740.00119 EAC/6–2045
The London Representatives of the Sudeten German Social Democratic Party to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant)35
Dear Mr. Ambassador: We take the liberty of drawing your attention to the disturbing reports from Czechoslovakia on the wholesale expropriation and expulsion of four million minority citizens of German and Hungarian stock. Recent announcements of the Prague Government have made it unmistakably clear that the racial minorities of Czechoslovakia, one third of the total pre-Munich population, are now being subjected to an administrative and military campaign of indiscriminate retribution.
We, the undersigned parliamentary representatives of the strongest loyalist party within the Sudeten population, the Social Democratic Party, are naturally much concerned with the fate of our former constituents. [Page 1253] On the occasion of the cancellation of the Munich Agreement by the Government of the United Kingdom in August 194236 we took the liberty of sending the following cable to Mr. Cordell Hull, the Secretary of State:
The undersigned freely elected parliamentary representatives of 300,000 democratic Sudeten Germans are alarmed by Mr. Eden’s statement that the Munich Agreement is void without safeguarding the minority rights in a new Czechoslovakia. This decision has been made without consulting the legitimate representatives of the democratic Sudeten Germans. In our view it is dangerously prejudging the future political organisation of Central Europe. We hope that the great American Democracy will not abandon the principles of the Atlantic Charter nor disappoint the confidence of our martyrs of freedom.
Wenzel Jaksch, Eugen de Witte, Franz Katz.
Unfortunately, our apprehensions have meanwhile been substantiated. As the attached extracts show beyond doubt the lack of any provisions for minority protection under the transitory measures agreed by the principal Allies has already resulted in a tragic development in Czechoslovakia. The fate of millions of members of the national minorities is being settled by a fait accompli. They are being treated worse than war criminals, who are not denied the benefit of hearing and fair trial. Retribution is being meted out to guilty and innocent alike. According to official evidence from Prague no exception is made even for former members of loyalist minority parties who have been exposed to Gestapo persecution ever since October 1938.
While we ourselves are deprived of our constitutional rights as members of Parliament by the present Czechoslovak Government we feel impelled to request some measure of inter-allied protection for the minority populations of Czechoslovakia. We do not, of course, include those criminals who have in fact been guilty of offences against both the Czech and Sudeten populations.
We have addressed this appeal to you, Mr. Ambassador, as the American Representative both in this country and on the European Advisory Commission. We much regret the necessity of troubling you amid the stress of your other work, but in view of the imminent danger of terrible loss of life and suffering which a continuation of the present situation in Czechoslovakia must involve we venture to ask for a brief interview with you at as early a date as may be possible.
Yours very truly,
Eugen de Witte
Franz Katz
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Copy transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in his despatch 23803, June 20; received June 25. In response, telegram 5362, July 2, 5 p.m., to the Ambassador read as follows:
“No further action desirable at this time on letter of Sudeten German Social Democratic Party. Similar letter addressed to President was not acknowledged.” (740.00119 EAC/6–2045)
↩ - For the exchange of notes between the United Kingdom and the Czechoslovak Republic concerning the policy of the United Kingdom in regard to Czechoslovakia, London, August 5, 1942, see British and Foreign State Papers, vol. cxliv, p. 986.↩