Czechoslovakia’s Crucifixion of 1938

by Norman Berdichevsky (February 2018)
 

Adolf Hitler at Prague Castle, March 16, 1939 (photo credit: Bundesarchiv/Wikipedia)

 

 

n 1938, Lawrence Morrell, a British journalist, was sent by his newspaper to report on the “Czech Crisis” threatening war between Nazi Germany and the Anglo-French Alliance which, along with the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Romania, had pledged themselves to come to the aid of the beleaguered country in case of German aggression. His book, I Saw the Crucifixion (London, Peter Davies, 1939), was a cry of despair over how Britain and the other Great Powers had betrayed Czechoslovakia. The moral blindness of western Europe made the transfer of valuable resources and strategic strengths to Nazi Germany and paved the way toward the inevitability of World War II.

 

He was born in Lancashire, England, and began his career there in 1930 as a reporter for The Manchester Daily Herald. Later he was a foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express in Vienna, Prague, Budapest and the Middle East.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morrell describes the sense of elation and pride across the world on the part of emigrant communities who participated in the Sokol Athletic Movement and the celebration of its annual festival:

 

A Huge stadium on a hill, with a line of hills beyond it . . . Then suddenly figures in white coming through two wide gates into the arena, marching in line . . . 32,000 of them coming nearer . . . Of all the mass displays I have ever seen, this was far and away the greatest . . . The athletes in the arena were Slavs from all corners of the earth. But this was no ordinary acrobatic festival. With the exception of the Poles and the Russians, every branch of the Slav race sent its sokols to Prague and the Czechs saw in this display a token of the unity of the Slav people; and when they cheered, they were cheering their brothers from all corners of the earth. (pp.71-72 ); see illustration.

 

 

fighters (transferred secretly from Czechoslovak bases to Israel) and shot down five British-piloted Spitfires flying for the Egyptian air-force over the Sinai desert (see illustration) causing a major diplomatic embarrassment for the British government. Since May, 2005, the Prague Military Museum has displayed a special exhibition on the Czechoslovak aid to Israel in 1948.

 

 

 

At the Nuremburg trial, Gen. Wilhelm Keitel, the German chief of staff, said The High command had been greatly relieved by the Munich Agreement because, “We did not believe ourselves strong enough at that moment to take Czechoslovakia.”

 

Even more shocking were the later revelations that a serious plot had existed in the German Army High Command to arrest and depose Hitler if he provoked general war by attacking Czechoslovakia (The so-called Oster Conspiracy). General Hans Oster, deputy head of the Abwehr, opposed the regime that threatened to engage Germany in a war that he believed it was not ready to fight, discussed overthrowing Hitler and the Nazi regime through a planned storming of the Reich Chancellery by forces loyal to the plot.

 

The prominent American historian William Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), took the view that, although Hitler was not bluffing about his invasion plans, Czechoslovakia would have been able to offer significant resistance, even going so far as to claim that the Western allies would have been able to pursue a rapid and successful war against Germany.

 

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