The Sudeten-German Tragedy

AUTHOR NOTE. Dr. App, born and raised in Wisconsin, holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. degree in English literature from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., was instructor or professor of English at several colleges, including the Catholic University, the University of Scranton, LaSalle College. He has written hundreds of articles and reviews, and eight books, and has published many pamphlets. In 1939 he was awarded the University of Scranton Faculty Gold Medal as "outstanding educator of men." In 1940-41 he was president of the Debating Association of Pennsylvania Colleges. In February, 1975, he was awarded the "European Freedom Prize" of DM 10,000 in Munich, Germany, by the Deutsche Volksunion and the Deutsche National Zeitung. For ten years he was chairman of the Pastorius Unit of the Steuben Society, Philadelphia; for six years National President of the Federation of American Citizens of German Decent, of which he is still honorary president. For several years he was on the speaker's bureau of the John Birch Society. He is an honorary member of the German-American National Congress. For several years he was chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Captive Nations Committee. He considers the liberation of these nation, including the Soviet Zone of Germany, and the dissolution of the Soviet Russian colonialism the only hope for preventing World War Ill. In 1968, after twenty years, he retired from LaSalle College, Philadelphia, where he had been associate professor of English. Since then he has been speaking, writing, and publishing. His last full-length book was Autobiography: GermanAmerican Voice for Truth and Justice (308 pages, 25 illustrations, index, $6.50). FOREWORD. This booklet on the tragedy of the Sudeten Germans is a labor of love and a call for truth and justice. As a child I used to listen enthralled as my mother and father harmonized the Boehmerwald song: "Just a last time, 0 Lord, grant I may see again, My home and homeland in the Boehmerwald." At that time, before World War I, the Sudeten Germans of what in 1919 became Czechoslovakia were among the most blessed people in the world. Under the Hapsburgs nobody even dreamed of an Iron Curtain! Tragedy began when in 1919 the "Champions of Democracy" tore the Sudeten Germans from Austria. Then, after another Allied crusade for "freedom," they became the victims of the most brutal atrocity, when the Czech "Democrats" drove three million of them from their homelands and did 241,000 of them to death. Since then the Boehmerwald is cut off from the West like a concentration camp with barbed wire entanglements. The Sudeten Germans, one of the most Christian and most decent people of the world, had become the unluckiest. That is why I wrote this booklet, and hope you, who read it, will take its message to heart. The book just sort of grew, and if there are some overlappings I hope you will bear with them. It started when the magazine reason (Santa Barbara, California, 93101) invited me to write a scholarly article on "The Sudeten-German Tragedy." This was published in February, 1976 (pages 29-31). With permission of reason it is here Section I. The second section, entitled, "The Sudeten Germans from Munich to Potsdam" was first published in two parts in Steppingstones (Box 612, Silver Spring, Maryland 20901. Part I, Spring, 1977; Part 11, Summer, 1978). To both reason and Steppingstones I give thanks. The third section, "The Sudeten Germans from Potsdam to the Present," is here published for the first time. It more especially features the actual brutality of the expulsion and hopefully is not too shocking. In this connection an apology is due to that minority of Czechs who did not approve of or participate in the expulsion atrocity the majority of seven million Czechs committed. Although Moscow and Tel Aviv and New York were the real instigators, the Czech people were the ones who visibly up-rooted and robbed the Sudeten Germans and murdered 241,000 of them, and what women they did no~ rape they handed over to the Soviet soldiers to rape. In describing such a holocaust one cannot identify every guilty one by name and is forced to do so collectively as "Czechs." May the merciful God reward such of them who were not guilty - or who have since repented. And may these more and more give proof .of their Christianity by speaking up for restitution to the Sudeten Germans of their homelands and their homes in freedom. When enough of them so speak up, whatever stigma now attaches to the Czechs will soon be erased and Central Europe will come to enjoy again the Christian amity that prevailed before Wilson and Roosevelt "made democracy work" there by betraying those Christian peoples to the atheistic Bolsheviks. Above all may this booklet induce us Americans to raise our voices to demand truth and justice for the Sudeten people, the restitution to them of their homes and homelands in the Boehmerwald!