Late in 1933, the National Socialist Party in Czechoslovakia forestalled its dissolution by voluntary liquidation, and several of its chiefs escaped across the frontier. This caused in German press and radio an outburst of violent threats against Czechoslovakia.
For a year the Nazi activity in Czechoslovakia was continued but underground.
(b) Deutsche Heimatfront.
On October 1st, 1934, Konrad Henlein, the "unpolitical" gymnastic instructor of the German Gymnastic Federation [Turnverband] of the Republic, established the "German Home Front" [Deutsche Heimatfront]. He denied any relation to the late German National Socialist Party in Czechoslovakia and any connection of the "German Home Front" with the Nazi Party in Germany as well. He even refused to organize the German Home Front on party lines, although he built it up on the basis of the Nazi "Fuehrerprinzip" (principle of leadership), and himself became the "Fuehrer" of the "Heimatfront." But he attempted a camouflage: he rejected pan-Germanism, he insisted that Fascism and Nazism alike lost their natural "raison d'etre" at the Czechoslovak frontiers; he declared himself against the revision of the Versailles Treaty, he professed the unconditional respect for individual rights and liberties, he argued with great fervour that loyalty of the "Sudeten Germans" to the German nation and at the same time to the Czechoslovak State were not mutually exclusive.
(c) The "Sudetendeutsche Partei" (SDP).
The Czechoslovak election system is based on Party representation. Henlein, therefore, changed the German Home Front into the "Sudetendeutsche Partei" (Sudeten Germans' Party), for the purpose of participation in the General Elections of May 1935 for the National Assembly.
Economic distress owing to the trade crisis increased the susceptibility of the German population in Czechoslovakia for the new German Messiah and Henlein won a resounding victory over all other German parties.
When the election results were made known—the Henleinists won 44 seats in the Chamber of Deputies to the National Assembly—Henlein sent a loyalty telegram to President Masaryk.
(5) The Policy and Tactics of the "Sudetendeutsche Partei."
(a) 1935-1936: Still "for Democracy."