The Devil’s Wall

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Legend has it that the twenty miles of volcanic rock in northern Bohemia was created by the devil to separate the warring Czechs and Germans. This "Devil's Wall" symbolized rising ethnic tensions in the nineteenth century. In interwar Czechoslovakia, Sudeten German nationalists aimed to restore German influence in the region. Mark Cornwall narrates the story of Heinz Rutha, a prominent figure who pioneered a youth movement focused on male bonding to reassert German dominance over Czech territory. Cornwall explores Rutha's repressed sexuality and how Czech authorities misinterpreted his mission as sexual deviance, leading to his 1937 charge of corrupting adolescents. The ensuing scandal resulted in Rutha's imprisonment, suicide, and excommunication from the nationalist cause he had fervently supported. Cornwall is the first historian to address the intersection of youth, homosexuality, and nationalism in a fascist context. The narrative also challenges the stereotype that all Sudeten German nationalists were Nazis and provides a fresh perspective on Britain's appeasement of Hitler, suggesting justifiable support for the Sudeten German cause in the 1930s. This biography of an ardent German Bohemian reexamines the Czech-German struggle in early twentieth-century Europe.