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The next day, from Hradschin Castle, [Hitler] proclaimed the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which though it professed to provide "autonomy and self-government" for the Czechs brought them, by its very language, completely under the German heel. All power was given to the "Reich Protector" and to his Secretary of State and his Head of the Civil Administration, who were to be appointed by the Fuehrer. To placate outraged public opinion in Britain and France, Hitler brought the "moderate" Neurath out of cold storage and named him Protector. The two top Sudeten leaders, Konrad Henlein and the gangster Karl Hermann Frank, were given an opportunity to get revenge on the Czechs by being appointed head of the Civil Administration and Secretary of State respectively. It was not long before Himmler, as boss of the German police, got a stranglehold on the protectorate. To do his work, he made the notorious Frank chief of police of the protectorate and ranking S.S. officer.

For a thousand years [Hitler said in his proclamation of the protectorate] the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia formed part of the Lebensraum of the German people . . . Czechoslovakia showed its inherent inability to survive and has therefore now fallen a victim to actual dissolution. The German Reich cannot tolerate continuous disturbances in these areas . . . Therefore the German Reich, in keeping with the law of self-preservation, is now resolved to intervene decisively to rebuild the foundations of a reasonable order in Central Europe. For in the thousand years of its history it has already proved that, thanks to the greatness and the qualities of the German people, it alone is called upon to undertake this task.

A long night of German savagery now settled over Prague and the Czech lands.

This is an extraordinarily important day in history, not only for the Czechs & Germans, but also for the West -- the day when the last of Neville Chamberlain's blinders fell from his eyes, and he began to see, apparently for the first time, Hitler's true nature.

I must say, the NY Times editorial seems absolutely clear-eyed, at least as regards what Hitler was really up to. But it also seems that no one yet has a sense of the horrors to come, or the role America must play.

Note the comment above about the German secret police arriving with lists of people in hand. Is it not astonishing how little curiosity the NY Times shows about the fate of those hapless folk, or even just who they might be?