Ošemetné Scylly a zrádné Charybdy protektorátních novinářů [Tricky Scyllas and treacherous Charybdas...

This paper examines the topic of passive resistance and collaboration of Czech journalists under the conditions of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia (1939-1945), which was established by the Nazis after the elimination of the Republic of Czecho-Slovakia and the occupation of the Czech lands in 1939. Even during that time, newspapers in Czech language were published, which nevertheless conveyed the interests of the political representation of the Protectorate and, above all, of the occupying power. The Czech print media were governed by the Protectorate and occupational authorities using various manipulative, regulatory and censorship mechanisms. Those Czech journalists who remained working for their respective print media employed various ways of dealing with the situation, including passive resistance as well as collaboration. The aim of this paper is to illuminate some forms of passive resistance, for example distance and subversion, rooted in specific tactics of separation, conservation, retardation, obstruction, irony and neutralization. Regarding the collaborative behaviour, this text focuses on the differences between conformist collaboration, which did not believe in the durability of the occupation and merely passively executed orders coming from the Protectorate but mainly occupational administration, and the activist collaboration, which relied on the idea of a permanent incorporation of the Czech lands into the „Third Reich" and therefore engaged in an active championing of the German occupation. The paper also analyses the phenomenon of a tell-telling, which is treated as aspecific phenomenon, being not directly associated with collaboration, not even with its activist type.