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

The Czechs and Germans and the Birth
of Czechoslovakia
Czechs in Bosnia resurfaced, albeit as
an extreme opinion that was purely
ideological and quite unfeasible in terms
of realpolitik. Although it was scarcely
more than a political oddity, it did
reflect pan-German sentiments that had
been buoyed up by military successes at
that time. Moreover the idea was by no
means an aberration, as can be
demonstrated by the persecution and
expulsion of the Srem Serbs in 1914 or
37
constitution. The following year, the
German national demands were
developed even further in the “Easter
Programme”: The non-German nations
in Austria were not to threaten the preeminent
political and cultural status of
the Germans. This was to be the
Austrian contribution to the underlying
idea of a German Mitteleuropa,
formulated in 1915 by Friedrich
Naumann in his well-known treatise of
Leading Czech politicians Karel Kramáfi (left) and Alois Ra‰ín (right).
In 1916 they were condemned to death but amnestied
a year later by the new Emperor.
the Trentino Italians in the years 1915-
16; in Germany the idea of expelling the
Poznan Poles was again mooted. In the
spring of 1915, the Union of German
National Deputies in the Reichsrat
(Imperial Diet) drafted a list of demands
including the establishment of a
constitutional union of Austria and
Germany and the creation of a customs
union between them. The proposal also
included the renewed demand for hiving
off Galicia from “the Austrian Empire”
so as to ensure German superiority
within it, as well as the demand for
German to be introduced as the official
language. The union with the German
Reich was also to be enshrined in the
Chapter II
the same name. His scheme for
Germany’s political domination of
central Europe was more significant and
convincing at that time than the more
extreme ideas that involved resettlement
of populations.
This policy that threatened to nullify
all the achievements of Czech
politicians in the course of their years of
cohabitation with the Austrian
Germans and “the Crown”, gradually
aroused the disgust of the Czechs and
led to a hatred of the “yellow and black”
monarchy in most cases, combined with
a desire for emancipation and the
creation of their own Czech and Slovak
state – initially under the protection or