Inflamed Appendix

Thousands of Czechoslovakians last week went to bed with gas masks at their bedsides. By law, every Czech citizen in cities must possess a gas mask before the end of June, and last week, reported Eleanor Packard, wife of United Pressman Reynolds Packard, thousands jammed Prague's 20 gas mask dispensaries where attractive blondes demonstrated the operating technique. "I bought a de luxe model for $6.68 with a head piece that seemed like a set of rubber false teeth, with goggle eyes and a dog-like nose. It had a snubbier nose and bigger eye pieces than the standard model for $3," prattled Mrs. Packard.

Propaganda Funeral. Not so light-hearted were Czechs, although they hoped that the German-Czech crisis had passed. The conversation between Fuehrer Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten (Nazi) party, which claims support of 90% of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German minority, and Premier Milan Hodza on settlement of the Sudeten grievances, came to a halt last week as Fuehrer Henlein journeyed to Cheb (pop. 31,500), two miles from the German border (see map, p. 15), and near the scene where two Germans were killed fortnight ago, to stage an impressive propaganda funeral for the new "Nazi martyrs." Thousands of Sudetens poured into the 17th-Century town on autos, bicycles and afoot for the ceremony. Leaning backward to prevent another "incident," the Czechoslovakian Government ordered troops in the vicinity confined to barracks, even as far as to allow Henlein's "illegal" white-shirted Storm Troopers to assume police duties.

Before 45,000 cheering Sudetens in the market square, bespectacled, 40-year-old Fuehrer Henlein, onetime gymnasium instructor whose figure is now assuming Goering-like proportions, mounted a black-draped podium and addressed the coffins, covered with red flags bearing the SdP insignia of the Sudetendeutsch Partei. "Fatal bullets struck you, even though you were innocent," he cried. "May your sacrifice be a guiding sign for us." Throaty shouts of "Seig Heil" punctuated the speech of Henlein's stooge, Deputy Karl Hermann Frank, as he defiantly used words from the forbidden Nazi Horst Wessel hymn and roared, "The dead shall rise again because they march in spirit with us in our ranks. Thousands will arise for every one who falls. Whenever the Fuehrer calls on us to stand by for action, we see these dead men also in our ranks."

Adolf Hitler put an official stamp of approval on the demonstration by sending the German Military Attache in Prague, Colonel Toussaint. and the German Air Attache, Major Moerike, as his emissaries. Wild shouts of "Heil" broke from the mass as Colonel Toussaint stepped forward, laid two huge evergreen wreaths inscribed "Adolf Hitler" and "The Adolf Hitler Standard" on the caskets.

Sore-Spots. Meantime, German-Czech relations were larded with mutual remonstrances, largely over alleged frontier violations.

P:Germany charged that Czech planes had flown over German frontier territory during the week, photographing military emplacements and attempting to locate non-existent German troop concentrations.

Czechoslovakia retaliated with the accusation that not only during last week but for the past month 34 German planes had been observed on the wrong side of the border.

P:The German press raged that a Sudeten German farmer had been beaten by Czech soldiers when he failed to produce an identity card.

P:Germany claimed that Czech engineers had been detected at the German side of a bridge near Linz trying to fire it with straw and gasoline. The Czechs answered that the bridge had been destroyed six months ago.

"Direct Action." To the question--Just what does Henlein want?--the Sudeten Fuehrer last week made answer. To G. Ward Price, friend of Adolf Hitler and correspondent for Viscount Rothermere's pro-German London Daily Mail, Henlein declared: "The northwest end of Czechoslovakia forms a sort of foreign appendix in the body of the German Reich. This appendix cannot be allowed to remain in its present state of high inflammation. . . . If such a dangerous condition is neglected, the inflamed appendix would burst one day and instantly infect all Europe with political peritonitis."

Henlein suggested three alternative appendectomies: 1) Local autonomy for the Sudetens, with municipal rule, education, public services and police left to the community majority; foreign affairs and national affairs affecting the whole country to be administered from Prague. 2) A plebiscite under foreign control to determine whether the Sudetens want to be citizens of Germany or Czechoslovakia. "The result," assured Henlein, "would be a 98% majority for Germany." 3) "The third solution," continued the Fuehrer, "would be simpler still." It is that if Czech repression of the Sudetens continues, their resentment may one day force the German Government by direct action to bring them within the frontiers of the Reich.

This time Herr Henlein had apparently let one cat too many out of the bag. The German Minister in Prague, Ernst Eisenlohr, received a telephoned dressing down from Berlin, the Sudeten party leaders went into hurried conference. Soon a party communique denied that Henlein had given any such interview. It appeared that for the present Germany is not ready for talk of "direct action," may prefer one of Mr. Henlein's alternative causes.

One factor holding back Germany was candidly expressed last week by a Nazi sympathizer, Colonel Euchi Tatsumi, military attache in Japan's London Embassy: "I don't believe German soldiers will invade Czechoslovakia. Germany is not yet fully equipped for a long war, although she has, perhaps, sufficient airplanes for a short war."

Settlement? Evidence that the Czech leaders want time to consider Henlein's demands, perhaps to accept his "autonomy" solution, was seen last week when they postponed for a fortnight a session of Parliament that is to tackle the problem.

Most observers agree that the minority Sudetens have a legitimate grievance. In 1920 the horseshoe mountainous strip was deliberately added to the new fish-shaped State by the Allied peacemakers by the Treaty of Saint-Germain, in order to set up a natural fortification barrier against Germany. This gave the new Czechoslovak State a population 22% German. The Sudetens lost their German and Austrian markets. Some Sudeten factories shut down, others were taken over by Czechs. Although the Sudetens form almost 100% blocs in some sections, Czech police and local officials were appointed to administer their affairs. Czech workers gradually squeezed out the Germans and today the region's greatest grievance is unemployment, for although they number only 22% of the population, the Sudetens comprise half the nation's unemployed, subsist on a miserable 37-c- a week dole.

But to cede the area to Germany or to allow it to fall into Germany's hands would be virtual suicide for Czechoslovakia. At one point the Sudeten area reaches to within 20 miles of the nation's capital. Containing the extensive "Maginot" line of fortifications, constructed with French aid and almost as effective as France's Maginot line, loss of the region would lay Czechoslovakia wide open to military rape. Located within the Sudeten rim are most of Czechoslovakia's industries, of her coal and iron resources. The famed Skoda munitions plant at Pilsen, dangerously near the German border, has been secretly moved into the interior, leaving the Pilsen foundry to the manufacture of machines and railway equipment.

Second Elections. Last weekend, in the second of a series of local elections, street fighting broke out between Henleinists and anti-Nazi German Socialists at Eibenberg, near Kraslice. However, the incident was passed over quietly, for the German press, ordered to cease screaming against Czechoslovakia, remained silent.

However, a grim reminder that German-Czech relations are still on edge met every voter at the polls. Alongside the ballot boxes stood collection boxes for Czechoslovakia's defense fund. Although the balloting in the rest of the country went on to a patriotic jingle of hellers, in the Sudeten area the vote was sullen, clinkless.

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