German Culture in Prague

Abstract

A REPORTER from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia announces that the German University of Prague has been reconstituted as a Reichsdeutsch University “to serve as a centre for German cultural expansion to the south-east of Europe”. This status was made legal on October 1 and necessitates the appointment of Nazi professors to Prague. They are to be accompanied by a large body of students drawn from all parts of Germany. In the past, this German university in Czechoslovakia attracted many well-known specialists from Germany and Austria. Indeed, it was the policy of the former Czech Ministry of Education to encourage such appointments in order to ensure a high standard both of teaching and scientific research. The new appointments are, however, avowedly not for scientific advancement, but for Germanization, a process that is being pursued also by the schools throughout the protectorate as well as in the Sudeten territory acquired by Germany in September 1938. Meanwhile, Czech and non-Nazi professors are drafted into labour corps. A number have succumbed to this inhuman treatment, including Profs. Charvat and Bělohradek. Despite the deplorable setback to science and learning in Central Europe, the Czechs are still attempting to continue with their investigations. An instance is afforded by the recent archæological excavations near Mělnik, where a prehistoric settlement has been unearthed. The objects discovered are believed to date from the time when Slav tribes first settled in the Elbe valley.