English Translation

Büco des Staatsesekretürs be.tReichsprotector in Bohmen und mähren. Eing.: 30. OKT.1940 t.a.e Thoughts on a speech get Secretary of State Tgb. nr. 1.20410.00. K. H. Frank on the occasion of the opening of the German Book Exhibition in Prague 3l. Oct. l940. In the year l937 a list of the forbidden books in the Czech-Slovak Republic appeared in Prague. The democratic system, which had written on its flag the freedom of opinion and thought, proved by this cultural document that it was not willing to act according to its own principles. Or was it the fear of the power that forced it to conjure the Middle Ages? For this index is nothing more than an index romanus with the forerunners of the Czechoslovak Republic. A look into this index pays off. It offers us the faithful image in which the state of Czechoslovakia was situated on its end of life. 500 books in Czechoslovak, l80 in Hungarian, l60 in Polish and other languages were opposed to no less than l500 books in German. This ratio 840 to l500 is not only a statistics of the popular struggle, but in turn strongly confirms our thesis of the book as a weapon of the spirit. For why were these l500 German books - at the end of the Republic it has been far more by the way - condemned? Not because they posed a danger to the morale of the citizens of Czechoslovakia, but because these inconspicuous beings by their mere presence and being read the foundations of the lie and false py St. S.