OPEN HOSTILITY OF CZECHS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 260, 1 August 1939, Page 9

OPEN HOSTILITY OF CZECHS

Corrupt Regime Of

Germany

PLANS OF INVADERS i TAKING FORM

The Czech lands oi Bohemia and Moravia are now in the second realistic phase of the German occupation. The days of free gulash and military parades are over. As for the Czechs, though they wore buttonholes on Eduard Benes’s birthday they arc now fighting Germanism with other means than sentimental demonstrations (wrote the Prague correspondent of the “New York Times” last month).

For a few weeks after the occupation of Prague it seemed that, with further conquests before her, Germany intended to leave the Czechs a fair decree of autonomy in economic and administrative '■ matters. Over-zealous actions of local Germans were checked by military authorities, and selfappointed commissars were expelled from Jewish businesses.

This was a period marked by demonof national grief, which, though deeply moving, were by no means anti-German.

The change came with the withdrawal of the main part of the military forces from Prague and the provincial towns and the turning over of civil administration to Sudeten Germans, supported by a large detachment of the semi-military Hitler Elite Corps. In some towns this led to a situation of complete illegality. Mayor Deposed. In Brno (Bruenn), for example, the Czech mayor was ordered to quit office, and on his refusal was deposed by a local German, whose first act was to appoint unqualified commissars at the head of the city departments. In Pilsen 125 representative, citizens were arrested and tortured because' of an unproved charge that a few military uniforms had been stained by acid throwing.

Tlip Czech reaction to the inereas- ; ing callousness of the German regime has been immediate. Though the Czech people have no love for totalitarianism—they well know the value of opposition—they have stood firm by their declaration of solidarity by resisting the heavily subsidized Fascist attacks on the National Unity party. They have passed from a cynical mood to one of open conflict with. Germanism. The hushed, terror-ridden atmosphere of the early days of the occupation has given place to a reckless optimism. “Too Incredible to Last.” This optimism ia 'based on the widespread belief that present events are so incredible that they cannot last. The Germany which most Czechs disliked but which many were prepared to find efficient, energetic and resolute they now declare to be corrupt, uncertain of policy and divided in itself. The ruthless plundering of Czech lands they cite as evidence of the poverty of the Reich. Charges of corruption of the secret police add to disillusion with the regime. From the financial pages of the Press it is becoming possible to see the German plan for the economic future of the protectorate taking shape. This plan is the liquidation of all light industries in any way competitive with Germany, intensification of production in the heavy industries and in agricultural life and the transfer of workers, male and female, to the Reich. By transferring workers —more than 190,000 have already left—Germans will be released for military service.

The destruction of the national economy is concealed. Prices are rigidly fixed, frontiers closed, the Press completely muzzled. A semblance of autonomy and though, the Government is unable to legislate—so long are its bills delayed by the Protectors—its members still sit in office.

Former political personalities are mainly free. Former Premier Dr. Milan Hodza is in London ; Dr. Kamil Krofta, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, is seen occasionally in the streets of Prague; Rudolf Beran, former head of the Agrarian Republican Party, and General Jan Sirovy are living quietly in the country.