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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 acceptance 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, naturally, in relation to Jewish citizens. The so called ‘Jewish Code’ issued on September 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 public 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 propaganda: 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, concentrated 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 Slovakia 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 increased among members of this minority. The privileged status of the Deutsche Partei (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 cartoons 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 structure independent of state administrative bodies, including its own military units (Freiwillige Schutzstaffel) (Gabzdilova 2004).
