760F.62/278: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 21—8 p.m.]
808. Osusky who returned a few days ago from Praha has just informed me that the concessions which the Czechoslovak Government will make to the Sudeten will be: (1) use of German as an official language, in the law courts et cetera; (2) complete control by the Sudeten of their own schools, (3) representation of Sudeten in local administration in the proportion that their numbers bear to the whole population. “They are,” said Osusky, “to be treated no longer as a minority but as a nationality.”
I asked him if he expected the Sudeten to accept these conditions. He said that when he had left Praha the Czechoslovak Government had believed that these concessions would be accepted; but that the picture had changed since then. Hodza47 had invited Henlein to come to Praha for a discussion and Henlein had disappeared. Hodza had ordered the Czechoslovak police to discover where Henlein was.
In the course of the next 10 days the Czechoslovak Government would announce these concessions whether or not the Sudeten should accept them.
The mobilization of one class of reserves of the Czechoslovak Army had been decided upon, Osusky said, about a week ago and was not a reply to the German stationing of troops on the Czech border yesterday. The Czechoslovak Government had decided that the defenses on the German border were inadequately manned and that it must call out one class of reserves in order to avoid a surprise attack.
Osusky said that the two Germans who had been shot in Bohemia today had been distributing Nazi propaganda and had tried to escape [Page 509] on motorcycles and had refused to stop when summoned to do so. They had therefore been fired upon and killed.
Osusky went on to say that Czechoslovakia was absolutely determined to fight to the last man in case German troops should cross the border. He added that under no conditions would the Sudeten be permitted to form “storm battalions” or to arm themselves.
I asked him if he did not believe war was imminent and he said that he feared we might be at the verge of a war which would end in the destruction of all Europe. He felt Germany could not be scared off unless England and France unitedly should evoke that they would march to defend Czechoslovakia. He said that he believed France would march but was doubtful about England.
I ventured to express the opinion that there could be no doubt about England. England would not promise to march in defense of Czechoslovakia. Osusky said that in that case war was inevitable. He expressed the belief that the Soviet Union would not be able to send troops to Czechoslovakia but that the Soviet air force might be of considerable assistance.
The impression I gathered from this conversation with Osusky was that the Czechs prefer to see their nation succumb in a conflagration which will destroy all Europe rather than to make the large concessions which alone would satisfy Hitler and the Sudeten.
- Milan Hodza, Czechoslovak Prime Minister.↩