Prasa krakowska wobec konferencji w Monachium (1938)
Cracow press in the face of Munich Conference (1938)

Summary/Abstract: In the second half of 1930s the territorial expansionism of the Third Reich, the country humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, takes the floor. After the Anschluss of Austria, the international situation starts to exacerbate, especially in the area of Czechoslovakia. The attempts at annexation by the Reich of the Sudetenland triggered a violent reaction of western diplomacies. Not indifferent to those events was the Cracow press. The capital of Lesser Poland had in this period very differentiated newspaper market. The main bodies of the right-wing press were two daily newspapers Czas (Time) and Głos Narodu (The Voice of the Nation). The biggest daily, in terms of scope, circulation and readership, was Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny (Illustrated Everyday Courier). In its plans, the editorial board was to be politically nonpartisan and unbiased in the journalist craft, however in practice, it sympathized with Sanation political camp. The views of the slightly left-winged intelligentsia were expressed by two journals — Krakowski Kurier Poranny (Cracow Morning Courier) and its regional edition Krakowski Kurier Wieczorny (Cracow Evening Courier). The body of the Polish Peasants’ Party was Piast. Among extreme-left press could be counted a daily Naprzód (Forward). The Jewish Minority of Cracow also had a numerous representation. For them, the most significant newspaper was Nowy Dziennik (The New Daily). All the above-mentioned newspapers reported, with greater or smaller interest, about the events pertained to the Sudetenland crisis. The fastest and the vastest reaction was that of Czas, but the newspaper mainly concentrated on the Polish interest connected to opening opportunity to occupy Zaolzie. The resolutions of the Munich Agreement itself were by the newspaper treated marginally, which was also true in the case of the second right-wing daily Głos Narodu. Paradoxically, not much space was devoted to this event by Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny either. The reactions to the conflict in Czechoslovakia from Krakowski Kurier Poranny and Krakowski Kurier Wieczorny were also late but slightly sympathetic to the Czechoslovakian part. The resolutions of the Munich Agreement itself were left with no comment, since the key issue was that of Polish interest in Zaolzie. The newspaper bodies of the Left almost entirely ignored the Munich Agreement. In the Cracow newspaper reports from that time there appeared various mentions referring to possible outbreak of war, which could be observed in a weeklies Piast and Nowy Dziennik. In both of these newspapers there were expressed fears about the Third Reich’s territorial demands towards Poland.

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