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

Czechs and Germans in a Democratic
Czechoslovakia, 1918-1938
Democrats, put up a powerful resistance
to the proposed German župy as
possible bulwarks of irredentism. Much
was made of the somewhat exaggerated
fears of oppression of the Czech
minorities there. Other politicians, such
as T.G.Masaryk, were willing to accord
the Germans fairly extensive rights,
which included the German župy
planned under the local-government
reform. Their assumption was that
giving the Germans the opportunity to
run their own local government would
tend to reconcile them to the new
republic. The drafting of the “župa
reform”, which was a very hurried
process, called for compromises. As a
result local-government powers which
might be abused by the Germans were
fairly restricted and there was a lot of
gerrymandering in the division of the
territory in an effort to weaken the
position of the Germans and Magyars.
Some politicians were of the view that
the fragmentation of the territories they
inhabited would encourage assimilation.
In spite of those interventions, the
nationalist Right was still unhappy with
the reform and the passage of the bill
was extremely thorny. The “župa
reform” – Law No. 126/1920 on
establishing župy and district authorities
in the Czechoslovak Republic was
eventually adopted together with the
Constitution and various fundamental
laws on February 29, 1920.
The law was passed in February 1920
but the will was lacking to implement it
rapidly – because of the complexity of
the issue, the government itself would
have to decide when the reforms would
be implemented. After much shillyshallying
the župa reform eventually
came into force on January 1, 1923, but
only in Slovakia. The shortcomings of
the planned reforms and the continuing
opposition of the nationalists meant
that the reform was never introduced in
the Czech lands. The National
Democrats, the main opponents of the
župy and democratisation of public
administration, joined the government
and in 1927 helped steer through a law
on the organisation of public
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Chapter III
administration. This involved
abandoning the župa system; the main
unit of administration remained the
země or province, and the
administrative powers of the centre were
considerably strengthened. This meant
that the scope for the minorities –
particularly the Germans – to run their
own local government were greatly
restricted.
The German question had a major
influence on the issue of localgovernment
reform in the First
Republic. But it must be realised that
reform is always a complex matter with
a whole lot of practical organisational
and financial ramifications. Hence the
national question was linked with a
whole lot of other practical issues, and
its significance must be seen in the light
of them.
A COMPARISON OF THE STATUS
OF MINORITIES IN
CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND
ELSEWHERE
If one is to make a historically relevant
assessment of the situation of the
German minority in Czechoslovakia,
one must take into account the situation
of minorities in other countries. It is
necessary to assess not only the situation
of the Germans but also the situation of
minorities in general, particularly in the
states of central and eastern Europe,
which, in common with
Czechoslovakia, were bound by
international undertakings to protect
their minorities and were to a certain
extent under the oversight of the
League of Nations. The objection is
sometimes voiced that there were so
many Germans in the first
Czechoslovak Republic that they could
not be regarded as a minority. At the
international level, however, the
Germans in Czechoslovakia were
regarded as a minority along with other
groups, and this was not objected to
either by Germany (virtually up to
Munich) or Austria. It is true, however,
that the Germans in Czechoslovakia
were one of the largest groups in both
relative and absolute terms.