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Most observers agree that the minority Sudetens have a legitimate grievance. In 1920 the horseshoe mountainous strip was deliberately added to the new fish-shaped State by the Allied peacemakers by the Treaty of Saint-Germain, in order to set up a natural fortification barrier against Germany. This gave the new Czechoslovak State a population 22% German. The Sudetens lost their German and Austrian markets. Some Sudeten factories shut down, others were taken over by Czechs. Although the Sudetens form almost 100% blocs in some sections, Czech police and local officials were appointed to administer their affairs. Czech workers gradually squeezed out the Germans and today the region's greatest grievance is unemployment, for although they number only 22% of the population, the Sudetens comprise half the nation's unemployed, subsist on a miserable 37¢ a week dole.
But to cede the area to Germany or to allow it to fall into Germany's hands would be virtual suicide for Czechoslovakia. At one point the Sudeten area reaches to within 20 miles of the nation's capital. Containing the extensive "Maginot" line of fortifications, constructed with French aid and almost as effective as France's Maginot line, loss of the region would lay Czechoslovakia wide open to military rape. Located within the Sudeten rim are most of Czechoslovakia's industries, of her coal and iron resources. The famed Skoda munitions plant at Pilsen, dangerously near the German border, has been secretly moved into the interior, leaving the Pilsen foundry to the manufacture of machines and railway equipment.
Second Elections. Last weekend, in the second of a series of local elections, street fighting broke out between Henleinists and anti-Nazi German Socialists at Eibenberg, near Kraslice. However, the incident was passed over quietly, for the German press, ordered to cease screaming against Czechoslovakia, remained silent.
However, a grim reminder that German-Czech relations are still on edge met every voter at the polls. Alongside the ballot boxes stood collection boxes for Czechoslovakia's defense fund. Although the balloting in the rest of the country went on to a patriotic jingle of hellers, in the Sudeten area the vote was sullen, clinkless.