Freiwilliger Schutzdienst

Nazis, who form a dynamic sub-minority in the Sudeten German Minority in Czechoslovakia, last week redoubled the vigor of their efforts to create "impossible situations" for the Czechoslovak Government of President Eduard Benes, a Czech. In their villages Nazi orators raised the cry that offspring of Czech-German marriages are "half-breeds!" With planes from Nazi Germany incessantly swooping over the Czechoslovak frontier and droning above Sudeten Germans last week, plug-uglies of the Nazi minority indulged with impunity in terroristic acts against non-Nazi Sudeten Germans. In vain a representative of the Sudeten German Social Democratic loyalists, Deputy Wenzel Jaksch, rose in the Czechoslovak Parliament at Prague to cry, "I demand protection for our democratic Germans against the terrorism of the Nazis!"

A Nazi spokesman, Deputy Ernst Kundt, promptly bellowed: "We will keep calm as long as is humanly possible but when we lose our calm the world will know it is your fault!"

As. In the town of As (pronounced Ash) lives Sudeten German Nazi No. 1, sharp-nosed, hard-lipped Fuehrer Konrad Henlein. He secretly left As by motorcar last week, sped over the Czechoslovak frontier into Germany, entered a waiting plane and presently alighted on the asphalt of London's great airport Croydon. Several times before Herr Henlein has visited England. Not long ago he pledged to British friends that he was "really democratic at heart," said he would never make his party openly Nazi. He did so a few weeks ago. Last fortnight Fuehrer Henlein denounced his democratic Sudeten German foe, Wenzel Jaksch, for "the treacherous and un-German move of recently visiting London in a time of political crisis!"

The Czechoslovak Question boils down to how the aspirations of Adolf Hitler and his Sudeten stooge Henlein can be achieved without provoking a general European war. Such a war every leading Briton, whether Conservative, Liberal or Laborite wants to avoid at any cost, and thus in London last week Konrad Henlein was feted all but royally.

"Morally Bound." Orator Winston Churchill, an independent Conservative and extremely pro-French, had declared only a few days before that if the Henlein Nazis refuse to be satisfied with the highly conciliatory treatment Sudeten Germans are now being offered by the Czechoslovak Government, then "Britain will feel herself morally bound to stand by Czechoslovakia!"

Mr. Churchill, who thus might have been expected to snub Herr Henlein last week, actually invited this Hitler stooge to his London flat for a three-hour conference at which was present the Liberal Opposition Leader Sir Archibald Sinclair. This was in the early afternoon, and with much frantic telephoning a late tea party for Herr Henlein was arranged by Laborite Harold Nicolson, M. P. Leftist Nicolson persuaded to take tea with Stooge Henlein three middleweight British Parliamentary figures notable up to now for their last-ditch championship of Anthony Eden at the time he was ousted: Lieut. Commander Reginald Fletcher (Laborite), Brigadier General Edward Louis Spears (Conservative); and Mr. Mark Patrick, former Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary Eden's intensely loyal Under Secretary Viscount Cranborne.

In greatest alarm lest Fuehrer Henlein actually be received by Prime Minister Chamberlain--a gesture which in the eyes of Central Europe would have sounded the Czechoslovak Republic's death knell last week--His Excellency Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak Minister to the Court of St. James, and son of Czechoslovakia's late founder, President Masaryk, went dashing around to the British Foreign Office, protesting, pleading.

New "Deal." The British Prime Minister did not actually receive Nazi Konrad Henlein last week, and neither did any member of the British Cabinet. However. British foreign policy is generally "made" by experts of the Civil Service. Significantly, Nazi Henlein was received at the Foreign Office by its topmost professional policy maker, the Chief Diplomatic Advisor in Foreign Affairs to His Majesty's Government, Sir Robert Gilbert Vansittart.

Fuehrer Henlein, after conferring with all these Britons, flew off to Germany, saying he would fly back this week to England. Three years ago it was Sir Robert Vansittart who largely inspired and negotiated the Hoare-Laval Deal for Italo-British cahoots on Ethiopia. That Deal fell through at the time, under Prime Minister Baldwin, but its line became the rails on which Prime Minister Chamberlain has been running his foreign policy. If there were a Halifax-Henlein Deal in the embryo stage--Viscount Halifax being the Foreign Secretary of His Majesty's Government and a great taker of expert advice--Sir Robert would be an ideal incubator.

Crux. If to keep the German Army from marching into the Sudeten German territory (as it marched into Austria) is today something which can be done only by armed force--as the British firmly believe--then much of that force will have to be applied by the Red Army of Soviet Russia. This is because: 1) The British do not envision ever again sending their small army into the Continent as they did in 1914, and today they feel they must keep their whole Air Force at home; 2) The French Army would have to strike clear across Greater Germany in order even to arrive in Czechoslovakia, but the Red Army could "break into Czechoslovakia by the back door" traversing only a small bit of Rumanian or Polish territory. Early last week, before Fuehrer Henlein left in such haste for London, Czechoslovak papers reported that Dictator Stalin's venerable stooge. Russian President Kalinin, told Czechoslovak Labor leaders in Moscow on May Day that if the Germans enter Czechoslovakia, the Red Army will march.

Conceivably Czechoslovakia's interlocking alliances with France and Russia may lead these countries into a war with Germany into which Britain may ultimately be drawn. The chance is slim, but was not overlooked last week by Benito Mussolini, who issued a ringing warning at Genoa, after reviewing the Italian Navy. While affirming that Italy means to keep her new pact with Britain, and believing Britain will be equally loyal, Il Duce, referring with asperity to the Spanish Civil War, remarked that there Italy and France are "on opposite sides of the barricades." Proclaiming once more that if Italy and Germany had broken their axis that "would have opened the door to the triumph of Bolshevism in Europe," Premier Mussolini warned that if "the so-called great democracies" should take arms against Fascism then "the totalitarian states will immediately form a bloc and will march together to the end!"

Seemingly convinced that enough show of force will get what they want without a war, Sudeten German Nazis at week's end formed a Storm Troop militia, the f. s. or Freiwilliger Deutscher Schutzdienst (Volunteer German Protective Service), manifestoed: "These are no parade troops, but a fighting body on permanent duty. . . . We will march on to victory for our Racial Group!"

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