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

Chapter III
spoke only English). In the USA and in
other states of the Americas, the
minorities issue was regarded as a purely
European problem, and the idea of
protection for the minorities on their
territories was utterly unacceptable –
immigrants were expected to assimilate
rapidly. From that brief glance at the
situation in Italy, France, Britain and
the USA, which were the creators and
subsequently the de facto supervisors of
Czechs and Germans in a Democratic
Czechoslovakia, 1918-1938
Prague
Bohemia
the inter-war system of minorities
protection, it is clear that they did not
honour the principle of protection in
their own countries. Moreover, the
situation in Britain and the USA
differed so much from conditions in
continental Europe and the knowledge
of the leaders of those countries often
had only a very hazy idea of the
situation abroad, which had a
detrimental effect on the creation and
operation of the system of minorities
protection.
The world power most concerned
with the minorities issue in the interwar
period was Germany, due to the fact
that enormous numbers of Germans
lived outside its borders. Germany
readily presented itself internationally as
78
a champion of (not only German)
minorities and a promoter of their
international protection, even though its
policy at home towards its own large
minorities (1,700,000 Poles and
130,000 Lusatian Sorbs) was far from
favourable. Admittedly, article 113 of
the Weimar Constitution dealt with
minorities, but it was never
implemented because of extensive
restrictions. Due to the suppression of
Moravia
The total area of Deutschböhmen (German Bohemia) in October 1918.
minority education, for instance, a large
majority of the minority populations
remained illiterate in their mother
tongue. Only about a third of the
Lusatian Sorbs, for instance, could write
in their own language. After the Nazi
regime took power, however, the
minorities were completely deprived of
their rights, their activists were
imprisoned or executed, minority
education was abolished, organisations
were disbanded and publishing activity
was stopped. Even the private use of the
minority language was prohibited. In
spite of its own internal minorities
policy, the Nazi regime happily took
advantage of minority movements in
support of its own ends. This was
particularly the case of German