The German Question, Part One Hundred Twenty-Four

"Hitler Rules Germany" Part Two/B"
Foreign Policy & The German Question" (Part Five/1)
"Germans In Czechoslovakia" (Part 1)

First a little background:
Czechoslovakia was formed after World War One from parts of the former "Austria-Hungary." The western areas, usually referred to as "Bohemia and Moravia," were Czech majority, and the eastern areas were Slovak majority. When Austria and Hungary agreed to share power in 1867, Hungary had ruled the Slovak areas and Austria had ruled Bohemia and Moravia. The significant thing was, the outer border areas of Bohemia and Moravia (sort of a semi-circle and much of it mountainous or hilly) were populated by Germans, some settlements dating back hundreds of years, and indeed, the area was part of the Old German Empire, and specifically became a Habsburg family possession in the 1500s. Poles, Hungarians and Ruthenians also formed smaller minorities within the nation's boundaries. When the Old German Empire was dissolved, these lands remained under Habsburg control, and thus became part of what was then called, the Austrian Empire, which later became Austria-Hungary, as noted above. When Czechoslovakia was formed, the Czechs essentially dominated the government, and although closely related to the Slovaks, both ethnically and linguistically, the two peoples did not always get along well together. The German population was upset that it then found itself as a distinct minority, with somewhat less than 25% of the population.* Later, when the Great Depression struck, the German areas were heavily hit by unemployment, which only caused further discontent. When Hitler came to power in Germany, and German nationalism surged, the German population of Czechoslovakia began to stir, and the situation was eventually set for Hitler to make claims against Czechoslovakia.

* It should be noted that some Germans also lived in the "interior" parts of the Czech lands, and also, but to a lesser degree, in the Slovak areas, but the vast majority lived in the outer edges of the Czech lands. This outer boundary area came to be called the "Sudentenland" by Germans, after the Sudeten Mountains in the area.

WORD HISTORY:
Whole-This word goes back to Indo European "koilas/kailo," which seems to have meant "healthy, unharmed, in a sound condition/state, complete/entire." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "(k)hailaz," with the same general meaning. This produced Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "hal," with the same meanings, but the meaning "complete" eventually began to dominate. That meaning comes from the notion, if you are "unharmed, healthy," you are "complete." Later it was spelled "hool" and then "hole," but by the late 1400s or early 1500s, the "w" was added to differentiate it from the word of the same spelling, but meaning "opening, orifice, or perforation." In northern England and parts of Scotland it came to be pronounced and spelled "hale," where it also retained the meaning, "healthy," and indeed, "whole" and "hale" are closely related to "health and healthy." Numerous forms are common in the other Germanic languages, although with variations in exact meaning, but all generally centering around "healthy" and "unharmed," and some even with a similar meaning to English "whole;" that is "complete:" German has "heil," Low German has both "heel" and "heil," Dutch has "heel," West Frisian has "hiel," Norwegian has "heil," Swedish and Danish have "hel," and Icelandic has "heill."