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Foreign Office, britské vyslanectví v Praze a sudetoněmecká otázka v roce 1936

100%

Novotný L.

Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)

2011

vol. 19

issue 2

149-182

At the end of World War I and in the 1920's, Great Britain and its Foreign Office had a rather optimistic view of relations between Czechs and Germans in Czechoslovakia. The situation only changed in the following decade. The British Foreign Office began increasingly lean toward the opinion that the successor states, including Czechoslovakia, did not contribute to the establishment of peace and stability in Central Europe. Reports from the British legation in Prague, mostly marked by their Germanophile orientation and negative perspective on the Czechoslovak government's policy toward the German minority, played an important role in the Foreign Office's perception of the Sudeten German issue. Adolf Hitler's accession to power in 1933 did not change London's efforts to achieve agreement with Berlin. However, according to the responsible British politicians, a more permanent reconciliation with Germany was only possible if some injustices done, in Britain's view, after 1918 were remedied. With respect to Central Europe, this meant an increased interest by the Foreign Office in ethnic situation in the Czechoslovak Republic, particularly after the formation of the Sudeten German Party in April 1935. The perception of the Sudeten German issue by the British legacy in Prague was clearly unfavourable for the Czechoslovak Republic in 1936. In terms of a wider context of British foreign policy, agreement with Berlin became one of the basic foreign political axioms in 1936, especially after German occupation of the Rhineland in March. At the end of 1936, leading representatives of the British Foreign Office came to the conclusion that the key to solve the German-Czech argument was an agreement between Sudeten Germans and the Czechoslovak government. In their opinion, a path to such an agreement had to be grounded in a pressure on Prague to accommodate the German minority. The Foreign Office was afraid that Sudeten Germans would otherwise radicalize in their effort to join Germany, which would consequently threaten peaceful arrangement in Central Europe. British politicians thus convinced themselves that the situation could only be saved by a positive approach to the German minority.

Národnostní problematika v Československu očima americké diplomacie (1933–1938)

86%

Kuklík J., Němeček J.

Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)

2011

vol. 19

issue 2

183-218

The American Embassy in Prague closely monitored the political development in Czechoslovakia as of the late 1920s and in its reports analyzed the main hot issues. Apart from the aggravated international political situation in the region, the economic depression and the growth of autonomist trends in Slovakia the American diplomats saw the ethnic problems as the most important ones, particularly the relations between Czechs and Germans and the Czechoslovak-Hungarian problem. The attitude of the German speaking population to the Czechoslovak Republic and to the luring by Nazi Germany was considered by the State Department as of 1934 as 'a problem of utmost importance for the current and future development in the Central European region'. The Americans were particularly interested in the personal features and political views of the leader of the Sudeten German Party, Konrad Henlein, and they considered the rejection of Nazi and separatist requirements by the German minority as a necessary precondition of preserving the integrity of the Czechoslovak State; this, however, failed to happen. Reports sent by U.S. charge d'affaires a. i. J. Webb Benton and later by Ambassador Wilbur Carr informed in detail about the events leading to the Czechoslovak crisis in 1938. As the information submitted by American diplomats was based on interviews with Czechoslovak politicians (particularly with Tomas Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Benes) as well as with members of the German minority coming from 'all its layers', and also on their visits to the border areas, it provides an analytical view 'from outside'. This source, however, has failed so far to be used for research into this problem.

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2 Moderní dějiny: sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. století (Modern History: Studies into 19th and 20th century history)

2 2011

1 Kuklík J.

1 Novotný L.

1 Němeček J.

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Foreign Office, britské vyslanectví v Praze a sudetoněmecká otázka v roce 1936

Národnostní problematika v Československu očima americké diplomacie (1933–1938)