English Translation

"The Times" No. 48.326, of 8 June 1939, page 15. FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT PRAGUE, JUNE 7 Both the Czech and the German Press continue to pay much attention to the ANIMOSITIES IN recent speech of the State Secretary, Mr. Hermann Frank, the Sudeten German BOHEMIA who is now the leading political person-ality in Bohemia and Moravia. From the Czech side there is a request for clarifica- tion of existing obscurities in the consti- GERMAN SMILES AND tutorial position of the Protectorate, and the suggestion that the situation might be THREATseased if the ban on public meetings were removed. The Czech people (writes the Conservative CZECH "AUTONOMY Narodni Noviny) hear a great deal of the word "autonomy," but are constantly being re- minded that they have to enter completely within the German Habitat. It should be made clear once and for all what rights the Czechs have and what traditions they have in fulfil. It would be a grave mistake to think that those who stand up for their national rights are followers of Dr. Benesh. If that were so, the whole nation would have to be considered welfare. The German Press concerns itself mainly with repeating the threatening passages of Mr. Frank's speech, which was an example of what Karl Radek called the " use of candy and the whip." The attitude of the Sudeten Germans is creating a barrier between Berlin and Prague of which, it is said, Berlin is growing Conscious. Parochial animosities are playing a larger part in present German-Czech relations than national policy, and this in particular has a strong irritant effect on the Czechs, for there is no people in Europe which has so great an attachment to their genius loci, which takes so much to heart the removal of a monumental, the changing of a street name. RUTHLESS METHODS Democratic methods in local government were the foundation of Czech national democracy, and the ruthless way in which all Czech towns where the German minorities are articles are now administered by German commissioners is one of the most deeply felt of Czech Greeks. 'Czechs are asking themselves just what autonomous in their own affairs means when they read Mr. Frank's statement that Budejovice, a large South Bohemian market town where the Czech's outnumber the Germans by six to one, "was once and shall be again a German town in spite of statistics. Political servers here compare the present tension with that which prevailed for a few weeks before the occupation of Prague, and consider that it is due extensively to the Sphinx-like attitude of Berlin. The Sphinx, however, has two heads, one smiling benevolently, though still differently, and the other wearing a threatening expression.