Increasing Nazi intervention in Czechoslovakia’s internal affairs, extending to virtually all branches of the nation’s activity, has confronted the Praha Government with a problem which is daily growing more grave, diplomatic quarters said tonight.
German official and semi-official agents have flocked here in constantly increasing numbers to impose their demands in foreign, domestic and financial affairs and even to forbid newspapers to pick up British or American press comments, to ban plays “unfriendly to the Reich” from the stage, to compel suspension of the showing of certain motion pictures and to force the discharge of actors.
This Nazi surveillance over every phase of Czechoslovak life is exercised chiefly by the reinforced personnel of the German Legation, which now includes no less than three counselors. The Gestapo also has blossomed out and has collected an imposing file of information on the private lives of innumerable Czecho-Slovaks. The many Germans living in Praha have helped considerably in carrying out this assignment.
German interference has been more noticeable than anywhere else, however, in connection with the Jewish problem. Reports are that Chancellor Adolf Hitler has declared he could not carry out his Munich promise to guarantee Czechoslovakia’s new frontiers until the Jewish question was “liquidated.” Premier Rudolf Beran’s Cabinet, after many discussions, drafted a project which took into account some humane considerations, but the Reich demanded amendments and the Government had to apply itself to framing a much sterner bill.
As was to be expected, the German University at Praha and the two German technical schools at Brno have already been “purged” of Jewish professors and pupils. Similar action is under way in German secondary schools throughout the country. Professors have in many cases already filled out questionnaires which ask, among other things, “Does your father or mother belong, or has he or she belonged, to the Jewish religion or nationality?”
While the Czechoslovak Government is entirely unable to cope with the Reich and must accept every new demand imposed on it, the nation’s remaining German minority continues to profess dissatisfaction. Deputy Ernst Kundt, who was Konrad Henlein’s right-hand man when the Sudetenland was still part of this country and who was left behind to keep the torch of Germanism burning in the remnant state, only a few days ago warned that “some Czech chiefs have completely failed to learn the lesson of Septembers, 1938.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
