English Translation

Declaration by Czech and Moravian nobles in September 1939 Slovatný Mr President! Lately, the position of the nobility in the Czech nation has been discussed and various uncertainties have emerged in this regard. We therefore consider it appropriate to give some explanations in this respect. The nobleness, as everywhere, was by its essence the establishment of a state and as a whole community was spared national disputes. Its political obligations were determined by the service of the Czech State and the king. The core of this condition was, of course, not only culturally, but also blood and language. During the early days of the kingdom, when the whole countryside was language-czech, the nobility was also such. This nobility, origin and language of the Czech, formed the ruling or political layer of the Bohemian state before the formation of the monarchy of the Austrian House even long after. She left us a memory of her culture in the Czech works of knightly singing, in the books of Earth's rights in military names, in her castles and castles, and in the construction of cultural institutions. Families that have shared the fates of the Czech nation for centuries and have never alienated themselves from their tribe must still be counted to the nation whose blood flows in their veins. In addition to this purely domestic nobility, the course of history has moved and many families of foreign origins have settled on the territory of the Czech State, but not only German. These families, which belonged to the council, whose meetings took place in Prague, Brno and Olomouc, and which also belonged to high power, which associated them with permanent administrative relations with the people, merged in the regions of the Czech language with the nation so that their different origins could not change anything into their undeniable belonging to the Czech national community. Similarly, some, in the German environment living descendants of Czech families, lavish with purely Czech names and derived from the oldest blood of Czech, claim to the German nation, which, in their knowledge of their German thinking, is very willing to recognize them as their sons and sees no obstacles in their Czech origin. We believe that just as we grant these individuals the right to report to a nation in the midst of which they live, who they have chosen and who accepts them as their members, so the parties of the other will not be members of noble families, here residents, denied the right, to claim to the Czech nation with which their ancestors lived for generations, sharing rights and obligations, good and evil, even though those families were not always of the origin of the Czech. Inherited membership of the national community is therefore not determined by the circumstances of the day, but is due to the reality of the community of life, political, cultural and economic cooperation, the unity of history, fate and responsibility for future generations of the nation. The Czech nation, which was solemnly guaranteed by the leader of the German and Reich chancellor of its national autonomy, can certainly consider as its right and its duty to claim with all emphasis, if the doubt arose, the fact that it has a Czech nobility as its component, which has never been separated from the national body and will never be separated by its doing. During the last census in the German Reich, membership of nationality was based on voluntary confession. The relevant administrative provisions are based on the principle that everyone is a member of a nation with whom they feel intimately connected and to which they are claiming. In full agreement with the nation of Germany, which demands from all its members the precise conduct of all responsibilities towards the national community, the Czech people and the Czech nobles are convinced of their belongings.