OCR
- page two National Council started a very strong programme of re-organizing formeriy German Schools into Sorb schools, of creating a strong Sorb press and of building up Sorb feelings by frequent radio proadopt sponsored in the Sorb Language and calling for Sorb sepaPaCLSMe A very important step in this campaign was March 23rd, 1948, when the Communist parliament of Saxony decided, that the administration of the whole Sorb territory would henceforth be autonomous, and thet in the territory there would be three official languages : Sorb, German, and Russian. Up to this year the three languages where on an even footinge Now the tendaney is clear, to put the languages in the following order : Sorb, Russian, German. All public inseriptions have to be made in this order, and since the early summer the tendency is ve y marked slowly to forget even the Ggrmam, making this a bi-lingual sorb and Russian area. It is interesting to note for instance, that ir is getting a standing practice now to call officially the city of Bautzen only by its Sorb name " Budysiny"> Quite recently, besides the Russian efforts, the Commnist Governement of Czecho-Slovakia has also started to show interest in the matter. Czecho-Slovakia has already hinted that it would be interested in the annexation of the whole Sorb area, or at least the Zittau Basin. For that purpose the Czech governement has opened a free Sorb School in Varnadorf, and is encouraging the Sorb Youth to come to Czech Universities. A certain number of free university studies are offered the Sorb Youth both in Prague and in the USSR. The members of the Czech Military Mission in Berlin have furthermore shown much interest in the area and have visited it more than once during this summer. All these moves from both Czechs and Russians, never oppo sed by the German Communist SED governement of either Saxony or the so-called German D mocratic Republic, have puzzled observers very much in the past. Somehow it was hard to fit them into the picture. Now nevertheless an intercepted Memorandum of the Czech Military Migsion in Berlin, following the visit of several of its members to " Domowina” and especially talks with Miuchin , gives the answer to the question. According to this memorandum $ 1 2 the primary aim of the whole Sorb operation is as folfows : the crearion of an independent Slaw state in the body of present East Germany. If Russia, for one reason or another, should be called upon to leave Germany by its military forces, this small Slav State would be proclaimed independent, and 16 in turn would keep Slav forces in order to protect it from the Germense 2 / The creation of such a Sorb State under Slav military Protection would afford also a valuable precedent for creating another independent State in the area f the present operations of Wismath A.G. , namely of the Uranium M nes. 3 / Since it would be hard to keep Russian troops 4n the Sorb State, once the Russian forces would have to leave Germany, this duty would befulfilled by Czechs. The Sorb State would hence 3