Page 248 [248]
246
Zuzana Panczová
slovakia as a betrayal by the British and French allies in the interest of appeasement.
The existing Czech-Slovak schism also helped Hitler to divide Czechoslovakia and
to create a model satellite state. In the spring of 1939 Hitler offered the then Slovak
People’s Party leader Jozef Tiso an opportunity to implement the full autonomy of
Slovakia under the tutelage of the German Reich. This started a controversial era in
Slovakia of enthusiastic state-building, but at the cost of an unconditional accept¬
ance of the German political ideology and political, military and economic control.
Abroad, however, the Resistance was formed, which consisted on the one hand
of the supporters of the former president Edvard Bene§ and Slovak Democrats in
London, and on the other (after 1943) of the Communists, who worked directly
under the influence of Soviet policy in Moscow.
In connection with ethnic policy, a substantial change after 1939 came, natu¬
rally, in relation to Jewish citizens. The so called ‘Jewish Code’ issued on Septem¬
ber 9, 1941 legalised and specified the unequal status of the Jewish minority in the
territory of the wartime Slovak Republic. Jews were defined on the basis of racial
and religious criteria, were required to wear a yellow star, were excluded from pub¬
lic office and deprived of the most basic civil rights. (For more on the anti-Jewish
persecution in Slovakia during WWII and the ‘Jewish Code’ see Kamenec 2007.)
After 1939 the Czech minority in Slovakia was also exposed to hostile propa¬
ganda: most of the Czech civil servants were made redundant and were forced to
leave Slovakia.‘
On the other hand, for example the German minority in Slovakia, concen¬
trated mainly in big towns or enclaves in various parts of Slovakia, was in a different
position. The advent of Czechoslovakia was not welcomed among Germans in Slo¬
vakia because of their loyalty to the previous regime, the Austro-Hungarian Empire
(Horvathova 2002: 109). Later, in the 1920s this minority was reconciled with the
new sociopolitical system. Nevertheless after 1933 the influence of Nazification in¬
creased among members of this minority. The privileged status of the Deutsche Par¬
tei (Ihe German Party in Slovakia, reorganised after 1939 to follow the pattern of
the NSDAP in the German Reich) within the Slovak political system” significantly
strengthened the position of the German minority (Gabzdilova & Olejnik 1998).
Ideological Profile of the Magazine
In the period after WWI a few more humorous magazines featuring political car¬
toons appeared in Slovakia, but their publishing did not last for more than a few
* The number of members of the Czech minority in Slovakia decreased from 77 448 in 1938 to 31 451
in 1943. The number of Czech state employees in Slovakia decreased from 20 541 in 1938 to 1174
in 1943 (Rychlik 1989: 410, 423; Bystricky 1997: 611).
> In 1940 the Deutsche Partei in der Slowakei had around 60 000 members—almost all of the adult male
Germans in Slovakia (Gabzdilova & Olejnik 1998). The party was allowed to have an organisational struc¬
ture independent of state administrative bodies, including its own military units (Freiwillige Schutzstaffel)
(Gabzdilova 2004).