Sudetská krize před nacistickou okupací 🇨🇿Film Krize - Crisis (1939)

So that you have to be in that direction.

Film crazy. Then, that's like me. Film: check the settlement. Check the settlement. Check the settlement. That's what we got to say. American film. Check the settlement. Check the settlement. What is offering? What we got to tell them to run to see? Check the settlement. Very, very film. What we got to say to them? What we got to tell them to run to see? What we got to do? What we got to do? What we got to say? Let us see what we got to say to them. What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to say to them? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say to them? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to say to them? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say to them? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to say to them? What we got to do? What we got to say? What we got to do? What we got to say?

Ale to teď nechám stranou. Za chvíli tady uvidíte celý film krize a já jsem moc rád, že s tím můžu spojit ještě jednu další informaci.

Jan Antonín Baťa. Kdo z nás o něm ví? Kdo zná Jana Baťu? Jan Baťa. Řekněme si to všichni teď nahlas. Jan Baťa. Jan Baťa. Jan Baťa byl bratr Tomáše Baťi. A byl to člověk, který se velmi zasloužil o rozvoj impéria, které se rozrostlo do více než 70 měst celého světa. Měl vlastní obchodní letku, spousta věcí. A při pohledu na archivní materiály Jana Antonína Baťi můžeme říct následující větu.

Jan Antonín Baťa byl právě ten, kdo podporoval československý odboj, který připravoval obrovský poklad, osobní zlato a finance na pozdější obnovu Československa. Byl to Jan Antonín Baťa, který podpořil československý odboj nákupem letadel Spitfire. Byl to Jan Baťa, který zachraňoval židovské rodiny a byl to Jan Baťa, který vytvářel krizový plán předtím, že nás chtěli vyhladit. Tyto informace měl. Měl kolem sebe totiž rozsáhlou síť, dá se říct informátorů, manažerů, kteří působili po celém světě. A Jan Baťa měl tolik informací, že znal rizika tehdejší doby.

A Jan Baťa je podepsán pod tím filmem krize. Proto tady zmiňuju. A ještě s tím spojím jednu informaci. Jan Baťa byl otištěn v těchto novinách v jednom z prvních čísel novin. Ale k příběhu Jana Antonína Baťi se ještě vrátíme a velmi intenzivně budeme v druhé polovině letošního roku dokumentovat jeho život ve spolupráci s nadací Jana Antonína Baťi.

Proč? Protože při pohledu na archivní dokumenty, materiály víme, že pohled na Baťovu rodinu a zejména ten...

The Anschluss. The Nazi invasion was timed to prevent the Austrian elections, which would have registered the determination of the majority of the people for independence. The Austrian Republic was annexed to greater Germany without a struggle, according to the program Hitler outlined years ago in his book, Mein Kampf. Here, Hitler declared that this event meant...

Mein Kampf. Herr Hitler declared that this event did not endanger the Czechoslovak Republic, against which he had no aggressive designs. General Field Marshal Hermann Göring made this declaration in even stronger terms. Nevertheless, in Mein Kampf, years before, Hitler had said that Czechoslovakia must be destroyed.

But behind its natural mountain frontiers, Prague, the beautiful old capital of Czechoslovakia, was a peaceful and prosperous city with a population of about a million people. On the great Hradčany, the castle hill above the town, were the cathedrals, palaces, and baroque monuments inherited from Bohemia's long historic past. The Cathedral of Saint Vitus, a great national shrine which grew up through five centuries, was the heart of this region of palaces and churches.

The castle itself, on the Hradčany, once an imperial residence for the Habsburgs and last rebuilt by the Empress Maria Theresa, was now the official home of the president of the Czechoslovak Republic, Dr. Edvard Beneš. At the foot of this historic hill, modern Czechoslovakia was putting forth her characteristic effort. Model structures for dwellings and offices arose against the background of the past. These brawny workmen of all the races and religions of the Republic—Czech, Slovak, Bohemian, German, Catholics, Protestants, Jews—are examples of the Czechoslovak democracy as we grew to know it this year.

Czechoslovakia's constitution was modeled on that of the United States of America, and her general national policy was based on the ideals of the League of Nations and collective security. After Austria had been swallowed up by Germany, the world's attention turned to Czechoslovakia, and the press of the world was anxiously read by everybody in Prague. Here, in the center of the city, in the Wenceslas Square, the newsstands did a rushing business in papers from all countries.

Gas masks and precautions against air raids suddenly became a matter of great popular concern after the Anschluss, in spite of the reassuring declarations made by Herr Hitler and General Field Marshal Hermann Göring, in spite even of the solemn guarantees made to Czechoslovakia by the great powers who were her protectors and allies. There were too many copies of Hitler's Mein Kampf available to make the present German declarations quite convincing.

Instructions in the dangers and results of air raids and in the consequences to be expected from the use of deadly chemicals and poison gas were given in the factories and schools. Workers, women, and children were taught what to expect from the pirates of the air and how to guard against it.

A lively interest in all European culture was mixed with this anxiety for the future. Volk means war and everyone knew where the threat came from.

The bookshops in the center of the town displayed the works of great progressive authors. Most of them were forbidden in Nazi Germany and Austria.

There was no censorship in Prague. New books dealing with the present state of Europe, the dangers threatening all democracies, and the fate of Austria were of special interest, and with good reason.

For the Nazi terror sweeping over Austria as it had swept over Germany a few years before, drove thousands of refugees across the border into Czechoslovakia after March 12th. Tens of thousands came to seek freedom, security, and a chance to live.

Jews, Catholics, Socialists, Democrats, Liberals, intellectuals, a cross-section of the whole Austrian population took refuge here, and were cared for by the relief committees of Prague. Funds for their food, clothing, and shelter were provided by the religious communities, the trades unions, and others, with help from the public authorities and from abroad.

Thousands of German political exiles had taken refuge in Czechoslovakia even earlier. Some of these people had been here for five years, since 1933. Others had escaped more recently from Nazi concentration camps.

Anti-fascists of working families, for the most part not Jewish, they had been cared for all this time by their friends of the Czechoslovak trade unions. Their children grew in exile, born refugees. Even so, their parents tried to maintain their connection with the tradition of German culture as it had existed before Hitler.

Jew and Aryan fared alike among the babies. They had not yet heard of the Nazi racial law.

Meanwhile, Hitler's annexation of Austria had given great encouragement to Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German Party, the Sudeten Deutsche Partei or SDP. Closely allied to the German Nazis even then was the organization of that part of the Bohemian German minority which represented Herr Hitler's wedge into Czechoslovakia.

At this time, they still pretended to be loyal citizens of the Czechoslovak Republic to which their elected representatives had sworn allegiance. After the Anschluss victory, the propaganda of the Henlein Party flourished exceedingly, protected by the political freedom ensured by the Czech constitution.

Tongues of Nazi propaganda, photographs, leaflets, signs, and newspapers were brought in from Germany. Guns, too, which the young men were secretly trained to use.

The crowds here in Eger were waiting for the return of the local Nazi leader, Konrad Henlein, from his first visit to Hitler after the Anschluss. Henlein's return was an open demonstration of Nazi force in that part of Czechoslovakia, and an open declaration by his party that their real allegiance was to Adolf Hitler.

A fortune in German money was spent on the creation and agitation of wholly new sentiments among these citizens, especially among the young men. The sentiment that German race is above all other races, the sentiment of German nationality to which these people had never belonged in the past.

The young Nazis eagerly accepted a doctrine which enabled them to march, drill, and salute as superior beings consecrated by the Nazi mission. Out of Henlein's mouth, of course, came the blood and race propaganda of his master, Adolf Hitler.

And the German dictator, in speeches calculated to arouse his Nazi followers, openly supported the Henlein storm troopers in their campaign against democratic Czechoslovakia.

Despite all the talk about German blood and race and culture, the real objectives of these gentlemen were to be found in the wealth of Southeastern Europe. The grain, meat, oil, and other resources of Romania, the Ukraine, and the whole Danube region, to which the road lay through Czechoslovakia.

As Bismarck said, Bohemia is the key to Europe.

Democratic Czechoslovakia, heavily fortified all around, protected by two solemn treaties of guarantee from France and one contingent treaty with Soviet Russia, barred the way to the Nazi advance.

This great German dream of conquest was not new when Hitler began to realize it. Since Bismarck, the Drang nach Osten, the drive eastward, has been a vital part of the whole German imperial ambition with the object of making German wealth and power so great in the East that in Western Europe, too, they must prevail.

The most popular comedians of Czechoslovakia were Voskovec and Werich of the Liberated Theatre in Prague. Voskovec and Werich had their own map of Europe.

"Europa: Berlin, French blouse, a Russian skirt, a safety pin made in..."

"Hey. You what?"

"Hey, you, what do you want?"

"People."

David David was small and smart. "I'll find Mirka."

Here was a typical Czech girl of high school age interested in doing what she could to strengthen that safety pin.

In a high school, one like thousands of others in democratic Czechoslovakia, the Sudeten Germans were an important topic of discussion. On this day, Mirka's teacher asked her to read a composition about her work.

Mirka's work was characteristic of a sincere effort that was made throughout Czechoslovakia at this time. This story which she now tells us is of her journeys out to the German-speaking areas of the north and west on missions of friendship to the children of German anti-fascists, many of whom had already suffered from Nazi aggression.

She leaves Prague, she tells us, on the journey toward the Sudetenland with presents from Czech children to German children in the solidarity organization. They cross the historic Charles Bridge over the River Moldau. Past the cathedral of St. Nicholas. And climb the castle hill.

Then take the road to Carlsbad and Eger, also called by their historic Czech names, Karlovy Vary and Cheb.

At Heinrich Grün, a village in the German-speaking area, about seven miles from the German frontier, Mirka reaches her destination and greets her Sudeten friends in a celebration of solidarity. The presents from Prague are welcome here.

Things have not gone too well lately with these children of German Democrats. Of the German-speaking citizens in the Czechoslovak Republic, almost one-third were trades union members, social democrats, liberals, Jews, Catholics, and other anti-Nazis. All were at the mercy of the Henlein Hitler young men.

The puppet show was a favorite diversion of Sudetenland children and had a long tradition in Bohemia, where wood carving was an old folk art. Müller's work for solidarity typified a great deal of the spirit of Czechoslovakia at this time, of the people always in the majority, whose only wish was to be left in peace.

Throughout the rich fields of Bohemia, part of which the Nazis had rebaptized to Sudetenland, these peasants pursue the work of ages together. Theirs is a soil that has yielded abundantly throughout many centuries.

In the Czechoslovak government's public works for the relief of industrial unemployment, Czech and German-speaking citizens of the Sudeten areas worked side by side.

The same was true of the traditional Bohemian industries, the making of musical instruments, toys, and glass.

The glass-blowing trade was an ancient one among the Bohemian Germans, or Sudeten Germans as they had now begun to be called. Many Czechs had entered the work in modern times and had joined their fellow workers in the Sudeten trade unions.

Economic depression had hit Bohemia as well as the rest of the world. The Slovak government, like other governments, had at first been slow to appreciate its gravity.

Herr Hitler, disregarding the widespread misery and hunger in Germany, blamed the whole depression in Bohemia on the Czech government. But often, as in the case of this factory near Heinrichsbrunn, the industry was German-owned. The owner lived in Vienna, safe under the swastika, and closed down his factory because the world markets would no longer give him a satisfactory profit.

The workers, German and Czech, thus thrown out of their jobs, were forced into the crude and dangerous wildcat mining that was still practiced in the district.

In these critical times, the Nazi propaganda and terror machine was relentless. Under orders from Dr. Goebbels, the Berlin Central Radio Station broadcast 922 attacks on the Czech Republic in one month's time and openly threatened Sudeten Germans who dared, like these poor miners, to oppose the Henlein storm troopers of the district.

German and Czech workers who had been victims of Nazi roughhouse tactics in the area planned a big meeting for solidarity. The Nazi terror could not silence them. Their speakers did not pretend there was nothing wrong, no corrections to be made, but they did declare their determination to right the wrongs by democratic, peaceful methods.

These Sudeten German Democrats had faith in their government. Out of a German-speaking population of three and a half million, about a million were opposed to the Nazis.

There were, of course, big German minorities in all the neighboring countries, not only in Czechoslovakia. And Herr Hitler, in Mein Kampf, had proclaimed himself the champion of all German-speaking people outside the German Reich.

The Germans in Poland, for instance, had only two parliamentary representatives. Those in Hungary, none. Those in Yugoslavia, two. And those in the Italian Tyrol, none. While the Germans of Czechoslovakia had 36 deputies.

The question of German language schools should have interested Herr Hitler's culture-loving soul. There were none at all in the Italian Tyrol. There were over 5,000 German language schools in Czechoslovakia. German language newspapers in these non-German states—those in Italy were severely censored. The 249 in Czechoslovakia were free and uncensored, even when they attacked the state and its president, Dr. Eduard Beneš.

The last annual figure for German language book editions—in Czechoslovakia, German book editions were uncensored.

Membership figures for the German language trade unions: such unions are not permitted in Italy, Germany's fellow champion of the rights of minorities. The membership in the Sudeten unions reached nearly 400,000.

And Czechoslovakia could truthfully answer Hitler's attacks with proofs that her German-speaking citizens had more rights than any other German-speaking minority in Europe. But Nazi propaganda was stronger than the truth, and racial excitement took the place of reasoning.

In the preparations for the May elections, which were worked up like a plebiscite for the choice of a nationality, every effort was made to arouse the Nazi fever among the German citizens of Czechoslovakia, so that they would go out and vote for Henlein and his master, Hitler.

The Anschluss victory had filled the local Nazis with political passion, in which they were ready to believe anything from the German side. The German-speaking frontier areas were filled with rumors that the German army might march in any day, any night.

On election day, the local Nazi storm troopers divided the area among themselves on the block system and routed out all the voters. Sudeten Germans in the government service, such as these firemen in Czech uniforms, helped the storm troopers and did not permit any citizens of German race or language to stay at home on that day. They visited the public institutions in Carlsbad, Eger, and Asch, and other towns of the area, and took the aged, the lame, the halt, and the blind down to the polls.

Two of these old people died that evening after voting for Konrad Henlein and his master.

In a rising state of excitement and steadily worked up by the German radio in an unparalleled effort of propaganda, the Nazis awaited the great party rally fixed for May 20th at Aussig, which was to have been the signal of their victory. The German radio was indefatigable, pouring out racial and national hysteria mixed with wild attacks upon the Czech government.

On May 20th, Konrad Henlein was to have spoken to his followers, who had been stirred to a real frenzy by this time. But Hitler called him to Germany instead, and two of the German deputies in the Czechoslovak parliament took Henlein's place to proclaim the coming of the day.

Czechoslovakia's answer was to mobilize their army. And without even waiting for assurance from her allies, this free democracy defied an immensely more powerful dictatorship.

President Beneš, with Generals Krejci and Syrový, directed the mobilization. On May 21st, the frontiers were guarded.

And Czechoslovakia's soldiers faced the German Reich at a distance of a few yards. The Czechs barricaded all the frontier roads so as to resist not only in their fortifications, but upon the first few yards of Czech soil that might be invaded.

Behind these first barricades on the North Bohemian Hills, the army took its advanced positions in front of the great underground line of fortifications, the so-called Maginot Line. Looking opposite to the hills of Saxony, the Czech Maginot Line was a copy of and an improvement upon the French one. It had been built under the supervision of the French General Staff, and the German generals had reason to fear the cost of storming these heavily fortified bullwarks.

All Europe expected war for a few days. While the Czechs, calm and resolute, stood their ground.

When war did not come, the children of German Democrats in these frontier villages played with their Czech comrades in a game they called "Gegen Faschismus," a sort of knock-the-Nazi-down. Their elders, German Democrats and Czechs, celebrated the peace together.

When Hitler did not march and the Sudetenland was not annexed to Germany, the Henlein movement took a severe setback. But Henlein restored some measure of the old frenzy to his followers in the great party funeral given to two Nazi storm troopers who had been killed on the frontier May 20th by Czech guards. They had been shot while carrying messages across from Germany.

Henlein storm troopers had routed out the voters as systematically as they had routed out the voters a few days before.

They went from house to house in Eger and surrounding towns and made it known that all who did not turn out for their propaganda parade would be set down as enemies of the party.

Henlein smiles and says, "This is a good show." The funeral at Eger was an important and significant event in the unfolding of the Nazi conspiracy in Czechoslovakia.

Many of the people assembled here were misled by the charges of the Nazi agitators, but thousands who were not Henlein party members had attended only in fear of the storm troopers' threats.

No, this is not a scene from the Dark Ages.

This is the Nazi way.

The news of the funeral, of the demonstration there, and of Hitler's official part in it, spread like wildfire through the Bohemian German areas.

Again, Henlein and the storm troopers warned all citizens of German race to expect the German army any day, any night.

But the Czechs stood firm and calm behind their barricades, ready for whatever might come.

On this occasion, the British, French, and Russians stood by the cause of public order in Europe, and Hitler did not dare to march.

The Sokol Congress, the following month in Prague, took on the aspect of a victory celebration for Czechoslovakia, for world peace and democracy.

Sokol delegates from all over the country and from neighboring Slavic countries marched to the great Masaryk Stadium in June.

These girls had come all the way from Lithuania to dance.

And these peasants from the Ukraine.

Yugoslav sailors, sent by their government as a sign of friendship to Czechoslovakia, went through their drill.

These people marched in their thousands for freedom and peace.

Prague in those days was happy and confident.

As the summer wore on, workers in agriculture and industry, in all the fields of national life, continued with their jobs on the assumption that the peace obtained in May would endure.

The handiwork of the Slovak peasants, brilliant with color, was a folk industry which had never decayed.

Great forests of the Ruthenian Ukraine, in the east of Czechoslovakia, continued to supply their timber.

This too was a fertile area marked out for conquest by Hitler in Mein Kampf.

The factories everywhere were busy.

Bata's highly mechanized shoe working prospered.

At Pilsen, in the western end of the country, the great Skoda armament plant kept going at full blast.

Skoda was by this year second only to Krupp among European producers of arms and munitions of war.

It made enough war material not only to equip the whole Czechoslovak army, but to supply 40 divisions of any allied army.

Control of this munitions output was an important element in the calculations of the Führer of Germany.

The solidarity camp for Czech and German children had a good time this summer, too.

This was a big day in the camp because Voskovec and Werich, the favorite comedians, were expected on one of their visits.

Our friend Mirko was a camp counselor here.

All the children, German and Czech, could sing the songs of Voskovec and Werich.

This pair occupied a very special place in Czechoslovakia and could popularize a song or a slogan in a few days.

They were idols of the public and their political satire was exactly suited to a people living perpetually under a threat.

The children knew their repertoire nearly as well as the comedians themselves did, especially the new song for defense of the country, which Voskovec and Werich called "Against the Storm."

The storm, of course, being Nazi Germany.

Lord Runciman, of course, had come to Czechoslovakia in midsummer to mediate between the Czechoslovak Republic and its Nazi German citizens.

But this order was quick to come after Hitler's speech at Nuremberg on September 12th.

The Nazi young men had been thoroughly organized for violence and were only waiting for Hitler's signal.

The melancholy lines of refugees formed again.

New refugees now from sections of Czechoslovakia itself.

Czechs, Germans, and Jews driven from their homes in the Bohemian frontier villages by Nazi terror.

The victims of another Anschluss which was not yet complete.

In German frontier towns facing Czechoslovakia, the Nazi organizations staged violent meetings.

The fascist agitators openly called for the overthrow of the Czech state.

These demonstrations of German force incited the most desperate of Henlein's storm troopers in Sudetenland to do their fascist duty in night after night of terror.

At Habersbirk on the Czechoslovak frontier near Eger, the soldiers restored order after a terrible Nazi outbreak.

German Democrats, Czechs, Catholics, and Jews had been murdered in their beds, or sometimes shot down by snipers in the streets.

It made no difference how many centuries they and their people had lived in the Sudeten areas.

All who were not Nazis were marked as victims.

When order was restored, the authorities found a great many instruments of Nazi persuasion, including rubber truncheons of the German style, the same as those used in the Nazi concentration camps.

These, like the arms and munitions used for Nazi rioting, were imported from Germany.

Seven who died in this way, Czech and German anti-Nazis, were buried at Falkenau on the Eger line.

There were many other such funerals in the stricken areas claimed by the swastika.

Czech and German Democrats mourned their dead together.

At last, after Nazi rioting had gotten out of hand in many places throughout the Sudeten districts, President Beneš proclaimed martial law.

The SDP or Henlein Nazi Party, which had been allowed to carry on its murderous agitation all these months, was at last declared illegal.

The soldiers closed up Nazi Brown House headquarters in Carlsbad, Eger, and other cities. And Nazi newspapers, like Die Zeit. And old German workmen restored the Czech names on road and street signs.

The area had returned to public order under military law.

When on that same afternoon, Mr. Neville Chamberlain climbed the long road to Berchtesgaden.

Here at Herr Hitler's villa on the Obersalzberg mountain, the British Prime Minister accepted the principle of Hitler's claims. Accepted it under pressure of Hitler's threat to turn loose the Nazi army and air force against any nations that would try to aid the small democracy that he had singled out for destruction.

When the results of the deal at Berchtesgaden were imposed on the Czech nation by ultimatum, hundreds of thousands of people turned out in protest. It was a bewildered people singing and weeping by turns.

But we who were in Prague that night can never forget it. Women in the Parliament Square shouted at the government: "We give you our sons. Give them arms." The government heeded the people's will to resist and reorganized.

President Beneš proclaimed general mobilization.

The people welcomed mobilization, even though their last hour of peace seemed to have come. For they still believed in their allies.

The men of Czechoslovakia went off to what they fully expected would be war. A war in which Czechoslovakia must bear the brunt of the fight, but would be aided by those who had pledged to help her.

The spirit of the people in those days filled us all with admiration. We saw them going off to battle against the most ruthless military power the world has known. And although they could not hope to stand long alone against that tremendous force, they were ready to die so that their children might be assured of freedom.

They had a considerable military force of their own. For 20 years, they had been formidably organized for defense against the very danger that now threatened them.

The Czech army and air force were only 1/10 the size of Germany's, and they had no hope of holding out by themselves.

The outcome depended on their allies.

France had solemnly guaranteed the Czechoslovak Republic. England was pledged to France. The democratic powers had the firm alliance of Soviet Russia and other European countries. They had the sympathy of America and the whole non-fascist world.