The Rise of the Third Reich

The 86-year-old former president of the Czechoslovak Republic, Mr. Thomas Garrig Masaryk, has been a little troubled recently. He was involved in a political murder!

In fact, it is not considered "involved". Although the old man is old, his memory is not bad. He still remembered that he had issued an order to get rid of Milan Restislav Stefanik - the person who was killed was one of the three founding fathers of Czechoslovakia and the first Minister of Defense of the Republic!

Moreover, the old man still remembered that he had an accomplice, the current President Edward Benes, who was also one of the Three Founding Fathers.

It appears to have been a power struggle - two of the three Founding Fathers teamed up to murder the other. But Mr. Masaryk knew that the murder that occurred among the three founding fathers was not for the fight for power, but for the country and the nation!

Milan Restislav Stefanik sacrificed his life for the country and the nation. He was a noble man, and the person who murdered him was also noble.

The real culprits in this murder case were the more than 3 million Germans in Czechoslovakia! They are the third largest ethnic group in Czechoslovakia, after the Czechs with a population of more than 6 million and the Slovaks with a population of 1.9 million.

What? More than 3 million people ranked third, and 1.9 million people ranked second?

That’s right, this is Czechoslovakian mathematics. Otherwise Czechoslovakia should be renamed Czech Germania!

However, the reason why the math problem is done is not entirely for the sake of a country name, but for Czechoslovakia to become a new nation-state. The Paris Peace Conference held in 1919 set a threshold for a new nation-state: a majority ethnic group accounting for two-thirds of the population was required.

Without such a majority, the country can only become a federation. For Czechoslovakia, this meant that more than 3 million Germans could have their own Free State. Having a Free State means that you can practice self-government, have your own parliament and a small defense army, and you can also hold a referendum to secede from Czechoslovakia in accordance with the principle of national self-determination!

This was not allowed in 1919!

Therefore, Czechoslovakia must have an ethnic group that accounts for two-thirds of the population - but according to the population data released after the Allied Powers survey, the Czechs only account for 50% of the total population of Czechoslovakia, and in fact it is definitely less than this number.

However, this did not trouble old Mr. Masaryk and Eduard Benes. They invented the "Czechoslovak nation" - combining the Czechs and Slovaks to pretend to be a dominant nation, and at that time they also won the "Czechoslovak nation" The support of General Štefánik who could represent” the Slovaks.

And this kind of behavior, which is almost a falsification of accounts on ethnic issues, has been successfully carried out under the deliberate protection of the three major powers, Britain, France and the United States. Czechoslovakia had a dominant nation, and the Germans, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles in Czechoslovakia also lost the right to self-government.

The story should have ended successfully here, but no one expected that when the arrogant Germans had chosen to surrender, the Hungarians refused to accept their fate and continued to resist.

What Mr. Masaryk and Edvard Benes did not expect was that under the control of the Hungarian Bolshevik Party, the Slovaks actually had a taste of the country for the first time - there was a Soviet led by the Slovak Bolshevik Party. Republic.

Although this Soviet Republic, which was destined to be incompatible with the Allied Powers, could not exist for long, it still gave some Slovak nationalists the idea of ​​independence or autonomy.

Milan Restislav Štefánik was the leader of these Slovak nationalists, although at that time - when fighting the Hungarian Bolsheviks - Štefánik did not propose Slovak autonomy or independence. But everyone knows that as long as Stefanik, the leader of Slovakia, exists, this will only happen sooner or later.

Once the Slovaks engage in "national autonomy," the image of Czechoslovakia as a "subject nation" will also be torn off. In this way, what reason does the more than 3 million Germans have for not being able to engage in autonomy?

Therefore, the plane riding on General Stefanik, one of the Three Elements, could only be crashed. This matter seemed to be done flawlessly at the time, and it has not been exposed for so many years.

After defeating the Hungarian Bolsheviks (Slovak Bolsheviks), the Czechoslovak government also did a lot to appease the Slovaks, such as providing subsidies to backward Slovak settlements, sending teachers and officials to help the Slovaks, and protecting the Slovak language and culture. , and also made the Slovaks the "second-class people" of Czechoslovakia. Superior to Poles, Ukrainians, Hungarians and Germans…

But what happened next still caught Czech politicians such as Mr. Masaryk and Edvard Benes by surprise. The Slovaks didn't appreciate it. They viewed the Czechs' help as slavery and oppression - just like the Czechs viewed the Germans back then!

And in some places, the treatment of the Slovaks was worse than that of the Czechs, and even worse than their situation before the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After all, the economic growth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was relatively good at that time, and Austria-Hungary was still a very large market. Although various ethnic groups lived unhappy in the "prison" of Austria-Hungary, they were economically interdependent. of.

After the disintegration of the country, the large market was divided into small markets by the customs of various countries, and the interdependent nations became sworn enemies. The industrially developed Czech Republic naturally lost most of its inherent market, and Slovakia became the dumping market for Czech industrial products. Slovak industry and commerce went bankrupt one after another under the impact of Czech industry and commerce, while Slovak agricultural products and minerals could only be sold to the Czech Republic at low prices. The result was a sense of exploitation among Slovaks.

In addition, the legacy of the Hungarian War that occurred in the 1920s has not been resolved - the guerrillas of the Hungarian Bolshevik Party and the Slovak Bolshevik Party have been operating in the mountainous areas on the border between Hungary and Czechoslovakia for so many years. The long-term siege and suppression of them by the Czech-dominated Czechoslovak army inevitably harmed many Slovak civilians.

As a result, the gap between Czechs and Slovaks became wider and wider. By 1929, with the onset of the Great Depression in the United States, the last safety valve of Slovak society also failed. In the past, immigrating to the United States was the best way out for Slovaks, but now this way is blocked. And Slovaks' living standards plummeted as the Great Depression swept across Europe.

Under this circumstance, the originally moderate Slovak Catholic political forces also began to turn towards the autonomy movement - the Catholic Slovak People's Party led by Slovak Catholic priest Andrei Hlinka began to rise, and together with the Slovak Bolshevik Party, they The Czechs made a fuss.

Although this kind of fuss is annoying, the Czechoslovak government still has ways to deal with it - Slovaks do not dislike the Czechoslovak Republic too much, and they are better than Germans, Hungarians, Poles and Ukrainians.

But not long ago, appalling news began to spread in Slovakia: the Slovak leader Milan Restislav Stefanik was killed on the order of the Czech President Masaryk!

This isn’t just hearsay, there’s evidence! Testimonies from several Slovak veterans (supposedly people close to Štefánik), as well as secret reports from French military advisers investigating Štefánik’s death.

The Catholic Slovak People's Party took the opportunity to file a lawsuit with the Prague District Court against former President Masaryk.

"Father, actually we don't need to pay attention to the accusation, and you don't have to appear in court in person." Mr. Masaryk's son, Jan Masaryk, who had just returned from London (he is the ambassador to London), was preparing to go to court when his father was about to leave. Stopped him before. "The United Kingdom and France support us and can take tough measures."

"No," Masaryk, who was on crutches, waved his hand, "We cannot take too strong measures against the Slovaks, as that will cause the disintegration of the country. They have 1.9 million people... There are four in our army. One of the officers and non-commissioned officers is Slovak, and if we lose them, our army will become weak, and the Germans, Hungarians, Ukrainians and Poles will also take the opportunity to cause trouble. "

Masaryk was the main promoter of the modernization of the Czechoslovak army. With his efforts, Czechoslovakia established a standing army of 160,000 to 180,000 people and a reserve army of 1 million people, and the equipment was quite well-equipped. It has tanks and aircraft - all produced by Czechoslovakia itself. The Czech Republic has the famous arsenal Skoda and three aircraft manufacturing companies: Letov, Egger and Avea.

But a strong army cannot only have weapons but no people! The Czech nation has only a population of more than 6 million, which cannot support a reserve army of one million. This reserve army must be composed of Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Ukrainian ethnic groups, and the most reliable among them, besides the Czechs, is the Slovaks.

If the Slovaks and the Czechs fall out, the Hungarians and Ukrainians will definitely follow suit, and the Czechs will have to fight alone.

"There will be no problem," Masaryk smiled at his son, "Their evidence is untenable... To show our innocence, I'd better attend, and I will also propose in court that an international I believe this will silence the Slovaks."