CZECHOSLOVAKIA
BEFORE THE CARVING
13
an amateur orchestra group giving free concerts for German
German "em
emigres. On his clerical recommendation, he got
women into England as house servants for British govern
igre"
ment officials and army officers.
The
trated
far-flung Gestapo network in Czechoslovakia concen
of its activities along the former German-Czech bor
much
In Prague, even today when Germany has achieved what
she said was all she wanted in Europe, the network reaches into
der.
branches of the Government, the military forces and emigre
anti-fascist groups. The country, before it was cut to pieces and
all
even now,
many with
is
honeycombed with Gestapo agents
sent
from Ger
across the border.
false passports or smuggled
Often the Gestapo uses Czech citizens whose relatives are in
Germany and upon whom
pressure
is
put.
The work
of these
agents consists not only of ferreting out military information
regarding Czech defense measures and establishing contacts with
Czech citizens for permanent espionage, but of the equally im
portant assignment of disrupting anti-fascist groups of creating
opposition within organizations having large memberships in or
also make reports
split and disintegrate them. Agents
on public opinion and attitudes, and record carefully the names
and addresses of those engaged in anti-fascist work. A similar
procedure was followed in Austria before that country was in
vaded, and it enabled the Nazis to make wholesale arrests im
der to
mediately upon entering the country.
Prague, with a German population of sixty thousand is still
the headquarters for the astonishing espionage and propaganda
machine which the Gestapo built throughout the country. Before
Czechoslovakia was cut up, most of the espionage reports crossed
the frontier into
Germany through Tetschen-Bodenbach. The
propaganda and espionage center of the Henlein group was in
the headquarters of the Sudeten Deutsche Partei at 4 Hybernska