PERIL AT HER GATES

Evening Star, Issue 23372, 15 September 1939, Page 10

PERIL AT HER GATES

GERMANY AND THE CZECHS TACTICS BAFFLE NAZI OPPRESSORS MAY BE FINAL BLOW TO HITLER’S REICF* [Written by “ Senex,” for the 1 Evening Star.’] The various reports which have been received concerning the trouble the Germans have been experiencing with the Czechs may have a spice of war-time exaggeration, but it is undoubtedly true that the Nazis have a first-class problem on their hands in dealing with the Czech minority, and that when the home front begins to crack rebellion there will probably be the final blow which will destroy Hitler’s Reich. The Germans have been baffled by tha tactics which have been adopted towards them since their occupation of Bohemia and Moravia last March. Resistance they could have understood, demonstrations of hostility they expected, but when the only person to greet them at Pilsen was a traffic policeman,, who said calmly, “ We have been expecting you for some time; the Town Hall is on the left,” the occupation seemed to go fiat and stale. Had they known the history of the Czech selfcontrol in the long agitation by the Nazis in the Sudetenland, they would m t have been surprised, but as it was ■ they seem to have become rather contemptuous of a people which is capable • of adopting passive tactics and waiting its time to strike. Whatever this may have done to their approach to the question of administering the new. colony it is impossible to determine. But in any event, instead of adopting a policy of conciliation, they embarked on a series of measures calculated to solidify the Czechs in hatred, of the invaders. In the post-Munich mood of disillusion with former allies, : tha Czechs might easily have been won to some form of friendship for the Reich. But the retaliation embarked upon in the Sudetenland, the seizing of villages with marked Czech majorities, the contempt for all the theories of race so loudly proclaimed by Hitler, and blatant use of force ended that chance. STUPID OPPRESSION, After this came a series of acts all designed, it might seem, to treate enemies where they did not exist v The cul- . tural freedom which Hitler had promised was denied, the Czechs were made liable to German: national service laws, Baroti von Neurath, the “ protec- , tor ” of the country, told Czech poli- ! ticians that if they, did not co-operate with Germany there would be changes in the system of administration. Within two months of the occupation the people- were warned by General Alois Elias, the German Premier in their territory, that they must conform to “ the German ways of living, and working.” This meant th,at they must develop greater speed in work and “ perfect the quality and precision of output.” The application of the Nazi anti-Semitic laws caused strife, and at Kladno a German policeman was shot to death. After this deed all open-air gatherings were banned in the region, theatre? and . .cinemas ; closed,, schools Shut down, a curfew imposed, and the mayor and city officials replaced by a Government commissar. ■ Wholesale arrests began, and the population became so restless that special police reinforcements were sent from Berlin, mostly Black Guards. The country was plundered of goods and machinery, and workmen drafted off to Germany. But the stern resistance went on. ■ A few months ago the Nazis brought in new .German language laws under which German would be made the compulsory tongue by most Czech officials, and German names would, be given, to railway stations, public buildings,' and main streets. The Czechs, who had already seen the monuments of their national heroes removed, the streets named after their statesmen change to names borne by contemporary Nazis or pre-war Hapsburgs, the rights of local government vanish, not onjy. as to democratic local basis, but as to representation at all on councils of towns which they paid to run, revolted against this last law, and the Nazis have found it difficult to bring it into effect. In a belated effort to pacify the country the army was instructed to pay all respect to the sensibilities of the people, and instances of Czech revolt were not given much notice in the newspapers. Four cities were taken over by the Reich because of their- strategic position, the remainder were given the right to retain their governments. PASSIVE RESISTANCE. But at every step the Germans were confronted by non-co-operation and passive resistance. The Czechs, said a recent writer, were very placid-and polite when approached by German officials, “and then mysteriously nothing got done.” The, attempt to obtain Czechs to lead the nation along the German road failed utterly; the special contempt of the people was reserved for these puppets. And at the same time organisation for the day of liberation went ahead.; Virtually the whole nation was incorporated in a national party which waits that day of liberation. General Vladislav Prchala, who had led forces which, resisted the Hungarian, occupation of Ruthenia and then crossed into Poland, began forming a Czech legion to fight with the Poles last June. After a visit to Bohemia and Moravia by Vojta Benes, brother of the exiled President, Czechs began disappearing jn numbers, reportedly to join the legion. .Other Czech officers sailed from Gdynia for France three months ago to help'to form a legion there when the war for which all Czechs hoped -1 broke out. Th® secret society which did much to undermine Austrian {authority in the region was revived, Seeking to keep the nation united, to spread information through secret channels, to maintain touch with those abroad,, arid to plan for the day when the retribution which President Benes prophesied for the Nazis would be at hand. And when that day comes the Czechs will not be unarmed. For great quantities of small arms and ammunition disappeared ’last March, and no Gestapo man has been able to find them.