L. Extension of Fifth Column Activity As in the case of Austria and the Sudetenland, the Nazi conspirators did not intend to rely on the Wehrmacht alone to accomplish their calculated objective of "liquidating" Czechoslovakia. With the German minority separated from Czechoslovakia, they could no longer use the cry, "home to the Reich." One sizeable minority, the Slovaks, remained within the Czechoslovak State. The Czechoslovak Government had made every effort to conciliate Slovak extremists in the months after the cession of the Sudetenland. Autonomy had been granted to Slovakia, with an autonomous cabinet and parliament at Bratislava. Nonetheless, despite these concessions, it was in Slovakia that the Nazi conspirators found men ready to take their money and do their bidding. The following picture of Nazi operations in Slovakia is based on the Czechoslovak official report. (998-PS; 3061-PS) Nazi propaganda and "research" groups had long been interested in maintaining close connections with the Slovak autonomist opposition. When Bela Tuka, who later became Prime Minister of the puppet state of Slovakia, was tried for espionage and treason in 1929, the evidence established that he had already established connections with Nazi groups within Germany. Prior to 1938 Nazi aides were in close contact with Slovak traitors living in exile and were attempting to establish more profitable contacts in the semi-fascist Slovak Catholic Peoples Party of Monsignor Andrew Hlinka. Out of sympathy with the predominantly anti-clerical government in Prague, some Catholic elements in Slovakia proved willing to cooperate with the Nazis. In February and July 1938 the leaders of the Henlein movement conferred with top men of Father Hlinka's party and agreed to furnish one another with mutual assistance in pressing their respective claims to autonomy. This understanding proved useful in the September agitation when, at the proper moment, the Foreign Office in Berlin wired the Henlein leader, Kundt, in Prague to tell the Slovaks to start their demands for autonomy. (See 2858-PS.) By this time, mid-summer 1938, the Nazis were in direct contact with figures in the Slovak autonomist movement and had paid agents among the higher staff of Father Hlinka's party. These agents undertook to render impossible any understanding between the Slovak autonomists and the Slovak parties in the government at Prague. Franz Karmasin, later to become Volksgruppenfuehrer, had been appointed Nazi leader in Slovakia and professed to be serving the cause of Slovak autonomy while on the Nazi pay roll. On 22 November the Nazis indiscreetly wired Karmasin to collect his money at the German Legation in person. The telegram, sent from the German Legation at Prague to Bratislava (Pressburg), reads as follows: "Delegate Kundt asks to notify State Secretary Karmasin that he would appreciate it if he could personally draw the sum which is being kept for him at the treasury of the embassy. "HENCKE" (2859-PS) Karmasin proved to be extremely useful to the Nazi cause. A captured memorandum of the German Foreign Office, dated Berlin, 29 November 1939-eight months after the conquest of Czechoslovakia-throws a revealing light both on Karmasin and on the German Foreign Office: "On the question of payments to KARMASIN "Karmasin receives 30,000 Marks for the VDA (Peoples' League for Germans Abroad) until 1 April 1940; from then on 15,000 Marks monthly. "Furthermore, the Central Office for Racial Germans (Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle) has deposited 300,000 Marks for Karmasin with the German Mission in Bratislava (Pressburg) on which he could fall back in an emergency. "Furthermore, Karmasin has received money from Reich Minister Seyss-Inquart; for the present it has been impossible to determine what amounts had been involved, and whether the payments will continue. "Therefore it appears that Karmasin has been provided with sufficient money; thus one could await whether he would put up new demands himself. "Herewith presented to the Reich Foreign Minister. "/s/ WOERMANN" (2794-PS) This document shows the complicity of the German Foreign Office in the subsidization of illegal organizations abroad. More important, it shows that the Germans still considered it necessary to supply their under-cover representatives in Pressburg with substantial funds even after the declaration of the so-called independent State of Slovakia. Some time in the winter of 1938-1939 Goering conferred with Durcansky and Mach, two leaders in the Slovak extremist group, who were accompanied by Karmasin. The Slovaks told Goering of their desire for what they called "independence," with strong political, economic, and military ties to Germany. They promised that the Jewish problem would be solved as it had been in Germany and that the Communist Party would be prohibited. The notes of the meeting report that Goering considered that the Slovak efforts towards independence were to be supported, although his motives were scarcely altruistic. The undated minutes of this conversation between Goering and Durcansky, captured among the files of the German Foreign Office, are jotted down in somewhat telegraphic style: "To begin with DURKANSKY (Deputy Prime Minister) "The German influence with the SLOVAK Government con- "At present negotiations with HUNGARY are being conducted by the SLOVAKS. The CZECHS are more yielding towards the Hungarians than the SLOVAKS. "The Fieldmarshall considers; that the SLOVAK negotiations towards independence are to be supported in a suitable Czechoslovakia without Slovakia is still more at manner. our mercy. "Air bases in Slovakia are of great importance for the German Air Force for use against the East." (2801-PS) In mid-February 1939 a Slovak delegation journeyed to Berlin. It consisted of Tuca, one of the Slovaks with whom the Germans had been in contact, and Karmasin, the paid representative of the Nazi conspirators in Slovakia. They conferred with Hitler and Ribbentrop in the Reichs Chancellery in Berlin on Sunday, 12 February 1939. The captured German Foreign Office minutes of that meeting read as follows: "After a brief welcome Tuca thanks the Fuehrer for granting this meeting. He addresses the Fuehrer with 'My Fuehrer' and he voices the opinion that he, though only a modest man himself, might well claim to speak for the Slovak nation. The Czech courts and prison gave him the right to make such a statement. He states that the Fuehrer had not only opened the Slovak question but that he had been also the first one to acknowledge the dignity of the Slovak nation. The Slovakian people will gladly fight under the leadership of the Fuehrer for the maintenance of European civilization. Obviously future association with the Czechs had become an impossibility for the Slovaks from a moral as well as economic point of view." (2790-PS) It is noteworthy that Tuca addressed Hitler as "My Fuehrer". During this meeting the Nazi conspirators apparently were successful in planting the idea of insurrection with the Slovak delegation. The final sentence of this document, spoken by Tuca, is conclusive: "I entrust the fate of my people to your care." (2790-PS) It is apparent from these documents that in mid-February 1939 the Nazis had a well-disciplined group of Slovaks at their service, many of them drawn from the ranks of Father Hlinka's party. Flattered by the personal attention of such men as Hitler and Ribbentrop, and subsidized by German representatives, these Slovaks proved willing tools in the hands of the Nazi conspirators. In addition to the Slovaks, the Nazi conspirators made use of the few Germans still remaining within the mutilated Czech republic. Kundt, Henlein's deputy who had been appointed leader of this German minority, created as many artificial "focal points' of German culture" as possible. Germans from the districts handed over to Germany were ordered from Berlin to continue their studies at the German University in Prague and to make it a center of aggressive Naziism. With the assistance of German civil servants, a deliberate campaign of Nazi infiltration into Czech public and private institutions was carried out, and the Henleinists gave full cooperation with Gestapo agents from the Reich who appeared on Czech soil. The Nazi "political activity" was designed to undermine and to weaken Czech resistance to the commands from Germany. In the face of continued threats and duress on both diplomatic and propaganda levels, the Czech government was unable to take adequate measures against these trespasses on its sovereignty. (998-PS; 3061-PS) In early March, with the date for the invasion of Czechoslovakia already close at hand, fifth column activity moved into its final phase. In Bohemia and Moravia the FS, Henlein's equivalent of the SS, were in touch with the Nazi conspirators in the Reich and laid the groundwork for the events of 14 and 15 March. An article by SS-Gruppenfuehrer Karl Hermann Frank, published in Boehmen und Maehren, the official periodical of the Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, March 1941, page 79, reveals with considerable frankness the functions which the FS and SS served and the pride the Nazi conspirators took in the activities of these organizations: "The SS on March 15, 1939 "A modern people and a modern state are today unthinkable without political troops. To these are allotted the special task of being the advance guard of the political will and the guarantor of its unity. This is especially true of the German folk-groups, which have their home in some other people's state. Accordingly the Sudeten German Party had formerly also organized its political troop, the Voluntary Vigilantes (Freiwilliger Selbstschutz), called 'FS' for short. This troop was trained essentially in accordance with the principles of the SS, so far as these could be used in this region at that time. The troop was likewise assigned here the special task of protecting the homeland, actively, if necessary. It stood up well in its first test in this connection, wherever in the fall crisis of 1938 it had to assume the protection of the homeland, arms in hand. "After the annexation of the Sudeten Gau, the tasks of the FS were transferred essentially to the German student organizations as compact troop formations in Prague and Brunn, aside from the isolated German communities which remained in the second republic. This was also natural because many active students from the Sudeten Gau were already members of the FS. The student organizations then had to endure this test, in common with other Germans, during the crisis of March 1939 * * "In the early morning hours of March 15, after the announce- * * |