#57
Post
by alsaco » 22 Sep 2003, 23:46
Glynwed has clearly explained how benevolent and friedly the german rules were in the protectorate.
Mills has clearly cited the framework of the occupation. If any czech did not obey these rules, he was considered an enemy, and punished accordingly, he and all his family.
Moreover if he was accused of black marked, the same punition did apply. What was left of tchecoslovakia, Böhmen und Mähren was mostly peasants, all industries were in Sudetenland, or under direct german control, in Pilsen, Brno, or Prag. Peasants who did furnish a large part of the food needed in nearby german gaùs, Sachsen, Thüringen and Norf-Bayern, industrial mountainous districts. If the official contigents fixed by the german administration were not met, the accusation of black market was immediate.
You can see how quiet the life could be, particularly if you add that all administration was in the hand of revengeful sudeten or leftovers using their volksdeùtshtùm to oppress the slavic race
Mr Mills tries to prove the quality of czech life by the level of food rations. May I call his attention on the fact that this level can be higher for germans than for czechs and that he has no proof that all people had access to rationing cards. In France, the rule for rationing cards excluded normally the farmers and agricultural workers, having access directly to agricultural products produced locally. Naturally, these rules were rapidly fooled, the distribution being left to french administration, but for the czechs, distribution was in the hands of sudeten.
In Germany, rural villages had two types of coupons, peasants and non-peasants, in Baden and Württenberg at least. When the french arrived, agricultural workers were very surprised to learn that they had access to meat coupons.
Access to the goods, even if you have the coupons, is also a problem. If shops open at 8.00, but access his autorized only at 10.00 for Czechs, you can be sure there is no goods left for them. This is the way the germans practised with the jews, in german towns, like Dresden, in the years 1938-41, before the deportation to Lithuania.
Rations is therefore not sufficient as measure of comfort. Permanent menaces on your life and your family is on the contrary a real measure of discomfort.
Nobody can negate the czech atrocities in numerous towns in 1945-1946, against german troops, refugees and volksdeùtsche. But to link these with Benes treatment of the Sudeten before 1938 does not make sense.
The Sudeten were treated as a minority, but on their own will. They had the rights of czechs, and had even their own political parties, including a nazi one.
The czech atrocities were in fact a revenge. Racial revenge more than based on particular mistreatment. But how had introduced the concept of dominent race. It was only normal that some czechs would try to see how one could feel being in turn the one having the gun.
