the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

The Break up of Czechoslovakia and the Genesis
of the Transfer
the Sudeten Germans’ two attempts at
destroying the state and what they had
undergone at the hands of the Germans,
including the Sudeten Germans) sat on
the fence. Nevertheless he decided to
accept Jaksch’s official invitation to talks
on a Sudeten-German solution within
the framework of the post-war
Czechoslovak Republic.
He reacted favourably to Jaksch’s
conciliatory letter that accompanied a
Reinhard Heydrich was appointed by Hitler as a replacement for the “over moderate”
Konstantin von Neurath to finally put paid to the home resistance movement. His arrival
in Prague in September 1941 unleashed a brutal reign of terror. He is in the foreground
on the photograph with K.H.Frank beside him on the left.
copy of the Holmhurst resolution. He had
another meeting with Jaksch on July 4,
1940 and offered him six places in the
Council of State for Sudeten German
representatives and the post of deputychairman
for Jaksch himself. In response,
Jaksch did not rule out the possibility but
said that first of all it was necessary to
settle with the Beneš government the
demand for a declaration that after the
war the Sudeten-Germans would enjoy
equal rights.
At the end of October and the
beginning of November, however, the
home resistance protested against the
171
Chapter IV
entry of German representatives into the
Council of State. In this situation Beneš
had to manoeuvre between two mill
stones. He replied by radiogram to the
home resistance on November 18, 1940.
He warned them that the programme of
the resistance must not be governed by
“feelings of vengeance and hatred” (even
if justified), but “by the lasting interests
of the nation and state”. These he
considered to be first of all the
preservation of Czech national territory,
which would counter the Sudeten
Germans’ demand for a closed German
territory and the Greater German
programme for German living space
(Beneš used the term “Lebensraum”
somewhat ironically also in respect of
Czech demands). They could not both
be settled with the area delimited by the
Munich border; so that border had to go.
The President did not describe the
future frontiers directly as “pre-Munich”
but as “essentially historical”, leaving
scope for certain pragmatically conceived
rectifications. On the territory bordered