Background
Karel Kramář was bom in Hochstadt, Bohemia, on December 27, 1860, the son of a master builder.
Karel Kramář was bom in Hochstadt, Bohemia, on December 27, 1860, the son of a master builder.
Studies in Prague, Strassburg, Berlin, and Paris led to his receiving a doctorate of law in 1884.
Independently wealthy, Kramaf entered politics on the side of the "Realists" of T. G. Masaryk and was elected to the Reichsrat in 1891 and to the Bohemian Landtag three years later. As a member of the so-called Young Czechs, Kramaf at first avoided radical nationalist programs and sought instead to work for a compromise solution to the Slav question. In terms of foreign policies he denounced the Triple Alliance and called instead for closer ties with Russia.
In May 1915, Kramaf was arrested and charged with high treason by the Austro-Hungarian army in the wake of desertion by several Czech units in the east. In a lengthy secret trial in Vienna lasting until November 1916, Kramaf defended himself brilliantly; nevertheless, the army court found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging. Although the sentence was later commuted to fifteen years of hard labor, Kramaf emerged as a determined enemy of the Habsburgs. Not even the clumsy attempt by Emperor Charles, in July 1917, to widen the basis of support for his policies by granting a general amnesty could bring Kramaf back into the fold.
Ironically, Kramaf was not destined to play a decisive role in the creation of the new Czechoslovakian state. He served as the Czechoslovakian representative at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, but subsequently fell out with the pro-Soviet Eduard Benes over the issue of intervention in Russia's civil war on the side of the Whites. Kramaf died in Prague on May 26, 1937.
During his time in the National Assembly (1918–1937), Kramář worked in the Committee for Foreign Affairs and made many speeches on foreign policy. Kramář developed a system of dividing countries into popular and unpopular nations. Countries such as Great Britain, France, pre-World War One Poland, were into the popular category. On the other hand, countries that he deemed unpopular were Germany, the Soviet Union, post-war Poland, and Hungary.
Russia
Kramář was a Russophile and strongly supported the Russian nation, however he developed a strong dislike for Bolshevism. He discouraged Czechoslovakian support of the Soviet Union for several reasons: he was critical of Soviet use of resources for agitation rather than famine relief, and he disapproved of the tactics used by the secret police. Kramář was very disappointed in 1934 when Czechoslovakia established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Additionally, Kramář saw Bolshevism as a dangerous German creation and believed the Bolsheviks would remain loyal to the German state. He also consistently rejected the idea of centralized production and the utopian vision of a classless society. Despite these objections, Kramář doubted the long-term viability of Bolshevism because he perceived that it did not have the support of a majority of the population and was a system maintained through police state terror. He sincerely hoped that the Soviet Union would collapse during his lifetime.
Germany
In addition to blaming the Germans for the rise of Bolshevism, Kramář was critical of Germany for having initiated the First World War and believed that Germany had misused its close relations with Austria-Hungary for its own ends. After the Treaty of Versailles, Kramář warned against allowing the Germans to revise the treaty, and he criticized the its system of reparations, believing that the Germans must pay all the reparations completely due to the damage done to countries such as France. In 1919 Kramář also warned against the developing relations between Germany and the Soviet Union.
Hungary
Kramář also strongly disliked the Hungarians. His main reason for contempt was their lack of Slavic roots. He also worried that they would try to revise the Treaty of Trianon and that the Habsburgs might try to return to the throne.