Prager Tagblatt
- Espionage on Behalf of Soviet Russia
- National School Autonomy
- The Fascists Among Themselves
The Prague Tagblatt of 10 November 1926 led with an official police communiqué: Josef Simunek, an invalid working in the lithographic workshop of a Prague military authority, had stolen military documents and sold them to a member of a foreign mission in Prague. The headline named Soviet Russia as the beneficiary, and Simunek had been arrested and had confessed. From the Budget Committee, the paper reported Education Minister Milan Hodža calling the existing school self-government inadequate and outdated and saying its reform was close to a solution. From Rome it described the extraordinary Chamber sitting of 9 November, where black-shirted Fascist deputies cheered Mussolini, whose seat was decked with laurels and roses, while almost the whole opposition, Giolitti included, stayed away.
Translation
Espionage on Behalf of Soviet Russia
It is officially announced: The Prague Police Directorate has established that the invalid Josef Simunek of Hloubětin, who is employed in the lithographic workshop of a military authority in Prague, stole military documents produced there and sold them to a member of one of the representative offices of foreign states in Prague. Simunek has been arrested. The search of his home produced positive results. Simunek has made a full confession.
National School Autonomy
Prague, 9 November. At yesterday's sitting of the Budget Committee, Education Minister Dr. Hodža delivered a detailed exposé in which he also dealt with the question of reforming self-government in the field of education. The minister said that we are now on the point of solving this question. The existing self-government is insufficient and outdated.
The Fascists Among Themselves
Rome, 9 November. Today's extraordinary sitting of the Chamber was opened by the Fascist deputies, nearly all of whom had appeared in black shirts, with a great demonstration for Mussolini. Apart from a few deputies of the Salandra group and supporters of Giolitti, the opposition did not appear. Giolitti himself is absent. All the ministers and under-secretaries of state had taken their places on the government bench. The seat of Prime Minister Mussolini was wreathed with laurels and roses. When Mussolini entered the hall, he was greeted with frenzied applause and ovations, in which the galleries also joined.
Context
Who was Milan Hodža when he spoke to the Budget Committee?
Milan Hodža, the minister reported here, was a Slovak Agrarian politician who had taken over the education portfolio in 1926. His ministerial record shows him as Minister of Agriculture from 1922 to 1926 and Minister of Education from 1926 to 1929, alongside a second spell running the ministry for the unification of laws and the organisation of administration. That second post links to the subject of his exposé, since the reform of school self-government was also a question about how administration was organised. A 1986 study by Ladislav Lipscher in the journal Bohemia describes Hodža in 1926–1928 as the builder of the bourgeois coalition and an opponent of the 'Castle', the circle around President Masaryk. So the minister who announced that school self-government was outdated was also one of the leading figures in the new governing majority. The excerpt records only his general verdict and his claim that a solution was near. It does not give the details of the reform.
How did Hodža think about nationality in Czechoslovakia?
The headline speaks of 'national' school autonomy, meaning self-government organised along the lines of the state's different nationalities. Hodža's own national ideas give this some context. In the 1920s he was a Czechoslovakist, holding that Czechs and Slovaks formed a single nation, and this position helped him rise to high office in Prague. He nevertheless clashed often with Czech politicians, because he tried to take account of Slovakia's particular needs within the state. Twelve years after this report, as prime minister in spring 1938, he tried to decentralise the state as a whole and liberalise nationality policy through a so-called nationality statute. That later attempt ran into the implacable opposition of the Sudeten German Party, but it shows that the administrative treatment of nationalities, which the 1926 school debate touched on, remained a lasting concern of his career. The paper's report does not say how the 1926 reform would affect particular minority schools.
Why was the Italian opposition absent from the Chamber?
The empty opposition benches described from Rome resulted from more than two years of parliamentary boycott. After the murder of the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti, most opposition deputies began the Aventine Secession on 27 June 1924, refusing to take part in the work of the Chamber until constitutional legality and democratic freedoms had been restored. The opposition was divided from the start, however: the Communists' proposal for an 'anti-parliament' was rejected by the other parties, and the Communist deputies went back to the Chamber in November 1924. The boycott did not bring down Mussolini's government. The scene the paper reports, with Fascists in black shirts and only a few deputies of the Salandra group and Giolitti's followers present, therefore shows a chamber from which most of the organised opposition had long withdrawn.
What did the 9 November 1926 sitting decide?
The paper's excerpt covers only the opening of the extraordinary sitting: the ovation for Mussolini, his seat decked with flowers and the absence of the opposition. The business of that day stripped the Aventine deputies of their seats. On 9 November 1926 the Chamber considered a motion from the Fascist deputy Augusto Turati declaring that 123 deputies who had taken part in the Aventine Secession had forfeited their mandates. That motion brought the parliamentary history of the Aventine to a close, and it came as the Fascist government was adopting a wider set of exceptional measures against political opposition. Read alongside this record, the headline 'The Fascists Among Themselves' describes more than a boycotted sitting. It reports the day on which the Fascist majority set about formally removing its opponents from the Chamber.
What security law stood behind cases like Simunek's?
The excerpted part of the communiqué on Simunek names no statute. The main security legislation of the young republic at this time was the Protection of the Republic Act, introduced in 1923. Michal Pehr's study describes the act as a response to problems in the young democracy of the First Republic, expressed among other things in the assassination of Finance Minister Alois Rašín. The law was contested from the beginning, and Pehr's study examines whether it strengthened democracy or restricted it, as its critics claimed. Against this background, the report of military documents sold to a foreign mission belongs to a period when Czechoslovakia was building legal tools against threats to the state. This reading cannot establish which provision was applied to Simunek, which foreign mission was involved beyond the headline's reference to Soviet Russia, or how the case ended.
Original
Spionage zugunsten Sowjetrußlands.
Amtlich wird mitgeteilt: Die Polizeidirektion in Prag hät sichergestellt, daß der Invalide Josef Simunek aus Hloubětin, der in der Lithographie einer Militärbehörde in Prag beschäftigt ist, dort ausgefertigte Militärakten entwendet und sie einem Mitglied einer der Vertretungsbehörden ausländischer Staaten in Prag verkauft. Simunek wurde verhaftet. Die bei ihm vorgenommene Hausdurchsuchung hatte ein positives Ergebnis. Simunek legte ein umfassendes Geständnis ab.
Die nationale Schulautonomie.
Prag, 9. November. In der gestrigen Sitzung des Budgetausschusses erstattete Schulminister Dr. Hodža ein ausführliches Exposé, in welchem er sich auch mit der Frage der Reform der Selbstverwaltung auf dem Gebiete des Schulwesens befaßte. Der Minister sagte, daß wir vor der Lösung dieser Frage stehen. Die bisherige Selbstverwaltung genügt nicht und ist veraltet.
Die Fascisten unter sich.
Rom, 9. November. Die heutige außerordentliche Kammersitzung wurde von den fascistischen Abgeordneten, die fast alle in Schwarzhemden erschienen waren, mit einer großen Kundgebung für Mussolini eröffnet. Die Opposition ist bis auf wenige Abgeordnete der Salandra-Gruppe und der Anhänger Giolittks nicht erschienen. Giolitti selbst fehlt. Auf der Regierungsbank hatten sämtliche Minister und Unterstaatssekretäre Platz genommen. Der Platz des Ministerpräsidenten Mussolini war mit Lorbeeren und Rosen bekränzt. Als Mussolini den Saal betrat, wurde er mit frenetischem Beifall und Ovationen begrüßt, denen sich auch die Tribünen anschlossen.