The Balance Sheet of Ethnic Changes

Abstract

The extent to which individual nationalities supported or opposed the unitary statehood of the First Czechoslovak Republic is illustrated in Table 4.1. The percentages of the vote cast for the autonomist or separatist political parties of individual ethnic groups indicate the degree of loyalty of these groups towards the Czechoslovak Republic as a unitary state. The juxtaposition of these percentages with the relative numerical strength of these ethnic groups in the state as a whole shows to what extent the First Republic could rely on its citizens when its very existence was threatened. The election data refer to the 1935 elections to the National Assembly (Lower House of the Parliament); these were the last parliamentary elections before Hitler launched his campaign against the Czechoslovak state and within three years succeeded in destabilising it.