Equally characteristic is also the case of the National Socialist leader, deputy Klofáč, who was arrested in September, 1914. Owing to lack of proofs the trial was repeatedly postponed, while Klofáč was left in prison. A formal charge was brought against him only when the Reichsrat was about to open in May, 1917, so as to prevent him from attending the meeting. Nevertheless he was released after the amnesty of July, 1917. Writing in the Národní Politika about his experience in prison, deputy Klofáč says:
"Many educated and aged political prisoners were not allowed out to walk in the yard for five months or more, which is contrary to all regulations. They were also not allowed to read books given to them by the judge, and they had to do the lowest work. One student who refused to wash the floor was beaten and confined to a dark cell. No wonder that many committed suicide. Dr. Vrbenský could tell how he used to get excited by the cry of the ill-treated prisoners. Even his nerves could not stand it. It is quite comprehensible, therefore, that Dr. Scheiner (the president of the 'Sokol' Union) in such an atmosphere was physically and mentally broken down in two months. Dr. Kramář and Dr. Rašín also had an opportunity of feeling the brutality of Polatchek and Teszinski. In the winter we suffered from frosts, for there was no heating. Some of my friends had frozen hands. We resisted the cold by drilling according to the Müller system. This kept us fit and saved us from going to the prison doctor, Dr. A. Prinz, who was a Magyar and formerly a doctor in Karlsbad. If a prisoner went to this 'gentleman,' he did not ask after his illness, but after his nationality, and for the reason of his remand imprisonment. On hearing that a prisoner was Czech and on remand for Par. 58c (high treason), he only hissed: 'You do not want any medicine. It would be wasted, for in any case you will be hanged.'"
Besides Klofáč, the following four National Socialist deputies were also imprisoned: Choc, Buřival, Vojna and Netolický. The accused were condemned on July 30, 1916, for "failing to denounce Professor Masaryk's revolutionary propaganda."
Professor Masaryk, who escaped abroad in 1915, was sentenced to death in Austria in December, 1916. Unable to reach him, the Austrian Government revenged themselves on his daughter, Dr. Alice Masaryk, whom they imprisoned. Only after an energetic press campaign abroad was she released. A similar fate also met the wife of another Czech leader, Dr. Beneš, who escaped abroad in the autumn of 1915 and became secretary general of the Czecho-Slovak National Council.
Dr. Scheiner, president of the "Sokol" Gymnastic Association, was imprisoned, but was again released owing to lack of proofs. A similar fate also met the Czech Social Democratic leader Dr. Soukup, who was for some time kept in prison.
[(b) Monster Trials, Arbitrary Executions, Internment of Civilians, etc.]
A notorious reason for imprisonment, and even execution, was the possession of the so-called Russian Manifesto dropped by Russian aeroplanes, being a proclamation of the Tsar to the people of Bohemia promising them the restoration of their independence. Mr. Matějovský, of the Prague City Council, and fifteen municipal clerks were sentenced to many years' imprisonment for this offence in February, 1915. In May, 1915, six persons, among them two girls, were condemned to death in Kyjov, Moravia, for the same offence. On the same charge also sixty-nine other persons from Moravia were brought to Vienna and fifteen of them sentenced to death. One of the Czech girls who were executed for this offence was a Miss Kotíková, aged twenty-one, who, according to the Arbeiter Zeitung of September 8, 1917, refused to say from whom she had received the manifesto, and through her heroic attitude saved the lives of others.
Without a fair trial and without evidence, the editor of the National Socialist organ Pokrok in Prostějov, Mr. Joseph Kotek, was sentenced to death on Christmas Eve of 1914. The sentence was passed at noon, confirmed at half-past four and carried out at half-past six. As no one could be found to act as hangman, Kotek was shot. The reason given for the verdict was that the accused editor of the Pokrok, which was suppressed as being dangerous to the State, delivered a speech at a meeting of a co-operative society in which he said that all Czechs were unanimous that they knew that Austria was losing the war and that they prayed to God that her downfall might be soon. He was further alleged to have said that it was doubtful how Europe would be divided after the war, but that in any case the Czecho-Slovak countries would be made independent as a wedge between Germany and Austria, and that if Germany won the Czechs would be germanised, like the Poles in Germany. The accused admitted that he did speak about the reorganisation of Europe, but not in the words used by the prosecution. But, as the Arbeiter Zeitung said, even if he did say what the prosecution alleged, as a civilian he should never have been sentenced to death by a military tribunal. According to Czech papers, Kotek was buried among ordinary criminals outside the cemetery. The grave of the innocent martyr was not even marked with his name, and his wife was not allowed to visit it, because the military authorities forbade the sexton of the church to allow any one to see the graves of those executed for high treason.
Dr. Preiss, the manager of the Czech bank, Živnostenská Banka, which has its branches in Galicia, Rumania, Serbia and elsewhere, and four of his colleagues were imprisoned, because the Czechs would not subscribe to Austrian war loans and Dr. Preiss had done nothing to induce them to do so.
As regards the horrors of the internment camps, in which over 20,000 innocent Czechs, men, women and children, were confined, we will only quote the revelations of the Czech National Socialist deputy Stříbrný, who declared in the Reichsrat on June 14, 1917: