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Local Government in Czechoslovakia, 1918-19481

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Eduard Táborský
Eduard Táborský*
Affiliation:
University of Texas
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Extract

In no other country of twentieth-century Europe have matters of local government played more havoc both with domestic peace and external security than in Czechoslovakia. Nor does modern history offer a more frustrating story than the process by which an honest, though slow and hesitant, endeavor to meet claims for more local self-government was cunningly and ruthlessly exploited for the very opposite, i.e., for crushing liberty and establishing a rigid totalitarian centralism.

The birth of the Republic itself was met with the bitter opposition of the bulk of its German minority, whose desire, however unrealistic, was to join the new Austrian state. The majority of the Sudeten Germans had scarcely begun to show a change of heart, leaders of their major parties had scarcely begun actively to cooperate with the Czechoslovak Government, when Hitler came to power in Germany, and the Nazi acid quickly corroded the delicate fabric of the fresh Czech-German cooperation.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , October 1951 , pp. 202 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1951

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Footnotes

1

There is comparatively little material in the English language dealing with the Czechoslovak local government. A chapter is devoted to the subject in Edward Táborský's Czechoslovak Democracy at Work (London, 1945). Cf. also by the same author, “Czechoslovak Local Government,” Central European Observer (London), January 12 and 26, 1945. A brief, far too brief, outline of pre-Munich local government may be found in Malbone W. Graham's article, “Constitutional and Political Structure,” in R. J. Kerner's Czechoslovakia (University of California Press, 1940); also in J. S. Roucek's Slavonic Encyclopaedia (New York, 1949), pp. 719-20. The problem of minorities, without an understanding of which the development of Czechoslovak local government between the two World Wars can hardly be grasped, is discussed by J. S. Roucek in Chapter IX of Kerner's Czechoslovakia, while the Czech-German struggle leading up to Munich is described by B. E. Schmitt in Chapter XII of the same book.

Sources in German are more numerous. Cf. for example Ludwig Adamovich, Grundriss des tschechoslovakischen Staatsrechtes (Vienna, 1929), pp. 158 ff. (with some further bibliography).

Czech sources are, of course, plentiful. For the development before Munich cf. “Samospráva,” Slovník Veřejného Práva (Brno, 1938), IV, 1 ff. (including a selected bibliography). For wartime and post-war development cf. “Výbory Narodní,” Slovník Veřejného Práva (Brno, 1947), V, 350 ff. Also Edward Táorský, Náse Nová Ustava (Prague, 1948), pp. 137 ff., 276ff., and 532 ff.

References

2 “The great purpose which we have placed before ourselves,” said the leader of the Sudeten-German Social-Democratic party, Seliger, addressing the Congress of his Austrian party comrades in 1919, “is to achieve reunion with you. And we shall dedicate all our strength and passion to the service of this longing of ours.“ Cf. F. Peroutka's Budovaní Státu (1919), p. 1299. Cf. also Odložilík, Nástin československých déjin (Prague, 1946), p. 148, and T. G. Masaryk, The Making of the State (New York, 1927), pp. 400-401.

3 Cf. Konrad Henlein's subsequent confession: “In the course of a few years the Sudeten Germans have succeeded in endangering so deeply the inner stability of Czechoslovakia and in confusing (verwirren) so much her internal relations that she became ripe for liquidation,” from a speech before the Administrative Academy of Vienna, as reprinted in Wiener Beobachter, No. 64 (March 5, 1941).

4 For methods employed cf. Slovník Veřejného Práva, IV, 74, and Odložilík, op. cit., pp. 126-27.

5 Cf. Táorský, Czechoslovak Democracy at Work, p. 116.

6 Cf. Kerner, op. cit., p. 116.

7 Cf. Edward Beneš, Demokracie Dnes a Zitra (London, 1941), pp. 245 ff.; Táorský, Naše Nová Ústava, pp. 143-44. Cf. also H. S. Thomson, Czechoslovakia in European History (1943), p. 293.

8 Cf. Peroutka, op. cit., pp. i23off., quoting also Milan Hodza's opposition to autonomy for Slovakia.

9 Cf. Táorský, Czechoslovak Democracy at Work, pp. n6ff. A thorough discussion in Czech may be found in Slovník Veřejného Práva, IV, 1 ff.

10 The only exception was the case of Ruthenia, but that was due to an obligation assumed by Czechoslovakia in the St. Germain Treaty of November 10, 1919.

11 Cf. Emil Sobota, Naše Ústava (Prague, 1935), p. 48.

12 Cf. Kerner, op. cit., p. 116.

13 For more details cf. Táorský, Czechoslovak Democracy at Work, pp. 123-24.

14 Cf. Kerner, op. cit., pp. 409 ff., where a selected bibliography may be found. Cf. also: Bohemicus, Czechoslovakia and the Sudeten Germans (Prague, 1938); Joseph Chmelař, Le Problème Allemand en Tchécoslovaquie (Prague, 1936); Ivan Derer, The Unity of Czechs and Slovaks (Prague, 1938); Táorský, Naše Nová Ústava, pp. 140 ff.

15 Demokracie Tines a Zítra (London, 1941), pp. 247 ff.; cf. also Edward Beneš in His Own Words (New York, 1944), p. 61; Edward Beneš, Problèmes de la Tchécoslovaquie (Prague, 1936), p. 18.

16 The present writer obtained personal knowledge about these opinions of Dr. Beneš in his capacity as Secretary and Legal Adviser to him from 1939 to 1945. Cf. also Dr. Beneš, Edward, Paměti (Prague, 1947), p- 408.Google Scholar For the attitude of the Communist leader, K. Gottwald, cf. his article in Cesta k Svobodě (London, 1944), pp. 18 ff.

17 For details cf. Táorský, Czechoslovak Democracy at Work, p. 126.

18 Cf. Úřední Věstník Československý, V, No. 6 (London, December, 1944), 49.

19 Cf. Úřední Věstník Československý, V, 50.

20 Cf. Táorský, “Government in the ‘People's Democracies,'” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CCLXXI (September, 1950), 57 ff. Josef Josten, Oh, My Country (London, 1949), p. 54.