SudetenFile1

Sudeten German Genocide Revisited!

Sudeten File - 1

Czechoslovak and British
Concepts of a Sudeten German Genocide

Czech historiography tries to make us believe that the Sudeten
German genocide resulted from a spontaneous reaction of Czech
nationals to the brutality of German occupation between 1939 and
1945. This is not true. First of all, there was no significant
homeland resistance and atrocities essentially did not happen until
after the assassination of Reich Protector Heydrich, an act that
was organized and executed from abroad. During the war the
Czech population neither offered any considerable resistance nor
practiced any effective sabotage against the German war industry.

On the other hand, documents have been unearthed from the
archives that prove that the expulsions were thoroughly thought out
and prepared by Czech politicians in exile in London during the
war, masterminded by Dr. Edvard Beneš, with other Czech exiles
such as Dr. Ladislav Feierabend, General Sergěj Ingr, Jaromir
Nečas and Dr. Hubert Ripka in supporting roles. Shockingly, those
Czech exiles were extensively supported by British intelligence
officials, as the British historian Martin Brown recently revealed in
his book "Dealing with Democrats". As a result, the British
government is much more implicated in the Sudeten German
genocide than a mere consent to the expulsion of Germans from
Czechoslovakia at Potsdam would suggest.

In 1940, the concept of population transfers was not a new one.
Beneš himself had considered limited transfer of Sudeten
Germans in September 1938 in an attempt to appease Hitler;
Greco-Bulgarian and Greco-Turkish exchanges of populations had
been carried out under the auspices of the League of Nations in
the 1920s; in 1937, the Peel Commission had proposed
exchanges or transfers of Jewish and Arab populations in
Palestine; the term 'transfer' had appeared in article seven of the
Munich Agreement of 1938 in reference to the transfer of territory
and population from Czechoslovakia to Germany; Nazi Germany
had made use of population transfers of ethnic Germans in Italy
and the Baltic States. Techniques similar to transfers had long
been practiced in the British Empire and now were to reemerge in
British strategic thinking. Surely, Czech and British officials in the
1940s must have been aware of these exchanges.

Following suit, in a speech to the Royal Society on 22 January
1940 Beneš raised the possibility of population transfers as a
solution to Czechoslovakia's minority problems. He returned to this
theme during conferences held in Oxford on 8 March and 4 April,
both organized and sponsored by the Royal Institute of
International Affairs (RIAA), where he proposed undertaking some
limited internal and external transfers of Sudeten Germans,
combined with border rectifications. Simultaneously, ethnic
cleansing of Sudeten Germans was the subject of a research
paper produced by the Foreign Research and Press Service
(FRPS), a think tank that was created in late summer 1939 by the
British Foreign Office in response to the developing international
crises as "both a reference library and a source of information on
the background of current problems". The FRPS staff included
many of the foremost British experts on European, international,
and imperial affairs and, most significantly, Robert Seton-Watson,
a British Slavic scholar and a close friend and collaborator in anti-
Austrian-Hungarian clandestine activities of the first Czechoslovak
president, T.G. Masaryk, before and during World War I. Both
men met for the first time in Rotterdam in 1914 when Masaryk
handed Seton-Watson "a lot of secret information, some of
sensational kind" which Seton-Watson passed on to British
intelligence. Seton-Watson was a member of the British delegation
to the Paris Peace Conference 1919 and was involved in the
negotiations over Czechoslovakia's frontiers and the inclusion of
three million ethnic Germans into that state).

It was under the auspices of FSRP that in May 1940 John David
Mabbott, an academic political philosopher with some knowledge
of minority issues in eastern Europe, completed a memorandum
"The Transfer of Minorities". Critically, he not only suggested that
population transfers were indeed possible, based on evidence
from previous population exchanges and supported by Hitler's own
opinions on the subject, but he also concluded that it was possibly
the best solution to Czechoslovakia's ethnic minority problems.
Mabbot went on to set out a clear framework in which transfers
might occur, including assessments of the social and financial
costs of such an operation. He concluded that such a large-scale
transfer would have to be undertaken with international consent
and co-operation. According to Brown, "...Seton-Watson handed a
copy of Mabbott's original paper to Beneš (even though it was
clearly marked secret) and several distinct similarities between it
and later plans can be identified."

Interestingly, in the Taborsky files in the archives of the Hoover
Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University
has been located a typewritten copy of a document with similar
content but a different title than the Mabbott paper. It is entitled
"Minority Regimes and the Transfer of Populations in Central
Europe after this War" and is subdivided into the following
sections: Four ways of dealing with minorities; the necessity for a
radical separation of the nationalities in central Europe; the
cession of territory; transfer of populations; conventions regarding
transfers and their content; international participation and
assistance; exemption from transfer; the region of the remaining
minorities; and transfer of populations as a factor in the solution of
the great political problems of post-war Europe. Neither author nor
date are specified, but it probably originated in 1942 and, if
needed, the author could possibly be identified from handwriting
samples shown in the margins of this paper.

It possibly was the content of these memoranda that Beneš
handed over to Foreign Commissar Molotov on 14 December
1943 in Moscow during his visit to sign, against the advice of the
British government, a "Pact of friendship and mutual assistance
after the war between the Czechoslovak Republic and the Union of
Socialist Soviet Republics", which turned out to have been a
significant leap toward placing post-war Czechoslovakia under
Soviet yoke. Beneš described it to Molotov as a "first draft of the
fundamental principles of the transfers" which he considered "a
radical solution, the realization of which would make me very
happy." He indicated that he already had discussed the transfer
issue with Stalin who agreed with plan and concept. He described
'our' Germans as the worst war criminals of them all who
deserved the severest punishment. He asked Molotov to study his
transfer plans and to let him know what he thinks of it.

Molotov didn't dare object to Beneš's plans which Stalin already
had approved. Subsequently, on 15 December 1943 Beneš's
acting foreign minister Ripka declared in a report on the Czech-
Soviet treaty to the Czechoslovak State Council: "We can rest
assured that Czechoslovakia's great Soviet ally will grant her all
effective support in her endeavor, the aim of which is that
Czechoslovakia should emerge from this war as a strong state,
internally well balanced to the utmost possible extent, and
nationally as homogeneous as possible, having as its basis the
indissoluble unity determined by destiny of Czechs and Slovaks
together with the sub-Carpathian Slavs, who are united with them".

A few days later, on 21 December 1943, Beneš himself said in a
message to the Czech people broadcast from Moscow: "... the
Soviet Union sincerely desires a strong and consolidated
Czechoslovak Republic, nationally as homogeneous as possible,
which would be a real good and strong friend and collaborator with
the Soviet peoples in the maintenance of a lasting European
peace." On an other occasion Beneš declared in Moscow: "Our
Republic will be a national State of Czechs, Slovaks and the
people of sub-Carpathia".

On 6 January 1944 the Executive of the Sudeten German Social
Democratic Party under the leadership of Wenzel Jaksch took a
stand against Beneš's expulsion plans. They show that, according
to the 1930 census, Czechoslovakia's 14,729,536 citizens
consisted of 10,325,545 Slavs and 4,403,991 non-Slavs, including
3,318,445 Germans and conclude: "Even the most liberal
interpretation of the term 'as homogeneous as possible' would
imply the elimination from the State of millions. Furthermore, as
Czechoslovakia claims her pre-Munich frontiers, this does ... mean
(nothing less than) mass transfer of populations".

The social democratic memorandum then addresses the extent of
the planned population transfers: "The full magnitude of the
problem emerges only if it is judged not in isolation but in its wider
aspect. Similar demands have been put forward by the Poles,
whose claim to East Prussia and Silesia is coupled with the
demand that these territories should be cleared of their German
inhabitants, who are an overwhelming majority. Disregarding the
question of 'un-mixing the Balkan populations' and other problems
of this kind, which would undoubtedly be raised ... and counting for
the moment only Germans, as many as ten million people are
involved in the plan of 'establishing a more permanent equilibrium'
by enforced transfer of populations.

"It can safely be contended that five years ago, at the outbreak of
the war, suggestions of this kind would have met with unanimous
and indignant repudiation from all progressive quarters. That they
are now seriously presented as a solution of the nationality
problem only shows how far contemporary 'realistic thinking' is
removed from the ideological issues of an anti-Fascist war, how
nationalistic and militaristic considerations, in short: power politics,
have again gained the upper hand over the ideals for which the
United Nations still profess to fight.

"The British government have solemnly declared that they will
never consent to mass reprisals against whole populations. The
uprooting of millions, the destruction of their whole social existence
- what else would it mean than mass reprisals? The guilty, the less
guilty and the innocent could never be sorted out in this process.
How, then, can it be reconciled with the declared policy of the
British government, or for that matter with the Atlantic Charter?
However, we do not wish to dismiss the problem with this general
rejection on humanitarian grounds, nor do we allow ourselves the
cheap consolation that such plans are impracticable, anyway, and
the more so while fifteen to twenty million displaced people,
victims of Hitler's war, are anxiously waiting for their repatriation.
We want to go more fully into the special Sudeten problem."

The Sudeten social democrats then address Czechoslovakias
economic interests: "After Munich, the most convincing argument
for the Czechs' case was the crippling of Czechoslovakia's
economic life by the loss of valuable, and indeed indispensable,
resources. She lost, above all, most of her export industries, upon
which her economy depended to a large extent. To give only a few
figures, Czechoslovakia lost 95% of her lignite mining, 88% of her
linen industry, 70% of her wool industry, 55% of her cotton
industry, 70% of her glass industry, and 85% of her chinaware
industry. Moreover, the Sudeten industries have been substantially
expanded during the war, and though much of the inflated war
industries will become useless after the war, certain
developments, e.g. the increased utilization of electric power and
gas, or the erection of a big plant - one of the largest in Europe -
for the production of synthetic petrol, will remain permanent assets.

"If Czechoslovakia cannot live, or at least not prosper, without
these resources, can she satisfactorily exist without the manpower
trained to operate them? The Sudeten German population in 1930
numbered 683,000 wage earners, the overwhelming majority of
whom were employed in industry. They include a very large
proportion of highly skilled workers and craftsmen - in the glass
industry they might be styled artists. Granted, by the application of
ruthless methods they can be expelled, but can they be replaced?
Would not the loss of labor, skill and experience inflict upon
Czechoslovakia an economic disadvantage hardly less serious
than the loss of material resources?

"Secondly, 23.4% of the Sudeten Germans are engaged in
agriculture. Most Sudeten peasants are small holders, gaining a
poor living from their stony soil. Only their innate and tenacious
attachment to these inherited holdings induces them to get any
yield at all. Their expulsion and replacement, provided they can be
replaced, would lead to a considerable loss of agricultural output,
and that at a time when every bit of grain will be a priceless asset."

Addressing Czechoslovakia's political stability, the memorandum
stresses: "It might be argued that Czechoslovakia will have to face
economic disadvantages for the sake of political stability, and that
she would have to get rid of her German population, if it were a
source of disturbance. This argument, however, is not supported
by history. The shoe is rather on the other foot: It was the deep
economic crisis of the thirties, saddling the Sudeten Germans with
nearly 500,000 unemployed, that largely contributed to making the
broad masses despair of democracy. Czech-German relations
must not be judged by the stormy events of an exceptional period,
but by the fact that Czechs and Sudeten Germans have lived
together for centuries in the countries of Bohemia and Moravia,
which, until the treaty of Versailles created the Czechoslovak
Republic, were parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In
independent Czechoslovakia, German democratic parties joined
the governmental majority as early as 1926, and for almost ten
years those Sudeten German parties which stood for collaboration
with the Czechs in a common state represented the
preponderance of the Sudeten German population. The majority
gained by Henlein in 1935 (and later, in the municipal elections,
1938), in a period of deep economic distress, of lethargic
weakness of European democracy, and through the connivance of
Czech reactionaries, did not express the real will of the German
population.

"Czech politicians still emphatically deny that Czechoslovakia was,
in 1938, broken up from within. They show thus a realistic
evaluation of the significance of elections held in a state of mass
psychosis and mass terrorization. A state is not, after all, broken
up by shouting, flag waving and casting votes. In September 1938,
at the height of international tension, while all Europe bowed to
Hitler's will, his Sudeten agent, Henlein, attempted a revolt. The
vast majority of the Sudeten population remained absolutely
passive, and a few gendarmes sufficed to restore order, although
the prestige of the administration was then at its lowest. When this
happened in face of an all-powerful Nazi-Germany, we have not
the slightest doubt that after the destruction of Nazism a
Czechoslovak Republic, built on sound economic foundations and
ruled democratically, in the true spirit of T.G. Masaryk, would have
in the Sudeten Germans a constructive and not a disruptive
element."

At last the Sudeten social democrats recall the spirit of 1938: "We
deny emphatically that such (expulsion) plans are in the true
interest of the Czech people, for whom we feel a great admiration.
Our movement has a fine tradition of (a) common struggle against
Nazism with the democratic masses of Czechoslovakia. Three
thousand Sudeten German socialists in exile are living witnesses to
this struggle. Tens of thousands have paid for their stubborn
defense of Czechoslovak democracy with years of imprisonment,
detention in concentration camps, and even death. In the
underground movement the struggle goes on, in spite of the
difficult conditions of underground actions in a country where the
workers are dispersed over thousands of small towns and little
villages, where the young people are sent to their death on the
Russian plains, where hundreds of thousands have been drafted
for work into Germany, where the factories are crowded with alien
workers and prisoners of war, and where there is one Gestapo
spy for every ten workers. Still our underground cadres are intact
and maintaining the tradition of 1938. They are prepared to fight
for the military defeat of Germany, but how can they be expected
to risk their lives for the expulsion of their countrymen? We have
not abandoned the 1938 tradition. It is being destroyed by plans
which are incompatible with the spirit of 1938. Only by a genuine
understanding on a truly democratic basis can it be restored."

The call to reason by the Sudeten German social democrats
remained unheeded. The Sudeten German national group
(Volksgruppe) has been eradicated. Three million Sudeten
Germans were deprived of their civil and human rights, of their
possessions and of their homeland with 240,000 dead. Today, 65
years later, decrees and laws that then were created to legalize
the Sudeten German genocide are still on the books of the Czech
and Slovak judicial systems; in 2004 the Czech parliament
unanimously declared them unimpeachable, unalterable and
unchangeable; the majority of the Czech and Slovak peoples still
consider the inhuman treatment of their German countryman right
and just; and all across the Czech Republic Beneš statues are
being erected in honor of the mastermind of the Sudeten German
genocide. And only a very few private citizens on planet Earth
object to it.

Rudolf F Pueschel, PhD
43 Chip Shot Court
Roseville CA 95678/USA

30 March 2011