Czechs’ Defensive War on Nazis Told by Socialist Head

Czecho-Slovakia is doing everything in its power to succor Jewish refugees from Germany, declared Dr. Franz Soukup, Socialist president of the Senate of the Czecho-Slovakian Republic, on his arrival here Friday aboard the Berengaria.

Dr. Soukup has come to the United States to visit the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago and to deliver a series of lectures before groups of Socialists in this country.

He described the elaborate precautions being taken by his government to counteract the propaganda with which Hitlerites are trying to flood his country.

“The Hitlerites are doing everything in their power,” he said, “to invade the borders of my land and start propagandizing the people against Jews. We have suppressed them thoroughly so far, even over the radio. We have prevented them from placing loud speakers on their side of the border, through which they fill the ears of our people with their militant ideas.”

The Germans in Czecho-Slovakia, he explained, like the Jews in Germany, constituted a recognizable minority, though many of them have lived in Czecho-Slovakia for five or six generations.

“Hitler himself doesn’t really know what he wants,” asserted the aged statesman in his native tongue. The Czech consul general in New York, Dr. Nowak, translated Dr. Soukup’s remarks into English.

He stated that Jewish refugees in his country were permitted to look for work, contrary to the procedure in France and elsewhere in Europe.

Asked whether he thought there would eventually be a war in Europe due to the Nazis, Dr. Soukup said that he believed Hitler himself did not want a war, but that if his position in Germany is consolidated any further there would soon be trouble in the Polish Corridor, resulting in a general fight.

“Many countries have troops massed on their borders against the Nazis,” stated Dr. Soukup.