the remainder consists of Hun- garians, Poles, Russians and Jews. Relations between Germany and Czechoslovakia hinge on the position and treatment of the so-called Germans ; so-called, because the word might suggest that they had been cut away from the Reich. They were subjects of the old Austria, never of the old Germany, and if they are to be the objects of any external solicitude it should be Dr. Schuschnigg's, not Herr Hitler's. But it is a cardinal feature of German policy to keep both Czechoslovakia and Austria as dis- turbed as possible, and the Sudetendeutsch, as the German-speaking population of Czechoslovakia is called, serve admirably for that purpose.
But not all the Sudetendeutsch. Out of the 3f millions a million, or close on a third, term themselves Activists and actively support the Czechoslovak Government ; there are regularly three German Ministers in the Cabinet. They have no sympathy with totalitarianism and none with the remainder of their German-speaking fellow- countrymen, who, led by He,: Konrad Henlein, are in constant antagonism to the Government at Prague and in constant contact with Berlin. In a sense Czecho- slovakia suffers for the freedom it maintains. The Henlein Sudetendeutsch, for all their complaints of injustice and oppression, are probably better off than any other minority in Europe, much better than the Poles in Germany, incomparably better than their fellow- Germans under Signor Mussolini's rule in the Southern Tyrol, though it suits the two-fold policy of Berlin to black out the Southern Tyrol and turn a fierce limelight on the Sudetendeutsch. Actually the Sudetendeutsch can and do vote freely, under secret ballot, in local and national elections ; can and do hold (apart from the temporary ban on all meetings to which last week's inci- dent led) public meetings as and wheri they choose ; can and do run their own newspapers ; can and do attend the Nazi Congress at Nuremberg; can and do maintain their own offices and propaganda centre in the heart of Prague. If Herr Hitler ever thinks of conceding to his own political opponents a tenth of the freedom Dr. Benes' political opponents enjoy, he may begin to be entitled to make the latter's cause his own.
Not that the complaints of the Sudetendeutsch are all fictitious. Many of them are genuine and justified. They have themselves to thank for a good deal, for in the early years of the republic they adopted an attitude of intransigent non-co-operation, believing the new State to be incapable of survival. That has now changed ; Herr Henlein and his party vote at elections, and hold no fewer than 44 seats in the Chamber, the three Activist German parties holding between them 22. They claim, and rightly, that they should be placed under no economic disabilities, and that in the matter of education and of employment in Government service they are entitled to complete equality with the Czechs. That demand cannot be rejected, and is not, by the Government; it was indeed met in substance in a Government declaration of last February. But full justice has not been done to the Germans, and it cannot be done at once. During the non-co-operation period the public services were of necessity largely staffed by Czechs, and they cannot be dismissed wholesale to make room for Germans ; the process of replacement must be gradual. In the matter of education the number of German schools is adequate, but there appears to be some ground for the complaint that when new, up-to-date buildings are erected they are almost always for Czech children, and that Czech employers press their German workers to send their children to Czech schools. Such attempts at Czechisa- tion may properly be resisted.
Other disabilities of the Sudetendeutsch are harder to remove. They live mainly in the frontier regions adjoining Germany, and are everywhere interspersed with Czechs, so that autonomy on the basis of a Swiss canton is impracticable. The danger of a disaffected population, supported and encouraged by a virtually hostile Power, in such a region is obvious, and the Czechs cannot be blamed if they decide that they cannot maintain munition factories, which would provide considerable employment, there. So far, moreover, as normal industry goes the Germans are largely concerned with the export trade and the Czechs with the home market ; the slump, with its effects on international trade, therefore, hit the Germans particularly hard ; the deflationary policy of the Czech Government probably did something to increase their difficulties, So far as the Sudetendeutsch have genuine grievances it is the height of folly for the Government to ignore them. Dr. Benes and M. Hodza recognise that, but the goodwill of a central government in any country is often nullified —particularly when a war or revolution has reversed the roles of top and bottom dog—by the tactlessness or malice of local officials. If Berlin is seeking to make capital out of the grievances of the Sudetendeutsch that is a double reason why Prague should see that all genuine grievances disappear: if it were not for the external factor there is no reason why all the three million Germans should not co-operate with Prague as harmoniously as a million of them do. The Czech Cabinet may reasonably be urged to accord to the Sudetendeutsch strict justice, but it can only add to justice generosity and trust if Herr Henlein makes it unmistakably clear that his affiliations are with Prague, not Berlin.
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