760F.62/1430: Telegram
The Minister in Czechoslovakia (Carr) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 4—3 a.m.]
272. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has just sent me a personal note in which, after expressing appreciation of the President’s intercession with the Reichs Chancellor in behalf of Czechoslovakia, he inquires whether the United States would be willing through the channel of the American Ambassador at Berlin to support by means of a démarche with the German Government on the one hand and on the other with the Ambassadors of Great Britain, France and Italy who are members of the Delimitation Commission in Berlin some [Page 713] highly justified claims of Czechoslovakia. He specifies only one, namely, that Germany should accept such a delimitation of the new frontier in the areas of Boehmisch Truebau and Zwittau which would secure for Czechoslovakia the main railway communications of Bohemia with Moravia and Slovakia. The Department will observe that the main railway line which connects Praha with Moravia and Slovakia passes through Pardubice to Brno and Olomütz by way of Boehmisch Truebau and Zwittau; these two towns are in the edge of the region which is understood to have a majority German population and the inquiry appears to be inspired by Czechoslovakia’s anxiety lest the Delimitation Commission should so mark the new frontier that this main railway connecting Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia would have to pass through territory to be ceded to Germany.
I assume that inasmuch as the German Government and the Commission are acting under an agreement between the four powers which Czechoslovakia has accepted although under protest the United States is not in a position to intervene in the manner indicated however much it may sympathize with the object sought. However I submit report on inquiry and would appreciate your instructions as early as possible.