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Czech Schools Under Nazi Tyranny
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"Czech Schools Under Nazi Tyranny" (2016). War Information Center Pamphlets. Book 187.
http://utdr.utoledo.edu/ur-87-68/187
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WAR INFORMATION
KEY CENTER
CZECH SCHOOLS UNDER ,H„ . i,
NAZI T Y R A N N Y , , , , , oht'^"^
BRACKETT LEWIS
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T
H E Munich dictate and the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovak^
which it opened the door, crushed not only Czechoslovak political
freedom and economic independence but also free education, one of
the proudest achievements of the Republic. What has become of the
Fuehrer's promise of self-government and cultural liberty for the
Czechs is well illustrated by Nazi attacks on their school system.
With the loss of 40% of its tax income by loss of territory, all
government expenditures had to be curtailed and education inevitably
suffered. Furtherrnore an immense financial burden was thrown on
the government to care for officers of the army which was disbanded,
officials of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of Defense which
were closed, officials, teachers, railway and postal men who returned
from the lost territories.
From the Sudet areas and Slovakia several thousand teachers returned to Bohemia-Moravia. Dr. Kapras, Minister of Education, gave
the numbers early in July to the Committee on Public Employees of
the National Solidarity (which has replaced Parliament under the
Protectorate). Of 1,880 Czech teachers and professors formerly engaged in Slovakia, 884 were discharged between Oaober 1 and
March 15, and 760 more since the complete ""independence" of
Slovakia. On taking Ruthenia, Hungary discharged 856 teachers. The
Minister was not permitted to state the number who had be" driven
from Sudet areas, but it is generally supposed to be at least one thousand.
Some of these teachers had been born in Slovakia, all of' them
taught in the Slovak and Ruthenian languages and had identified
themselves with the folk among whom they lived. The "conquering"
Hungarians, however, and the wave of nationalism in Slovakia expelled them regardless of the loss which has resulted from less welltrained successors. It is no criticism that the Slovaks have 'hot yet
been able to tram a complete corps of educational leaders, F<^r they
have had high schools and a university in their own language only
since the founding of the Republic in 1918. It is to the credit of wise
heads among them that some 400 Czech teachers and professors have
been retained, as yet irreplacable.
In the attempt to absorb those who returned as refugees, the Protectorate reduced the retirement age of teachers to 60 years for men
and 55 for women. Married women teachers were removed by Febru-
[1]
ary 1939, except for a few especially qualified persons. Institutions of
university rank were forbidden to make any new faculty appointments
until the refugee professors had been absorbed.
A n instance of the loss by premature retirement is the case of Prof.
Joseph Shusta, the widely known historian at Charles University. Scientific circles in vain protested his removal at the height of his capacities,
but had to be content with his election as President of the Czech
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The annexation of the country's chief coal resources to Germany,
and resulting increase in cost and transportation difficulties in supplying the country with fuel gave Czech children frequent "coal holidays"
last winter. The chief electric power stations for the four largest
cities, Pilsen, Prague, Brno, Moravska Ostrava, were at the mines and
were annexed by Germany, who insists on payment in foreign exchange—not barter. So school hours in winter were shortened to save
electricity. University buildings were forbidden heat and light after
seven p.m. and much laboratory work last winter was done by candlelight.
In these circumstances the Czechs felt bitter that they were prevented
by pressure and threats from Berlin from closing the Universities and
Technical Institutes in Prague and Brno which had been built up
for their German citizens. These three complete institutions had been
maintained by the Republic for its three and a quarter million Germanspeaking citizens, but according to the German Professor Gessner only
240,000 Germans remained in the crippled Protectorate. In order to
occupy these institutions German students were sent in from the Reich
•—not from the Sudet areas—and their education paid for from Czech
taxes. These young fellows loved to parade about Prague in high
boots and Nazi uniforms and many were proved to be spies and
agitators. They became guides and reporters for the Nazi army and
Gestapo when the country was finally invaded.
In February 1939, all officials and employees of the Ministry of
Education and all teachers were forced under pressure from Berlin
to sign a statement that they were Aryan. The loss of non-Aryan
teachers and professors was another blow to free education, even
though the numbers involved were not large.
Schools in the Sudet Areas
U
N D E R the pre-war Austrian regime, a Czech School Union,
privately supported, had built up a network of schools in the
Czech language to combat the forcible Germanization program in the
Sudet territory. These schools, supported by gifts and bequests, were
founded chiefly in communities of Czech working folk and were
[2}
a brave attempt to help them maintain their national language and
culture against the assaults of German employers and officials. The
Union schools were continued under the Republic parallel with the
state schools in towns which the Union had never been able to touch.
These Union schools were a sort of social mission, also, where
poorer children were given medical attention, supplemental food and
clothing. After annexation in October 1938 these Union schools were
entirely wiped out as though in retaliation for their services to the
Czech national spirit. The reason given was that they were instruments
of czechification, no mention being made of course of exaaly similar
schools conducted for 20 years by the German Kulturverband without
interference from the Czechoslovak Republic.
For months after Munich the three-quarters of a million Czechs
who were annexed to the Reich remained without schools. Nazi vengeance had demolished numbers of the beautiful modern schools
which the Republic had constructed; others were taken for German
schools or Party headquarters. The few Czech teachers who remained
opened classes wherever they could, in private homes, even in unheated barns; conditions which the German army took steps to correct
in some places against the too drastic action of local Nazis.
Repeated appeals by Sudet Czech leaders to permit them to reopen
schools on the basis of the Fuehrer's guarantee of cultural autonomy
met with excuses that there were insufficient "reliable" Czech teachers.
Sent from department to department of the regional government in
Liberec, Czech delegations were put off endlessly in the hope that
Czech parents would give up the struggle and send their children to
German schools. In fact Czech employees in German firms (and the
thorough "aryanization" in the Sudet converted Czech as well as
Jewish firms into German) are reported to have received slips with
their pay threatening them with discharge unless their children were
registered in German schools by a certain date.
In the border townships of the Sudet Czech children were refused
permission to cross into the Proteaorate to attend the schools they
had formerly gone to. When permission was finally given, the process
of application was made so complicated that it practically prevented
children continuing their studies in their own language.
When some Czech schools were finally opened in the Sudet after
the New Year, they were left practically without texts. The former
schoolbooks were declared anti-Nazi, even geometries were said to be
opposed to the "ancient German spirit." School curricula "suitable
to the new spirit" were debated so long in official departments that
Czech teachers were constantly arrested for teaching anti-state doctrines. Curricula have apparently not yet been defined, for an article
by the editor of the Bulletin of the Czech Minority for July 1939
[33
quotes a secretary of the Nationahst Sociahst Party: "I can assure you
that we shall avoid the errors committed by the Czechoslovak government all those 20 years in conducting minority schools." The editor
adds that registration for the opening of Czech schools has been
postponed indefinitely and asks all communities where Czech schools
should be opened to apply again to the department in Liberec, submitting population statistics for 1910. Apparently only communities
where Czech schools were permitted by the Austrian regime in 1910
will be permitted to have them under the Reich.
The same Bulletin states that the county of New Jichin in northern
Moravia is the only one in the annexed territories in which Czech
schools are really active. There are 27 elementary schools in operation,
but only seven of them show the normal five classes, the others have
only one or two classes. The Czech population of such counties as
Dub, Most, Zabreh, Pribor and Opava, which had seven high schools,
have not been permitted to reopen any of them. The reason may be
contained in an article in Vdlkischer Beohachter: "The Czechs have
too large an educated intelligencia. It will be necessary to prevent so
many of their young people studying and send more of them into
trade and crafts."
Schools in the Protectorate
A
L T H O U G H the Fuehrer solemnly promised the Protectorate full
cultural liberty, various excuses have been found to "coordinate"
and interfere with Czech schools.
The first step was to demand a revision of text-books. This will
take time and meanwhile teachers and professors receive orders every
few days on what they may not teach. They may not mention President Masaryk or Benes, their persons, acts or doarines. Nothing may
be taught in Czech history which can be interpreted as anti-German
or favorable to democracy. The Hussite period, one of the most important in Czech history, receives three short sentences in one of the
approved school histories, thus: "After the death of Jan Hus there
was unrest in the land. It lasted several years. Finally Emperor Sigmund was able to renew peace in the land."
The revision of text-books was to have been completed by the
opening of the school year early in September, but Prague newspapers
are still asking the State Printing Office to publish the list of approved
books. The Printing Office is commanded by Germans, however, whose
purpose seems to be to produce as much confusion and delay as possible.
The next step was an order to "purge" all school and faculty
libraries. The works of Masaryk, Benes, Karel Capek, Jirasek, Dyk,
Rais, Medek are baimed, though some of them wrote of events sev[4]
eral generations ago. Capek-Chod's "Anthony Vondrejc" is banned
because of the chapter about Czech and German disputes in a Moravian
town at the beginning of the century. Children's fairy tales like the
Pied Piper of Hamlin are censored—Hamlin was a German town and
the Nazis feel hurt by the aspersion.
Orders are issued to publishing houses on what they may and may
not publish. Soon after March 15 the great book store Melantrich
on Vaclav Square was ordered to fill its windows with "Mein Kampf"
in Czech and German editions. Such orders led to various practical
jokes, such as Orbis exhibiting German books upside down. "The sale
of "Mein Kampf" has now been forbidden, perhaps because of its
violent attacks on Communism which do not suit the international
realignment.
School work is interrupted for various public demonstrations, such
as to line the streets when their so-called Protector von Neurath arrived in Prague. The order for all school children to line the curbs
brought such an "epidemic of illness as Prague has never known."
Those who appeared were given little swastika flags to wave, which
were promptly thrown on the sidewalks. When ordered to pick them
up by the police, children crumpled them into unrecognizable shape
or tore them off and waved the sticks at the Protector. Numbers of
teachers were suspended next day for "inability to maintain order."
Numbers of schools were taken in March to house German troops.
Although barracks were available, it was feared that they would be
bombed, and that soldiers would be safer in school buildings. The
barracks of the 151st anti-aircraft regiment in Pohorelec, Prague, built
to house two regiments, was occupied by one German company, but
all the nearby schools were used for troops.
The school in Stepan Street, Prague, houses a Czech boy's school
and a German high-school; the German half was cleared of troops in
three days time, the Czech half only after a month—but part of it
was retained for a military hospital. A t least three high-schools in
Prague have been equipped for hospitals. When the buildings of the
Technical Institute in Prague were freed of troops, there had been
so much damage that they had to be repaired and repainted, drawing
tables had to be replaced after being used for slicing food. A mysterious epidemic of infantile paralysis broke out in the Protectorate
after occupation. The sources of infection have been traced definitely
to school buildings occupied by German troops.
A form of persecuting teachers has been invented by an order of
the Protector June 3rd, making them personally responsible for their
pupils' attitude to the Fuehrer and the army, the German Reich and
individual Germans. It expressly states that a teacher may be removed
if any of his pupils strikes or insults a member of the German race
or shows disrespect to any of its leaders.
[5]
Numbers of teachers have been removed as "subversive elements."
How ridiculous the grounds sometimes given, is indicated by the
case of three professors of Brno University who were purged for
writing in the "communist sheet Lidove Noviny"—one of the ablest
dailies in the country, as far from communism as the Washington Post.
The three are Arnost Blaha, sociology, J. L. Fischer, philosophy, and
V . Helfert, professor of the history of music—all of whom have attained international reputations. They have been sent on unpaid vacations, and the same fate has befallen Prof. V . Ulehla, the international authority on the physiology of plants.
Interference with Czech schools has been most marked in the distrias with largest German-speaking populations, such as Jihlava and
Czech Budejovice. There school buildings have been demolished,
boarded up and guarded by local Nazis. That the Czech population
has not been intimidated by such methods, however, is shown by the
increase in registration in the schools. In Pilsen 12,119 children have
registered in Czech schools this Fall-—132 more than last year. In
Domazlice (in annexed South Bohemia) 1096 children are in Czech
schools, in Upper Brize 208, Blavoce 357—all more than last year.
German Schools in the Protectorate
U
N D E R the Republic, German citizens had a complete school
system, their own public libraries, and cultural institution^, much
higher in proportion to numbers of population than any minority in
Germany or Italy, for instance. The state maintained two universities
and two technical schools for 3 and a quarter million Germans, and
three universities and two technical schools for eleven million Czechs
and Slovaks. There were 73 high-schools, 10 teacher-training schools,
446 grammar and 3,281 primary schools taught by German teachers
in German throughout. Numbers slightly higher than the proportion
of German-speaking children of school age.
After the occupation in March 1939 when there remained by their
own count only 240,000 Germans in the Proteaorate the German
Kulturverband announced that they have a right to 150 new schools
and immediately opened 32. A t a time when German troops occupied
Czech school buildings, Germans obtained excellent quarters for 32
new schools at once, 59 before June. Some of them are in towns with
a purely Czech population, such as Tyn on the Vltava and Kolin,
where the total German population consists of one childless family
plus one governess in a Czech family. In Tabor a German school was
opened with the pompous participation of Reich officials—live classes
for 16 children. There is some suspicion that such schools are opened
as a pretext for Reich teachers and their families to move into Czech
communities. Many of the German schools are said to have dormi[63
tories which leads to the supposition that German children will be
brought in from elsewhere to be educated at the expense of Czech
communities, or in order to remove Czech children from family surroundings and nazify them more easily.
This plan of penetration through educational institutions is most
apparent in the case of the German Universities at Prague and Brno.
A l l democratically inclined professors had long since been driven out
as the result of strikes by Sudet students. The Sudet students have now
been taken to Reich universities and those in the Protectorate filled
with uniformed students from Germany, who spend much of their
time spying on the population and provoking incidents on the streets.
Another use for a university was uncovered in September 1938, when
a large stock of arms was discovered in the buildings of the Prague
German University and quantities of glass tubes containing cultures
of mortal bacilli ready packed for easy distribution.
Perhaps it was to prevent any further such discoveries that the four
German institutions of university rank in the Protectorate were taken
into direct administration of the Reich on September 1, 1939- The
Czech government must continue to pay the salaries and all expenditures ordered from Berlin, but can have no voice in administering
them nor enter their premises. That is what is heralded in the German
press as "the return to the Reich of the oldest university and technical
institute of the ancient German Empire."
As usual the Nazi press presents history inaccurately. Charles University was founded in 1348 by Charles IV. He was the king of
Bohemia and elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, as other
Bohemian kings were before and after him. Germany as such did not
exist at that time and Bohemia was larger and more important than
Prussia, Bavaria, Austria, or a score of other German duchies, all included in the very loose federation of the Empire. The language of
instruction was, of course, Latin, as in all medieval universities. How
free of German domination Charles University was in those early
centuries is shown by the fact that its rector Jan Huss was one of the
greatest of Czech patriots—liberator of the Czech language from
German script by inventing its peculiar accents and marks over various
letters. The University was governed at first by four "nations" as the administrative groups were called: Bohemian, Polish, Bavarian and
Saxon, but from 1384 the Czechs received 5 of the 6 places in the
governing Carolinum. It was not until 1784 that Charles University
was germanized by the Hapsburgs and then from 1861 it became bilingual, Czech and German.
The specious claim that Prague is a center of German culture is false
justification for its invasion, but indicates how anxious the German
press was to find some justification.
[73
The facts herein were gleaned from Prague newspapers {whic
course had passed the German censor), from recent arrivals fr
Czechoslovakia and from private letters.
Published by
A M E R I C A N FRIENDS OF C Z E C H O - S L O V A K I A
8 West 40th Street, New York
Honorary Chairmen:
Hon. Eduard Benes
Nicholas Murray Butler
John H . Finley
Treasurer:
y Everett Colby
Chairman:
Wm. Jay Schieffelin
Vice-Chairmen:
George Gordon Battle
Robert J. Caldwell
Gerald F. Machacek
James T. Shotwell
Assistant Treasurer:
Kenneth D . Miller
Secretary:
Brackett Lewis
Wallace M . Alexander
Henry A. Atkinson
Eugene E. Barnett
Algernon D . Black
Kenneth Blanchard
Mrs. Richard Blow
George Blumenthal
Marston T . Bogert
Mrs. Edward Bok
Robert E. Bolaffio
George Boochever
Edwin M . Borchard
Gutzon Borglum
C. C. Burlingame
Morse A. Cartwright
Samuel McCrea Cavert
Mrs. Marcia Davenport
Harvey N . Davis
Robert C. Dexter
Laurence L. Doggett
Michael Francis Doyle
Ruth Draper
Samuel Dushkin
Clark M . Eichelberger
Jojin L. Elliott
Haven Emerson
Edgar J. Fisher
Douglas S. Freeman
Francis P. Gaines
Har.y D . Gideonse
Joieph D . Grant
Joseph A. Hacha
Samuel N . Harper
Mrs. Philip Hofer
E. O. Holland
Hamilton Holt
Alois Hrdlicka
Howard R. Huston
Lincoln Hutchinson
Philip C. Jessup
E. W . Kemmerer
William H . Kilpatrick
Frank Kingdon
Alfred M . Landon
Elenry Smith Leiper
Mrs. Yolanda Mero-Irion
John A . P. Millet
J. K. Moffitt
Wm. Pepperell Montague
Mrs. D . Percy Morgan
William A . Neilson
John S. Nollen
John Nutting
Ralph Barton Perry
Lena Madesin Phillips
Mrs. Charles A. Riegelman
Henrietta Roelofs
Charles Edward Russell
H . T. Schwanda
Paul de Schweinitz
James Brown Scott
Thomas L. Sidlo
Mrs. Mary Simkhovich
A. Dee Simpson
Robert G . Spivack
>jeorge Stewart
Gustav A. Strebel
Luis M . Stumer
Edward O. Tabor
Charles T . Tidball
Charles R. Toochaker
Henry St. George Tucker
Charles V . Vickery
Sarah Wambaugh
William Stix Wasserman
Mrs. Casper Whitney
Ray Lyman Wilbur
Ernest H . Wilkins
Mary E. WooUey
[8]