Thousands of Czechoslovakians last week went to bed with gas masks at their bedsides. By law, every Czech citizen in cities must possess a gas mask before the end of June, and last week, reported Eleanor Packard, wife of United Pressman Reynolds Packard, thousands jammed Prague's 20 gas mask dispensaries where attractive blondes demonstrated the operating technique. "I bought a de luxe model for $6.68 with a head piece that seemed like a set of rubber false teeth, with goggle eyes and a dog-like nose. It had a snubbier nose and bigger eye pieces than the standard model for $3," prattled Mrs. Packard.
Propaganda Funeral. Not so light-hearted were Czechs, although they hoped that the German-Czech crisis had passed. The conversation between Führer Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten (Nazi) party, which claims support of 90% of Czechoslovakia's Sudeten German minority, and Premier Milan Hodza on settlement of the Sudeten grievances, came to a halt last week as Führer Henlein journeyed to Cheb (pop. 31,500), two miles from the German border (see map, p. 15), and near the scene where two Germans were killed fortnight ago, to stage an impressive propaganda funeral for the new "Nazi martyrs." Thousands of Sudetens poured into the 17th-Century town on autos, bicycles and afoot for the ceremony. Leaning backward to prevent another "incident," the Czechoslovakian Government ordered troops in the vicinity confined to barracks, even as far as to allow Henlein's "illegal" white-shirted Storm Troopers to assume police duties.
Before 45,000 cheering Sudetens in the market square, bespectacled, 40-year-old Führer Henlein, onetime gymnasium instructor whose figure is now assuming Göring-like proportions, mounted a black-draped podium and addressed the coffins, covered with red flags bearing the SdP insignia of the Sudetendeutsch Partei. "Fatal bullets struck you, even though you were innocent," he cried. "May your sacrifice be a guiding sign for us." Throaty shouts of "Seig Heil" punctuated the speech of Henlein's stooge, Deputy Karl Hermann Frank, as he defiantly used words from the forbidden Nazi Horst Wessel hymn and roared, "The dead shall rise again because they march in spirit with us in our ranks. Thousands will arise for every one who falls. Whenever the Führer calls on us to stand by for action, we see these dead men also in our ranks."
Adolf Hitler put an official stamp of approval on the demonstration by sending the German Military Attaché in Prague, Colonel Toussaint. and the German Air Attaché, Major Moerike, as his emissaries. Wild shouts of "Heil" broke from the mass as Colonel Toussaint stepped forward, laid two huge evergreen wreaths inscribed "Adolf Hitler" and "The Adolf Hitler Standard" on the caskets.
Sore-Spots. Meantime, German-Czech relations were larded with mutual remonstrances, largely over alleged frontier violations.
¶Germany charged that Czech planes had flown over German frontier territory during the week, photographing military emplacements and attempting to locate non-existent German troop concentrations.