760F.62/369: Telegram
The Ambassador in France ( Bullitt ) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 31—1:18 p.m.]
850. Reference to my telegram No. 846, May 30, 1 p.m.,63 contrary to Bonnet’s statement to me last night that Osusky had told him that the concessions which the Government of Czechoslovakia would make to the Sudeten would go far beyond those indicated in my 808, May 21, 9 p.m., Osusky, Czech Minister to Paris, who returned last night from Praha, said to me today that the concessions would be precisely those outlined in my telegram under reference.
He said that the Sudeten would be offered (1) the use of the German language as an official language for all purposes, (2) that they would be given control not only of the program of education in the Sudeten schools but also of the expenditure of the school budgets—with reservations for protection of the Czech and non-Nazi minorities in the Sudeten region, (3) that they would be given a proportionate share in domestic administration, finance, interior, et cetera.
I asked if the Sudeten would be permitted to have their proportionate share in the officers corps of the Czechoslovak Army. Osusky replied that this question had not yet been raised by the Sudeten and that it would of course have to be examined with extreme caution.
[Page 522]Osusky said that although Henlein had not returned personally to talk with Hodza two of his representatives had been in constant contact with Hodza. Hodza had conferred with them again yesterday, and had telephoned to Paris today to say that he was hopeful that Henlein would accept the concessions indicated above as the basis for settlement. Hodza moreover had said that he expected Henlein to call on him again next week.
Osusky added that whether or not Henlein should accept these concessions it had been decided that they would be offered to the Sudeten and would be presented to the Czech Parliament in the form of government-sponsored draft laws and voted in the month of June or July at the latest.
Osusky asserted that Henlein and the other Sudeten leaders had been greatly impressed by the treatment accorded by Hitler to Seyss-Inquart and the other Austrian Nazi leaders. Henlein and the other Sudeten leaders realized that if Germany should take over the Sudeten districts they would become ciphers and the Sudeten districts would be administered by emissaries from Berlin.
Osusky added that the elections of last Sunday and yesterday had demonstrated that there were still many Germans in the Sudeten districts who did not desire to become slaves under a Nazi dictatorship but preferred to live as free men. He asserted that the sincere Roman Catholic Sudeten who had been overwhelmed by the cowardly obeisance of Cardinal Innitzer64 to Hitler had begun to recover their courage and that the Catholic Church element might prove to be a strong force for the preservation of Czechoslovakia as a free and independent state.
Perhaps the most important statement that Osusky made was that the Czechoslovak Government had decided to accord to the Polish minority in the Teschen District and to the Hungarian minority in Slovakia the same privileges that would be accorded to the Sudeten. I asked if the same privileges would be accorded to the Ruthenian minority and he stated the Ruthenians were too primitive and uneducated to be able to take governmental responsibility.
Osusky said that there was one thing which the Government of the United States might be able to do which would be of great help to Czechoslovakia. A large portion of the population in the Sudeten regions of Bohemia had become Nazi owing to economic misery. This was due to the fact that world trade had collapsed and the great exporting industries of the Sudeten area—glass, porcelain and textiles—were unable to sell their wares abroad. He expressed entire satisfaction with the terms of the recent trade agreement between the United States and Czechoslovakia; but added that the Czechoslovak [Page 523] Government was informed that the American Jews, especially the large department store owners, were at the present time refusing to make normal purchases of Czechoslovakian glass porcelain and textiles because these articles were produced in regions which were largely controlled by Henlein. The aversion of American Jews to German goods had been extended to include goods produced in the Sudeten districts. He hoped that the American Government, without seeming to take any action whatever, might be able to convey to the American Jews who were normally purchasers of these articles that they would be doing the greatest possible service to Hitler if they should refuse to buy goods from the Sudeten regions and thus increase the economic misery which was pushing the Sudeten into the arms of Hitler.
Osusky said that the Czechoslovak Government was fully aware that while the Russians might be able to send planes to Czechoslovakia without provoking grave international incidents by flying at night to Czechoslovakia along the exact border between Poland and Rumania any attempt by the Russian Army to march across either Poland or Rumania would lead to immediate declarations of war against the Soviet Union by both Poland and Rumania.
In conclusion Osusky said that the publication of the memorandum which Henderson had read to Ribbentrop on May 21 had produced such a shock in German Government circles that there was a definite chance that Czechoslovakia would be permitted to work out in peace a reconciliation of the problem presented by the German, Polish and Hungarian minorities in Czechoslovakia. He believed moreover that such a reconcilation, used constructively, might be the starting point for a general reconciliation in Europe and the basis for peace on the Continent.