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Three Years of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

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Three Years of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia THE ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE THREE YEARS OF THE PROTECTORATE OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA BOARD OF TRUSTEES President LEWIS W. DOUGLAS Vice-Presidents THOMAS J. WATSON LEO WOLMAN Secretary Treasurer Director NOEL T. DOWLING SAM A. LEWISOHN ETHEL WABNSS BY W. RANDOLPH BURGESS SIR WALTER T. LAYTON SHEPARD MORGAN LEON FRASER SAMUEL MCCUNE LINDSAY THOMAS I. PARKINSON MOSES MOSKOWITZ ROBERT M. HAIG RoswELL C. MCCREA WILLIAM L. RANSOM THOMAS W. LAAIONT WESLEY C. MITCHELL OWEN D. YOUNG Managing Editor of the Political Science Quarterly and the Proceedings JOHN A. RROUT HONORARY MEMBERS CHARLES E. HUGHES MONTAGU C. NORMAN EMILIO DSEL TORO JOHN BASSETT MOORS CHARLES RIST ALBERT SHAW L. S. ROWE The Academy of Political Science, founded in 1880, is composed of men and women interested in political, economic and social questions. The annual dues are $5. Members and subscribing members (libraries, institutions etc) receive REPRINTED FROM POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY as part of their membership privileges the current issues of the PoliHc&l Science Quarterly, the semi-aimual Proceedins* of the Academy and invita• VoL„ L-V-fL'-'Nt}.'3," SEPTEMBER 1942 tions to Academy meetings. The Political Science Quarterly is published in March, June, September and December by the Academy of Political Science and is edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University. The Proceeding* are published in mid-winter and mid-summer. Single issues of the Quarterly, $1; single issues of the Proceedings, $2.50. Prices on back numbers and bound volumes will be quoted on request. Member* and subscribing members are urged to notify the Academy office of any change of addre**. If members and subscribing members wsh to discontinue membership in the Academy, notice to that effect should be sent; otherwise it is assumed that NEW YORK the membership will be continued. PUBLISHED BY THE Communications regarding the Academy should be addressed to the Director ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE of the Academy of Political Science, Fayerweather Hall, Columbia University, New York. 1942 THREE YEARS OF THE PROTECTORATE OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA BY MOSES MOSKOWITZ REPRINTED FROM POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY VOL. LVII, No. 3, SEPTEMBER 1942 NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE 1942 THREE YEARS OF THE PROTECTORATE OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA ARCH 16, 1942 marked the third anniversary of Adolf Hitler's proclamation creating the Protector• M ate of Bohemia and Moravia. During the three years that have passed since their incorporation into the Greater German Reich, the two Czech provinces have been subjected to revolutionary changes, the consequences of which cannot as yet be fully assessed. Germany, determined to make good her " promise " to restore to the Czech lands their " true position and natural functions " within the Lebensraum of the German people, wasted no time and spared no effort to wrest from the Czech people control over their own destiny and to reduce them to permanent dependence upon the Reich. In executing her designs, Germany employed both chicanery and terrorism. Her initial mollifying tactics failed completely. The early passive resentment of the Czechs soon developed into open contempt for their conquerors, manifesting itself in numerous incidents of sabotage. By the end of September 1941 Germany could no longer ignore this increasingly overt hostility, and the Czechs were then exposed to the undisguised ruthlessness of the Gestapo, under the leadership of Reinhardt Heydrich. This article is an attempt to describe the political, legal and economic measures that have molded the Protectorate into its present form.^ 1 This study was completed prior to the attempt on May 27, 1942 on the < life of Reinhardt Heydrich who, for eight months until his death on June 4, occupied the position of Reich Protector. The assault on Heydrich was the Czech peoples' retribution for the regime of terror instituted by him. It attests to the defiance of the conquered people and their unwavering resistance to 4 their Nazi oppressors. The unbounded fury of the Nazis has already resulted in the mass execution of more than one thousand known Czech patriots and has led to the form of vengeance of which Lidice and Lazaky have become a symbol. But it does not appear that any fundamental changes have thus far taken place in the status or administration of the Protectorate, as described in the following pages. 353 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LVII 354 No. 3] BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA 355 I the following ministers: Interior, Finance, Education and Cul• ture, Justice, Public Works, Agriculture, Health and Social From both the political and juridical points of view the Welfare, and Industry, Commerce and Handicraft. Among Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is sui generis. It is predicated on the German thesis that the two historic lands other central administrative and judicial bodies may be in• have " for a thousand years belonged to the living space of the cluded the Supreme Price Control Authority, Supreme Audit• German people " ^ and that they must, therefore, forever sub• ing Authority, the Supreme Court, Supreme Administrative mit to the hegemony of the Reich.* Tribunal and the Bureau of Statistics.* To maintain internal According to the Proclamation of March i6, 1939, establish• order, the Protectorate government was granted the authority ing the Protectorate, the Czech provinces " belong henceforth to organize a militia composed of 7,000 men, including 280 to the territory of the Greater German Reich and enter under officers, in addition to a corps of 200 military and 300 civil its protection as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." officials. The militia, headed by an Inspector General and a The relations between the protector and the protected are gov• liaison officer accredited to the German Army, consists of twelve erned by the principle of the precedence of the political, mili• battalions, each composed of one infantry, one motorized, one tary and economic interests of the Reich.* No attempt has been cavalry, and one technical company. Administratively, the made by the German authorities to define the limits of these country is divided into three Inspectorates, with respective interests; but the unilateral operation of this principle in favor headquarters in Prague, Brno and Hradec Kralove (Konig- of Germany is evident from the measures adopted by the Nazis gratz) in, and in respect of, the Protectorate. Closer examination reveals that Czech autonomy is merely By the terms of Article III of the Proclamation, the Czechs a fictional guise. It is limited by the unrestricted authority were granted autonomy in their domestic affairs. They admin• wielded by the Reich Protector, and by the fact that the autono• ister their governmental business through their own authori• mous government can exercise its prerogatives only " in ac• ties, and exercise the prerogatives which fall to them within cordance with the political, military and economic interests of the framework of the Protectorate. Except for the obvious the Reich." * It is further limited by the special juridical changes accompanying the establishment of the Protectorate, position of the German population in the Protectorate, which for example, the abolition of the Ministries for Foreign Affairs creates a state within a state. and War,^ the forms of public administration of the autono• The care of German interests is entrusted to the Reich Pro• mous government resemble those of the former Republic. The tector, who as representative of the Fiihrer, as well as of the Protectorate government is composed of the Head of State and his Cabinet. The latter consists of a Premier inter pares and 6 Hermann Hufnagel, "Organization der Verwaltung im Protektorat Bohmen und Mahren ", Bohmen und Mdkren, Prague, vol. I, No. I, April 1940, p. 27. 2 Proclamation of Adolf Hitler of March 16, 1939. Text in Die Gesetz- See also Das Archiv, No. 61, April 1939, p. 108. gebung Adolf Hitlers, Werner Heche, ed., vol. 31, 1939, pp. 54-57. ' Decree of the Reich Protector, August 17, 1939. Das Archiv, No. 6S, 2 K. H. Frank, " Die politische und voelkerrechtliche Stellung des Protek- August 1939. P- 619. torats ", Der Neue Tag, June 25, 1941. * Article XII of the Proclamation of March 16, 1939 declares that the law * Article III, Proclamation of March 16, 1939. in force in Bohemia and Moravia is valid " except in so far as it contradicts the spirit of the protection undertaken by the German Reich." «Ibid., Article VI. POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VOL. LVII BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA -No. 3] 357 Reich government, is charged with carrying out the lines of the Reich Protector to request the Czech government to report policy laid down by the Fiihrer, to whom he is directly respon• to him, perforce, on all matters he may deem necessary, and sible.* Actually, the Reich Protector is the exclusive source to prescribe the same procedure for the local Czech authorities of legislative and administrative power in the Protectorate. with respect to his subordinates. Laws, ordinances and regu• His authority is defined in the Proclamation of March i6, 1939 lations enacted by the Czech authorities which apply to more and in the subsequent decrees relating to the administration than one administrative province, as delimited by the Ger• of the Protectorate. According to Article V of the Proclama• mans," must be submitted to him for approval prior to their tion, the appointment of members of the autonomous govern• publication. Similarly, the Reich Protector and his
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