English Translation

Prague, 12 January 1940. 52 fie memo: Meeting with Minister H a v e l k a on l2.l.1940. Minister Ha v el k a refers to his request regarding the arrest of an employee of his ministry, ly Dr. R a u s, with the remark that he could not, of course, intervene for him, as this would be far too dangerous. He mentions that this question is only /.18/1.40. the external reason for an interview with me. The purpose of this discussion is a completely different one. The Reichsprotector had told the President of the State and the Prime Minister that he had described the Lord Reichs Protector to Jan Ries and the Vlajka people as a Freemason. He had for a long time transferred whether he was allowed to report to the Reichsprotektor for an audience. However, he did not consider himself entitled to do so, since he could not and did not want to defend his ministerial position against the expressed view of the Reich Protector and, as he mentioned at the end of the discussion, could not. I have explained that, to my knowledge, the Imperial Protector did not speak of the utterance of Jan Ries or the Vlajka people. However, Minister Havelka could only assume that it had happened in this context. The fact is that he had not talked to Jan Ries about the question of Freemasonry, but had told other Vlajka people why they would always attack the Czech Freemaconry in this way. It is well known that a decree in Germany had regulated that Freemasons could now become civil servants again. This shows a slightly different constitution in the Masonic question. This conversation of him had now obviously been twisted by the Vlajka people to the point that he had called the Reichsprotector a Masonic. However, this was an obvious malicious twist. The further allegation that he had recommended passive resistance to the measures of the Reichsprotector was also in this form EM