ing within the borders of non-fascist nations.

I

_Czechoslovakia--Before The Carving_

It is pretty generally admitted now that the Munich "peace" gave
Germany industrial and military areas essential to further
aggressions. Instead of helping to put a troubled Europe on the road
to lasting peace, Munich strengthened the totalitarian powers,
especially Germany, and a strengthened Germany inevitably means
increased activities of the Nazis' Fifth Column which is, in all
quarters of the globe, actively preparing the ground for Hitler's
greater plans.

If we can divine the future by the past, the Fifth Column, that
shadowy group of secret agents now entrenched in every important
country throughout the world, is an omen of what is to come. Before
Germany marched into Austria, that unhappy country witnessed a large
influx of Fifth Column members. In Czechoslovakia, especially in those
months before the Republic's heart was handed to Hitler on a platter,
there was a tremendous increase in the numbers and activities of
agents sent into the Central European country.

During my stay there in the brief period immediately preceding the
"peace," I learned a little about the operations of the Gestapo's
secret agents in Czechoslovakia. Their numbers are vast and those few
of whom I learned, are infinitesimal to the actual numbers at work
then and now, not only in Czechoslovakia but in other countries. What
I learned of those few, however, shows how the Gestapo, the Nazi
secret service, operates in its ruthless drive.

For years Hitler had laid plans to fight, if he had to, for
Czechoslovakia, whose natural mountain barriers and man-made defensive
line of steel and concrete stood in the way of his announced drive to
the Ukrainian wheat fields. In preparation for the day when he might
have to fight for its control, he sent into the Republic a host of
spies, provocateurs, propagandists and saboteurs to establish
themselves, make contacts, carry on propaganda and build a machine
which would be invaluable in time of war.

In a few instances I learned the details of the Nazis' inexorable
determination and their inhuman indifference to the lives of even
their own agents.

Arno Oertel, _alias_ Harald Half, was a thin, white-faced spy trained
in two Gestapo schools for Fifth Column work. Oertel was given a
German passport by Richter, the Gestapo district chief at
Bischofswerda on what was then the Czechoslovak-German fron