"Shoulder to Shoulder"

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Last week was a big one for heroes in Czecho-Slovakia; and because of what the heroes represented, the hyphen in Czechoslovakia became alarmingly noticeable. One hero was the late Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, the father of a united Czechoslovakia. On his birthday (it would have been his 89th), thousands of Czechs, mostly peasants in national costume, trudged to his grave in a little country churchyard 20 miles from Prague. There they silently prayed that the four eggs he put into the CzechoSlovakian basket (Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, Carpatho-Ukraine) might not be any further broken.

Second hero was the late Father Andreas Hlinka, founder of the Slovak autonomous movement. His followers last week prepared Masaryk's eggs for scrambling. Members of the pro-Nazi, anti-Czech, anti-Jewish Hlinka Guard have long plotted, through the semi-autonomous Slovak Cabinet, to proclaim Slovakia's independence, relying on Germany's support and subsequent protection. To a Germany which frankly wants to get a foothold in Carpatho-Ukraine, right next to Slovakia, such a plan smelled good. In any case, the weaker Czecho-Slovakia becomes the more potent becomes Germany's dominion over her.

One day last week word of the plot reached the central CzechoSlovak Government in Prague. At six next morning the Slovak capital, Bratislava, awoke to find CzechoSlovak gendarmes patrolling the city. The Hlinka Guards were disarmed and interned. From Prague President Dr. Emil Hacha fired Slovakia's Cabinet. Its Premier, Monsignor Dr. Joseph Tiso, was shut up in a Jesuit monastery. Eventually Dr. Karol Sidor, a nationalist and Hlinka Guardsman but not a separatist, was made Premier. Apparently the plot was crushed. But just then ousted Premier Tiso smuggled a telegram out of the monastery.

Dr. Tiso's telegram was to the week's third hero--Adolf Hitler, self-appointed foster-father of Europe's orphan minorities. Hero Hitler considered the message important enough to call an immediate conference at the chancellery with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Marshal Hermann Wilhelm Goring was ordered to cut short his vacation on the Italian Riviera. Then the familiar squeak of the tightening Nazi vise 'began to be heard in Slovakia:

From Vienna went radio messages to the Slovaks like others once sent to the Sudetens: "Keep quiet and stay by your radios. A historic announcement will be made to you later. . . . Slovaks and Hlinka Guards, the hour will soon strike for which you are waiting. . . ."

Before 35,000 cheering Germans and Slovaks at Bratislava, German Minority Leader Franz Karmasin shouted: "Germans of Slovakia will fight shoulder to shoulder with the young Slovak people."

Hlinka Guardsmen reappeared (armed again) and beside their uniforms were seen those of Slovak Nazi Storm Troopers. Jewish shop windows began to crash. And just as before Munich, the German press reported atrocities: "The Czechs' blood terror against Germans and Slovaks creates an unbearable situation."

Suddenly this week came the news that Ex-Premier Tiso, too, was a hero. Somehow he got out of the monastery and into an airplane--which flew straight to Berlin. Adolf Hitler immediately received him for a 40-minute conference. As the ousted Dr. Tiso drove away, Fuehrer Hitler's Elite Bodyguard rolled out a drum salute reserved for foreign statesmen who are still in office. Dr. Tiso hurried to a telephone and called Premier Sidor in Bratislava: summon the Slovak Parliament, he commanded, for he was coming to read it a declaration.

What that declaration was he would not say just then. But significant was a German Foreign Office statement, issued but immediately withdrawn pending further developments: "The return of Czecho-Slovakia to the German Reich would signify the restoration of ancient historical conditions. . . . An unambiguous situation in Czecho-Slovakia is indispensable to the security of Germany. . . ." Significant, too, were the remarks of a British Government "spokesman" who observed that while the four Munich powers had agreed to guarantee mutilated CzechoSlovakia's external borders, her internal divisions were no concern of Britain's. That did about all that was needed to make way for an "independent" Slovak State, should the Nazis wish it for a dependency.

When he is pulling a fast one, Adolf Hitler likes to put on a show of force near the scene of operations. Berlin is 300 miles from Bratislava. Early this week the Fuehrer announced that in midweek there would be a huge military parade in Vienna to celebrate the first anniversary of his entry after Anschluss. Vienna is exactly 34 miles from Bratislava.

As riots in Bratislava increased in violence (six were reported killed and 50 hurt by bomb explosions), a cryptic message came from Berlin: "The Slovak problem is already solved." Solution: "Independent" Slovakia with Dr. Tiso as president.

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