Abstract
The eventful year of 1938 culminated for Czecho-Slovakia1 with the Munich conference of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany at the end of September 1938. The Munich conference shook the Czecho-Slovak state to its foundations and affected its relations with Poland. After the Anschluss of Austria in March of 1938 by Germany, Polish diplomacy sought to link the question of the Polish minority in Czecho-Slovakia to the question of the German minority. Warsaw demanded that Czecho-Slovakia accord the same rights to the Polish minority as to any minority in the state. During critical moments in the fall of 1938, Poland benefited from mounting pressure from Germany and the Franco-British coupling on the Czecho-Slovak government. Czecho-Slovakia sought Polish neutrality, but Warsaw took advantage of Prague’s difficulties to renew old territorial demands. Prague had to give in to Polish demands in October and November of 1938, but the outbreak of the German-Polish war in September 1939 prevented longer-lasting effects of these border rectifications.2
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Notes
K. Papée to MSZ, Prague, No.7/C/2, 13 March 1938, AAN, Ambasada RP w Berlinie, t. 56, 7–12; Deák, Zápas o strednú Európu 1933–1938, 239, 247. For more on the Anschluss, see Anna M. Cienciala, “The Anschluss,” in Poland and the Western Powers 1938–1939 (University of Toronto Press, 1968), 30–53.
Minister Beck’s answer to the proposals of Minister Bonnet, 24 May 1938, in Wacław Jędrzejewicz, ed., Diplomat in Paris, 1936–1939: Papers and Memoirs of Juliusz Łukasiewicz Ambassador of Poland (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1970), 90–1; CSZP-38, vol. 1, 288, 290; Papée to MSZ, Prague, No.52/C/10, 4 May 1938, AAN, Ambasada RP w Berlinie, t. 56, 52–3; Report of Foreign Minister Krofta to the Czecho-Slovak Legations in France, Britain, and Germany on the governmental program of the Nationalities Statute, Prague, 12 April 1938, CSZP-38, vol. 1, Doc. No. 199, 314–15. Krofta explained, “7) We adopted measures to eliminate [our] policy of pin-pricks [politika pichání špendlíkem] in the gendarmerie and the police, justice, tax collection and administration, at the railways and postal offices, and we established ad hoc inspectorates to resolutely get rid of linguistic and national quarrels” (ibid.).
Report of Envoy Osuský on Minister Bonnet-Ambassador Lukasiewicz conversation, Paris, 4 June 1938, CSZP-38, vol. 1, No. 339, 508–9; Notes of Slávik-Kobylański Conversation, Warsaw, 3 June 1938, CSZP-38, vol. 1, No. 335, 493–6; Letter No. R.348. b. 77-L of K. Ripa on the transit of the Slovak delegation from the USA through Poland, Pittsburgh, 22 January 1938. Secret., in Zbigniew Landau and Jerzy Tomaszewski, eds, Monachium. Polskie dokumenty diplomatyczne [Munich 1938: Polish Diplomatic Documents] (hereafter Monachium) (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1985), Doc. No.7, 35–7. Foreign Minister Beck received Envoy Slávik on 11 June 1938. Slávik wrote to Prague, “Minister Beck explained in great detail that since the Slovaks were closest to the Poles, it was quite natural that they nurtured certain sympathies towards them, and that he [Beck] himself understood the Slovaks well, whereas he [Beck] did not understand the Czechs. The Poles never had any problems with the Slovaks, and in Teschen Silesia had troubles only with the Czechs. The Slovaks were Catholics like the Poles.” Slávik’s notes of his conversation with Foreign Minister Beck, Warsaw, 11 June 1938, CSZP-38, vol. 1, No. 350, 524–9.
Deák, Zápas o strednú Európu 1933–1938, 260; CSZP-38, vol. 2, No. 651, 343–5; ibid., No. 627, 336. The origins of the British-French ultimatum contributed to a political controversy. Rumors appeared blaming Beneš, that he attributed responsibility to the French and British “Munichites.” Beneš hated Georges Bonnet for his insinuation that Prague had requested the Anglo– French ultimatum. See Edward Taborsky, President Edvard Benes: Between East and West, 1938–1948 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1981), 69–70.
Igor Lukes, Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 1930s (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 255–8; Polish Telegraphic Agency, 29 September 1938, AAN, Ambasada RP w Waszyngtonie, t. 212, 39–41; Polish Telegraphic Agency, 30 September 1938, AAN, Ambasada RP w Waszyngtonie, t. 212, 42–4.
The HSL’S refused to declare Slovakia’s independence; it would make it dependent on Poland. Kirschbaum, “Slovakia in Interwar Central European Relations,” 225. Beneš resigned on 5 October 1938: “I believe I am acting rightly in leaving so that our State and nation can develop quietly and undisturbed in the new atmosphere and adapt itself to the new conditions.” Theodore Prochazka, Sr., The Second Republic: The Disintegration of Post-Munich Czechoslovakia (October 1938–March 1939) (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1981), 13; also Memoirs of Dr. Eduard Benes, 29. Beneš did not regret his behavior during the Munich crisis and its undoing became his political raison d’être in the coming years.
Military Attaché to the Supreme Command in Warsaw, Prague, 18 March 1939, Secret. No. 74/39, AAN, Ambasada RP w Pradze, t. 25, 1–2; Joseph A. Mikus, La Slovaquie dans le drame de l’Europe (Paris: Les îles d’or, 1955), 160. V. Bystrický states the incorrect date of the signing of the Schutzvertrag of 13 March 1939. Valerián Bystrický, “Slovakia from the Munich Conference to the Declaration of Independence,” in Slovakia in History, 174. Negotiations on the Schutzvertrag had begun on 17 March and were concluded when the German Foreign Minister signed it on 23 March 1939 and the Slovak Prime Minister on 19 March 1939. Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia. Struggle for Survival (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 190.
Borák, “Ukradené” vesnice, 22–3. Senator Gwiždž described Slovakia in March of 1939: “there is a great disappointment. The Germans export from the country everything they can. The shops in Bratislava and in small towns are completely emptied [as a result of that]. The future régime of Slovakia is not yet set up. There is no doubt that Germany shall exercise economic and political control over Slovakia.” Szembek’s Notes of a Meeting with Senator Gwiždž (on train), 22 March 1939, in Szembek, Journal, 1933–1939, 433. In May of 1939, the Polish Army deployed subversive guerilla groups on the Slovak-Polish border. See Alfons Filar, U podnóia Tatr, 1939–1945. Podhale i Sqdecczyzna w walce z okupantem [At the Foot of the Tatras, 1939–1945: The Podhale and the Sqdecczyzna during the War with an Occupier] (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1985), 41.
Toman Brod, Osudný omyl Edvarda Beneše 1939–1948. Československá cesta do sovětského područí [The Fateful Mistake of Edvard Beneš 1939–1948: The CzechoSlovak Road to the Soviet Tutelage] (Praha: Academia, 2002), 30. Three Slovak army divisions participated in the German-Polish war.
Dušan Segeš, Dvojkríž v siločiarach bieleho orla. Slovenská otázka v politike poľskej exilovej vlády za 2. sv. vojny [The Slovak Cross as an Object of Interest of the White Eagle: The Slovak Question in the Policy of the Polish Government-in-Exile during World War II] (Bratislava: Veda, 2009), 33.
For more on the 1939 campaign against Poland see Igor Baka, Slovenská republika a nacistická agresia proti Poľsku [The Slovak Republic and the National Socialist Aggression against Poland ](Bratislava: Vojenský historický ústav, 2006);
Martin Lacko, ed., Proti Poľsku. Odraz ť aženia roku 1939 v denníkoch a kronikách slovenskej armády [Against Poland: The Impact of the 1939 Campaign in the Slovak Army Diaries and Chronicles] (Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa, 2007).
Robert Machray, The Polish-German Problem: Poland’s Western Provinces Are the Condition of Her Independence (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1941), 13; Borák, “Ukradené” vesnice, 19; Janusz Berghauzen, “Polityka okupanta hitlerowskiego na Podhalu w okresie II wojny światowej,” in Podhale w czasie okupacji 1939–1945, 14; Barbara Halbert, “Goralenvolk,” in Podhale w czasie okupacji 1939–1945, 89; Filar, U podnóża Tatr, 1939–1945. Podhale i Sądecczyzna w walce z okupantem, 20–1. The German authorities issued 2,500 Goral and 8,000 Polish ID cards in Zakopane (ibid.).
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Jesenský, M. (2014). (Un)Doing Injustices. In: The Slovak-Polish Border, 1918–1947. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137449641_6
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