Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (77 page)
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Authors: Peter Demetz
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Masaryk at first did not want to participate in public discussion of
the case, but Sigismund Münz, a former Vienna student, asked him about his views, published them in the Vienna liberal
Neue Freie Presse,
and prompted Masaryk to investigate the legal procedures against Hilsner; by 1900, Masaryk had published a number of analyses of the trial and its implications. At that time, many Jewish families in the countryside (among them my Jewish grandfather) fled to Prague because their shops and homes were being attacked by local patriots, and the government persecuted Masaryk for allegedly interfering with the process of justice. Ji
í Kovtun, curator of the Slavic division of the Library of Congress, who recently has written the definitive story of the Hilsner case and its repercussions, comes close to saying that Masaryk did not really care about Hilsner personally but only about the principles involved; it is certainly true that he did not have a high opinion of the young Polna drifter, who had never held a regular job (a cardinal sin in Masaryk’s view)—and yet, studying the Talmud and the Zohar, Masaryk was fighting a “European disease” for the sake of his own nation, which he wanted to be untouched by intellectual perversions. Leopold Hilsner had a sad life; after the Austrians let him go, against the wishes of a Czech court, he sold needles, beads, and combs from house to house, married, and died in Vienna in 1928. The historian Wilma Iggers reminds us that a Czech newspaper, on May 4, 1968, reported that Anežka Hr
zová’s brother on his deathbed in 1961 confessed that
he
had killed his sister: he had not wanted her to have the dowry she asked for.
the case, but Sigismund Münz, a former Vienna student, asked him about his views, published them in the Vienna liberal
Neue Freie Presse,
and prompted Masaryk to investigate the legal procedures against Hilsner; by 1900, Masaryk had published a number of analyses of the trial and its implications. At that time, many Jewish families in the countryside (among them my Jewish grandfather) fled to Prague because their shops and homes were being attacked by local patriots, and the government persecuted Masaryk for allegedly interfering with the process of justice. Ji
í Kovtun, curator of the Slavic division of the Library of Congress, who recently has written the definitive story of the Hilsner case and its repercussions, comes close to saying that Masaryk did not really care about Hilsner personally but only about the principles involved; it is certainly true that he did not have a high opinion of the young Polna drifter, who had never held a regular job (a cardinal sin in Masaryk’s view)—and yet, studying the Talmud and the Zohar, Masaryk was fighting a “European disease” for the sake of his own nation, which he wanted to be untouched by intellectual perversions. Leopold Hilsner had a sad life; after the Austrians let him go, against the wishes of a Czech court, he sold needles, beads, and combs from house to house, married, and died in Vienna in 1928. The historian Wilma Iggers reminds us that a Czech newspaper, on May 4, 1968, reported that Anežka Hrzová’s brother on his deathbed in 1961 confessed thathe
had killed his sister: he had not wanted her to have the dowry she asked for.
In later conversations with his friend the writer Karel Capek (published under the title “Masaryk Tells His Story”), Masaryk tried to suggest that he was, fundamentally, a shy man who disliked being in the limelight. He did not resist his friends, however, when they wanted to establish a political party of high intellectual standards in the wake of the Hilsner affair and make him its leader; it was to stand on its own feet rather than be dragged along by Young Czech or Agrarian organizations. The new group was called the Czech People’s Party, or rather Realists, and when general suffrage (for which Charlotte Masaryk demonstrated in the Prague streets) was granted in 1907, Masaryk, with the help of a few sympathetic Social Democrats, was elected to the Vienna parliament from a district in eastern Moravia together with another Realist from Bohemia; after new elections in 1911, when his colleague lost his mandate, he remained the one and only Realist in the Vienna Reichsrat. In 1908 Austria had annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the minister of foreign affairs tried to defend Austrian policies in the Balkan countries by a show trial in Zagreb of fifty-three Croatians accused of high treason, conspiracy,
and terrorism, and by the publication of documents (provided by a respected liberal scholar) showing the grip of the Slavic conspirators. Once again Masaryk was called on by his friends, or rather his former Prague students, to intervene; he traveled to Zagreb and Belgrade, where, on discovering a conspiracy of forgers within the Austrian diplomatic service, he immediately asked for a full parliamentary investigation. The result was that Emperor Franz Josef, citing “reasonable doubt” about the legal evidence in the case, quashed the Zagreb sentences, the scholar withdrew his documents, and Count Aehrenthal, the minister of foreign affairs, went on a long leave from which he did not return to office.
and terrorism, and by the publication of documents (provided by a respected liberal scholar) showing the grip of the Slavic conspirators. Once again Masaryk was called on by his friends, or rather his former Prague students, to intervene; he traveled to Zagreb and Belgrade, where, on discovering a conspiracy of forgers within the Austrian diplomatic service, he immediately asked for a full parliamentary investigation. The result was that Emperor Franz Josef, citing “reasonable doubt” about the legal evidence in the case, quashed the Zagreb sentences, the scholar withdrew his documents, and Count Aehrenthal, the minister of foreign affairs, went on a long leave from which he did not return to office.
When war came in 1914, Masaryk did not hurry; he witnessed the German mobilization at Bad Schandau, in Saxony, where he was spending a vacation; enjoying his parliamentary passport, he went twice to Holland to strengthen his British contacts, and at home began to establish a secret organization, his
Mafie,
to provide him with political information. Warned of the police, he left with his daughter Olga for Italy on December 18, 1914. When an Italian stationmaster at the border tried to stop him, he jumped back on the rolling train. He traveled light: for four years, in Paris, London, New York, Moscow, Siberia, and Washington, he conferred with foreign correspondents, ambassadors, prime ministers, and presidents to organize a new republic, which, for a long time, existed only in the realm of his Platonic ideas.
Mafie,
to provide him with political information. Warned of the police, he left with his daughter Olga for Italy on December 18, 1914. When an Italian stationmaster at the border tried to stop him, he jumped back on the rolling train. He traveled light: for four years, in Paris, London, New York, Moscow, Siberia, and Washington, he conferred with foreign correspondents, ambassadors, prime ministers, and presidents to organize a new republic, which, for a long time, existed only in the realm of his Platonic ideas.
Taking over power from the imperial and royal authorities on October 28-30, 1918, in an orderly and almost ceremonial way was one matter, but the consolidation of the new state within its intended borders was another. If Masaryk said that he did not sleep on the first night in Hrad
any Castle, it may have been only the first sleepless night of many yet to come. The new republic was to unify Czechs and Slovaks—as foreseen by the Pittsburgh agreement of June 30, 1918, with the Slovaks to enjoy an as yet unspecified autonomy, and even before Masaryk, the son of a Slovak father, had returned, Czech troops had started to push the Magyars out of Slovakia, and on February 14, 1919, Dr. Šrobár was able to set up an office in Bratislava; but in May, Red Army units of Béla Kun’s Communist government in Budapest were trying to take back Slovakia (one of their political commissars at the Slovak front was the young philosopher George Lukács); after considerable military gains, they withdrew
again under Allied pressure. The question of Bohemia’s German regions was not easily solved either. Insisting on their own Wilsonian concept of self-determination, the Germans had established four autonomous provinces—Deutsch-Böhmen (German Bohemia, with Reichenberg as its capital), Sudetenland (referring only to northern Moravia and Silesia), Deutsch-Südmähren (German southern Moravia), and the Böhmerwaldgau (Bohemian Forest)—declaring that they were all integral parts of a (Socialist) Republic of German-Austria which would, in turn, join Socialist Germany. The Allies immediately intervened against this plan, and postponed an
Anschluss
between Austria and Germany for twenty years. Within six weeks three Czech regiments had occupied the German regions, but the Germans went on hoping that the Allies would allow a plebiscite and on March 4, 1919, demonstrated in many towns to show their allegiance to Deutsch-Österreich. Czech units were trigger-happy, and in the confrontations fifty-two Germans died and more than eighty were wounded, but by September 1919 the peace conference of St. Germain confirmed that the German regions of Bohemia would be part of the historical lands of the new Czechoslovak Republic. On June 15, German citizens participated in its first communal elections, showing that more than half of the German population favored the Social Democrats; parliamentary elections of April 18, 1920, from which the Czech Social Democrats, the National Liberals, and the Agrarians emerged victorious, also confirmed that Socialists, Agrarians, and Catholics were in a significant majority among the Germans (with fifty-five seats), clearly prevailing over the two German nationalist groups (seventeen) set irrevocably against the republic. Slowly, Czech and German Socialists and Agrarians began exploring the chances of working together, but it took many years before they actually did.
any Castle, it may have been only the first sleepless night of many yet to come. The new republic was to unify Czechs and Slovaks—as foreseen by the Pittsburgh agreement of June 30, 1918, with the Slovaks to enjoy an as yet unspecified autonomy, and even before Masaryk, the son of a Slovak father, had returned, Czech troops had started to push the Magyars out of Slovakia, and on February 14, 1919, Dr. Šrobár was able to set up an office in Bratislava; but in May, Red Army units of Béla Kun’s Communist government in Budapest were trying to take back Slovakia (one of their political commissars at the Slovak front was the young philosopher George Lukács); after considerable military gains, they withdrewagain under Allied pressure. The question of Bohemia’s German regions was not easily solved either. Insisting on their own Wilsonian concept of self-determination, the Germans had established four autonomous provinces—Deutsch-Böhmen (German Bohemia, with Reichenberg as its capital), Sudetenland (referring only to northern Moravia and Silesia), Deutsch-Südmähren (German southern Moravia), and the Böhmerwaldgau (Bohemian Forest)—declaring that they were all integral parts of a (Socialist) Republic of German-Austria which would, in turn, join Socialist Germany. The Allies immediately intervened against this plan, and postponed an
Anschluss
between Austria and Germany for twenty years. Within six weeks three Czech regiments had occupied the German regions, but the Germans went on hoping that the Allies would allow a plebiscite and on March 4, 1919, demonstrated in many towns to show their allegiance to Deutsch-Österreich. Czech units were trigger-happy, and in the confrontations fifty-two Germans died and more than eighty were wounded, but by September 1919 the peace conference of St. Germain confirmed that the German regions of Bohemia would be part of the historical lands of the new Czechoslovak Republic. On June 15, German citizens participated in its first communal elections, showing that more than half of the German population favored the Social Democrats; parliamentary elections of April 18, 1920, from which the Czech Social Democrats, the National Liberals, and the Agrarians emerged victorious, also confirmed that Socialists, Agrarians, and Catholics were in a significant majority among the Germans (with fifty-five seats), clearly prevailing over the two German nationalist groups (seventeen) set irrevocably against the republic. Slowly, Czech and German Socialists and Agrarians began exploring the chances of working together, but it took many years before they actually did.
The spring and summer of 1920 were turbulent seasons, and by mid-November the disorders reached Prague again. Once again the national groups had a difficult time adjusting to each other; in the countryside, Czech soldiers, legionnaires, and Sokols, supported by nationalist journalists, were less than tolerant, and the Germans were unwilling or unable to grasp that they had grievously underrated the political potential of the Czechs, whom they had been looking down upon for so long. In late June, a legionnaire was found shot dead at Jihlava (Iglau), Czech soldiers and Sokols took over the town, disregarding the law, and all along the northern and western brim of Bohemia bitter fights erupted between Czechs wanting to do away with local German monuments, especially those to “the Germanizer,” Joseph II, and German townspeople defending his imperial
glory, possibly for the wrong reasons. When the poet J. S. Machar, by now inspector general of the Czechoslovak army, was asked about the matter, he told the new iconoclasts that Joseph II had been, really, a revolutionary acting from the top and had advanced new ideas with which republicans would certainly have to agree. He spoke in vain, of course, and Czechs and Germans went on fiercely disputing their monuments. In Asch, units fired into the crowd (killing and wounding people), in Podmokly (Bodenbach), a statue of Joseph II being absent, the Czechs wanted to vent their rage upon Friedrich Schiller of all people, and in Cheb (Eger), after the monument to Joseph was destroyed, Germans were said to have attacked a Czech school. In Prague, four Cheb schoolchildren, bandaged and looking miserable, were exhibited at the St. Wenceslas monument to stir up the people; on November 16, enraged demonstrators shouting “Revenge for Cheb!” began attacking the Jewish quarters, destroyed the archives of the Jewish town hall, burned Torah scrolls in front of the synagogue, and occupied the offices of Prague’s German newspapers, including the liberal
Prager Tagblatt;
led by actors from the National Theater, who had long wanted another stage, they occupied by force the Theater of the Estates, established under the protection of Joseph II to reconcile nations through the joys of art. (My father, who happened to be dramaturge at the time, was rudely removed from his office and to my mother’s surprise came home early for dinner.) Unfortunately, the crowds were encouraged by the strident newspapers and by Karel Baxa, Prague’s mayor, who had risen to political power on the anti-Semitic wave at the time of the Hilsner affair, defending the idea of ritual murder, and it took a few years before the legal questions were sorted out by the hesitant courts. Yet there were intelligent people who did not yield to the demands of the street, among them Professor Emanuel Rádl, who declared that the crowds and their supporters “by occupying German institutions [and] the German theater and by persecuting Jews” acted against the fundamental ideas of the republic. Masaryk, as stubborn as ever, never again attended a performance at the Theater of the Estates because he did not want to seem to approve of any disrespect for the law, by whomsoever.
glory, possibly for the wrong reasons. When the poet J. S. Machar, by now inspector general of the Czechoslovak army, was asked about the matter, he told the new iconoclasts that Joseph II had been, really, a revolutionary acting from the top and had advanced new ideas with which republicans would certainly have to agree. He spoke in vain, of course, and Czechs and Germans went on fiercely disputing their monuments. In Asch, units fired into the crowd (killing and wounding people), in Podmokly (Bodenbach), a statue of Joseph II being absent, the Czechs wanted to vent their rage upon Friedrich Schiller of all people, and in Cheb (Eger), after the monument to Joseph was destroyed, Germans were said to have attacked a Czech school. In Prague, four Cheb schoolchildren, bandaged and looking miserable, were exhibited at the St. Wenceslas monument to stir up the people; on November 16, enraged demonstrators shouting “Revenge for Cheb!” began attacking the Jewish quarters, destroyed the archives of the Jewish town hall, burned Torah scrolls in front of the synagogue, and occupied the offices of Prague’s German newspapers, including the liberal
Prager Tagblatt;
led by actors from the National Theater, who had long wanted another stage, they occupied by force the Theater of the Estates, established under the protection of Joseph II to reconcile nations through the joys of art. (My father, who happened to be dramaturge at the time, was rudely removed from his office and to my mother’s surprise came home early for dinner.) Unfortunately, the crowds were encouraged by the strident newspapers and by Karel Baxa, Prague’s mayor, who had risen to political power on the anti-Semitic wave at the time of the Hilsner affair, defending the idea of ritual murder, and it took a few years before the legal questions were sorted out by the hesitant courts. Yet there were intelligent people who did not yield to the demands of the street, among them Professor Emanuel Rádl, who declared that the crowds and their supporters “by occupying German institutions [and] the German theater and by persecuting Jews” acted against the fundamental ideas of the republic. Masaryk, as stubborn as ever, never again attended a performance at the Theater of the Estates because he did not want to seem to approve of any disrespect for the law, by whomsoever.
National conflicts became clashes of social interests, and in a city of rising prices and inflation, low wages, and unheated one-room apartments, after so many weeks of jubilation people were irritated, accusations were made easily, and riots were frequent, especially against the
ket’asy
(black marketeers) and
lichvá
i
(profiteers), who were held responsible for Prague’s economic malaise. On May 21, 1919, industrial workers left the suburban factories and marched to the city center; thirty thousand people
gathered in the Old Town Square to protest against the enemies of the people, shops and emporia were occupied, and people began to sell at prices set by themselves or simply plundered the shops until the police and the army intervened. The left radicals, or rather the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democrats, led by Bohumil Šmeral and Antonín Zápotocký (later president of the Socialist Republic in 1953-57), strained against the bounds of the Socialist organization and a year later occupied its Lidový D
m (People’s House) and the editorial office of the party press. The government sent in the police, and the occupiers, barricaded behind office furniture, were turned out with only a few scratches. On December 10, 1920, the left faction responded with a general strike against the government, and, in its strike proclamation, went far beyond the party issues at hand, demanding that all industrial and agricultural production be controlled by workers’ delegates, that wages rise 30 percent, and that all property be nationalized. For a few uncertain December days, strikers in Prague clashed with the police (one worker was killed), and though many but not all working people actively joined in the strike, the new government resolved not to yield. After five days the left radicals finally called the strike off; unlike Berlin, where during “Spartacus Week” working people and the army brutally fought each other in the streets, Prague was spared the bloody battles of a civil war. Six months later, in May 1921, the left Social Democrats joined the Third International, and in late October a unification congress of the new Communist Party met to gather Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians, and a few anarchists (who were to regret it) in a Bolshevik party of proletarian solidarity. In the election to the Prague city assembly in 1923, the Communists polled 18.18 percent, beating the Social Democrats down to 9.2 percent of the popular vote.
ket’asy
(black marketeers) and
lichvá
i(profiteers), who were held responsible for Prague’s economic malaise. On May 21, 1919, industrial workers left the suburban factories and marched to the city center; thirty thousand people
gathered in the Old Town Square to protest against the enemies of the people, shops and emporia were occupied, and people began to sell at prices set by themselves or simply plundered the shops until the police and the army intervened. The left radicals, or rather the Bolshevik faction of the Social Democrats, led by Bohumil Šmeral and Antonín Zápotocký (later president of the Socialist Republic in 1953-57), strained against the bounds of the Socialist organization and a year later occupied its Lidový D
m (People’s House) and the editorial office of the party press. The government sent in the police, and the occupiers, barricaded behind office furniture, were turned out with only a few scratches. On December 10, 1920, the left faction responded with a general strike against the government, and, in its strike proclamation, went far beyond the party issues at hand, demanding that all industrial and agricultural production be controlled by workers’ delegates, that wages rise 30 percent, and that all property be nationalized. For a few uncertain December days, strikers in Prague clashed with the police (one worker was killed), and though many but not all working people actively joined in the strike, the new government resolved not to yield. After five days the left radicals finally called the strike off; unlike Berlin, where during “Spartacus Week” working people and the army brutally fought each other in the streets, Prague was spared the bloody battles of a civil war. Six months later, in May 1921, the left Social Democrats joined the Third International, and in late October a unification congress of the new Communist Party met to gather Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians, Ruthenians, and a few anarchists (who were to regret it) in a Bolshevik party of proletarian solidarity. In the election to the Prague city assembly in 1923, the Communists polled 18.18 percent, beating the Social Democrats down to 9.2 percent of the popular vote.The turn of so many working people in Prague to the Communists may have been a signal to the Social Democrats and Agrarians to intensify their conversations with German comrades and colleagues; when the parliamentary election of 1925 again revealed much Communist strength, Prime Minister Švehla, acting in unison with Masaryk, negotiated with the German Agrarians (in the Bund der Landwirte) and Catholics, who were ready to test the possibilities of active participation in governing the republic; the first German ministers to be appointed, the ministers of public works and justice, were, respectively, Franz Spina, professor of Slavic studies at Prague University (he was to correct gently the bad Czech of his officials), and Robert Mayr-Harting, a distinguished lawyer. It was a time of slow consolidation and conciliation;
though German nationalists remained unforgiving, German “activists” tried to do their best to transform the Czechoslovak state (including a few minorities) into a republic of nationalities; when Masaryk was reelected president in 1927, their vote was indispensable in defeating his adversaries from the Communist Party, the Slovak Populists, and the Czech National Democrats, who were inexorably drifting to the right. In Prague, of German-speaking citizens (many may have been Jewish) 12,386 voted for the republican “activists” and 3,631 for the nationalist intransigents. Few people nowadays remember Spina, Mayr-Harting and his later colleague Dr. Ludwig Czech (the Socialist minister of public works and health, who died in a concentration camp), or Erwin Zají
ek, German minister without portfolio, who died, a modest Austrian school principal, in 1976. The tragedy of the German “activists,” Czechoslovakia’s unsung heroes of national conciliation, deserves respect and recognition, even though their names do not appear in any of the travel guides. In the catastrophic elections of May 1935, when 1,249,531 Germans voted for the Sudeten Party, 605,122 German “activists” (Social Democrats, Christian Socialists, and Agrarians) held their own against Hitler; and in the Prague municipal election of 1938, 15,423 German-speaking citizens cast their ballot with the nationalists, and 4,849 voted, against all odds, for the German “activist” parties. Some German-speaking voters (I believe) may have cast their lot with the Czech Social Democrats and Communists, strongly internationalist at that time.
though German nationalists remained unforgiving, German “activists” tried to do their best to transform the Czechoslovak state (including a few minorities) into a republic of nationalities; when Masaryk was reelected president in 1927, their vote was indispensable in defeating his adversaries from the Communist Party, the Slovak Populists, and the Czech National Democrats, who were inexorably drifting to the right. In Prague, of German-speaking citizens (many may have been Jewish) 12,386 voted for the republican “activists” and 3,631 for the nationalist intransigents. Few people nowadays remember Spina, Mayr-Harting and his later colleague Dr. Ludwig Czech (the Socialist minister of public works and health, who died in a concentration camp), or Erwin Zají
ek, German minister without portfolio, who died, a modest Austrian school principal, in 1976. The tragedy of the German “activists,” Czechoslovakia’s unsung heroes of national conciliation, deserves respect and recognition, even though their names do not appear in any of the travel guides. In the catastrophic elections of May 1935, when 1,249,531 Germans voted for the Sudeten Party, 605,122 German “activists” (Social Democrats, Christian Socialists, and Agrarians) held their own against Hitler; and in the Prague municipal election of 1938, 15,423 German-speaking citizens cast their ballot with the nationalists, and 4,849 voted, against all odds, for the German “activist” parties. Some German-speaking voters (I believe) may have cast their lot with the Czech Social Democrats and Communists, strongly internationalist at that time.Other books
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