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

Chapter III
possible practical sanction against an
intransigent state was to bring the
matter before the world public. The
actual methods adopted were thus at
variance with the provisions of the legal
norms; they were adapted to the needs
of the moment and particularly to the
international circumstances. The person
who had most influence on the way the
system operated in practice was Erik
Colban, Director of the Minorities
Section of the League of Nations
Secretariat, which helped to deal with
petitions and collected information
about the different countries. Its
members also made visits to those areas,
including Czechoslovakia, which was
very important for the situation of those
minorities.
Petitions addressed to the League of
Nations concerned many different
issues. Some of them criticised
constitutional provisions, in others
individuals demanded their rights and
complained about injustices. Many
leaders of the minorities movement
fully realised that their demands were
unrealistic and simply used petitions as
Czechs and Germans in a Democratic
Czechoslovakia, 1918-1938
72
a means of creating difficulties for the
countries they lived in. The Council of
the League was aware of that risk in the
minorities’ activity, and of their contacts
with the Nazis, for instance. It was
usually loath to take action against
states on account of their minorities.
However, when a major power
(particularly Great Britain) regarded a
minorities problem as a risk to
European peace, it was always ready to
A very touchy issue of the minorities was education.The Czech cartoon of the
man-eating giant of 1895 (left) highlighted the fact that over 20,000 Czech children
were obliged to attend German schools.The German cartoon from 1920 tried
to suggest that the Czechs acted as colonisers towards the Germans
and abducted their children to Czech schools.
debate the matter in the Council and
put pressure on a country, even outside
the framework of the treaties.
Czechoslovakia was one of the
countries against which many of the
petitions were directed. Most often the
German minority submitted them to the
League of Nations. On November 1,
1920, for instance, the German Union
for Democratic Control submitted a
petition headed “Repression of
minorities, the requisition of the Estates
Theatre and threats to Dr. Wien-Claudi
and his family”. On May 15, 1922, the
German Parliamentary Union (the
deputies of the German parties in
Czechoslovakia, apart from the Social