CZECHOSLOVAKIA: Hell Henlein!

If none but Czechs and Slovaks lived in Czechoslovakia, life would be easier for many a European statesman. Unfortunately in a total population of 14,730,000 at least 3,500,000 are Germans. As an ally of France and cornerstone of the Little Entente, Czechoslovakia has been a haven for Jews and other refugees from Nazi Germany, immigrants who have been greeted with marked coolness by most of Czechoslovakia's old established bourgeois families.

Propaganda, subsidies and in many cases direct intimidation so swelled the Nazi Party in Czechoslovakia that the Government ordered it banned in October 1933 together with all other parties that would not subscribe to the principles of democracy. Since then Berlin's foreign policy has grown wiser and shrewder. There suddenly appeared on Czechoslovakia's political horizon an earnest, near-sighted German-speaking gymnasium instructor named Konrad Henlein, organizer of a party known as the Sudetendeutsch Heimat Front. Ceaselessly he has repeated that he takes no orders from Adolf Hitler, has no intention of preaching political union with Germany. But S. H. F. meetings use all the Nazi slogans and devices. The party has attracted dozens of German reactionaries and advocates of the union of Czechoslovakia's German districts with Germany. In Czechoslovakia Konrad Henlein is Der Führer.

There were general parliamentary elections throughout Czechoslovakia last week, and to the acute distaste of most of Prague, Führer Henlein's party topped every other in the country with 1,294,000 votes against the Agrarian's second highest: 1,176,000. Because of the country's voting system, the Czech Agrarian party still will have the largest number of seats in parliament. Prague observers found democracy in Czechoslovakia still in no immediate danger, but it was a close call, demanded immediate rebuilding of political fences.

In Germany beer halls echoed with jubilant shouts of ''Heil Henlein!'', while in Czechoslovakia Führer Henlein was still paying lip service to bearded old President Thomas Masaryk.