Anti-Austrian cartoons

The conservative daily Lidove noviny is appalled by the anti-Austrian cartoons published in the Prague-based weekly Reflex. The cartoons depict the Austrians as a cross between Sudeten Germans and Bohemian cleaning ladies, who were even worse Nazis than the Germans and yet were the first to cast themselves as victims of National Socialism after the war. They portray a criminal like the sex offender Josef F. as symbolic of the Austrian character. "These cartoons are shameless. ... Austria's stance on German National Socialism is virtually identical to the Czech stance on Bolshevism. Czech politicians - not very bravely - used the Second World War as an excuse to steal from their fellow German citizens and expel them from the country. ... And while the Communists won 38 percent of the vote in the Czech Socialist Republic (CSR) in 1946, just one year before they won only 5.5 percent in Austria, even though it was under greater political pressure."

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