CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

by Kurt Glaser ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 1961

The author has an unusual story to tell- and one that will be unfamiliar to most Americans. Though his bias shows, he is an eloquent spokesman for his cause and casts a great deal of light from a different direction on a country most of the world thinks of vaguely as a small democracy that was swallowed up first by the Nazis and then by the Communists. Mr. Glaser's sympathies are rightist, pro-Slovak and pro-Sudeten German (though anti-Nazi) and the points he makes are these: that Czecho-Slovakia was never a real country at all and not much of a democracy; that it was formed by Benes and Masaryk so that a Czech majority dominated- sometimes ruthlessly- Slovak, German and other national minorities. He presents a rather convincing case for toleration of the ""Republic of Slovakia"" set up in the partition after Munich, and he argues that Benes pinned his hopes to Russia and the Communists while in London during World War II as the only way of getting the ""artificial"" state re-established. Therefore he holds Benes and his supporters responsible for the eventual Communist takeover, a controversial viewpoint. One need not agree with all the author's views (that the Sudeten Germans should be brought back to Czecho-Slovakia, for example, is hardly realistic) to find the book interesting and it affords a very different view of the intricacies of politics on the Danube.

Pub Date: May 22, 1961

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Caxton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1961

Categories: NONFICTION