the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

FACING 

HISTORY 

The evolution of Czech-German relations 

in the Czech provinces, 1848-1948

FACING 

HISTORY 


in the Czech provinces, 1848-1948 

Zdeněk Beneš, Drahomír Jančík, Jan Kuklík, jr., Eduard Kubů, Václav Kural, 

Robert Kvaček, Václav Pavlíček, Jiří Pešek, René Petráš, 

Zdeněk Radvanovský (et al.), Radovan Suchánek 

Editors: Zdeněk Beneš, Václav Kural

Published by Gallery s.r.o. 

for the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic 

© Gallery, 2002 

© Zdeněk Beneš, 2002 

© Drahomír Jančík, 2002 

© Jan Kuklík, jr., 2002 

© Eduard Kubů, 2002 

© Václav Kural, 2002 

© Robert Kvaček, 2002 

© Václav Pavlíček, 2002 

© Jiří Pešek, 2002 

© René Petráš, 2002 

© Zdeněk Radvanovský, 2002 

© Radovan Suchánek, 2002 

© Gerald Turner, 2002 

ISBN 80-86010-64-3

Thanks for their valuable comments are due to Jiří Gruša, Vladimír Mikule, Tomáš 

Vrba, František Pavel Novotný, Jiří Vaněk, Lubor Vorel, Benjamin Kuras 

and others. We would also like to thank reviewers for their comments, some 

of which were taken into account in the preparation of the second edition. 

Our thanks for the photographs go to Jaroslav Čvančara (Někomu život někomu smrt), 

Václav Jiřík (Nedaleko od Norimberku), Roman Karpaš (Stalo se na severu 

Čech 1900-2000), Mr. Dobroslav Pičman, the Lidice Memorial 

and owners of private archives.

Contents 

Chapter I ■ Historical Roots 

Chapter II ■ 

Chapter III ■ 

Chapter IV ■ 

Zdeněk Beneš 

Eduard Kubů 

Zdeněk Beneš, Václav Kural 

Václav Pavlíček 

Václav Kural 

Václav Kural 





René Petráš 






Eduard Kubů 



Robert Kvaček 

Václav Kural 

Václav Kural, Václav Pavlíček 



Drahomír Jančík 

Zdeněk Radvanovský (et al.) 



Václav Kural 

Václav Kural 

Václav Kural 

Václav Kural 

Václav Kural 

Václav Kural 

Czech and Germans 

The Bohemian State and the Holy Roman Empire 

“Bohemi” and “Theutonici” 

Nationality or Faith? 

Barbarism or Civilisation? 

“Darkness” 

From Ethnic Group to Nation 

The 1848 Revolution 

Nineteenth-century Nationalisation 

Economic Nationalism 

The Czechs and Germans and the Birth 

of Czechoslovakia 

World War I and the Status of the Czechs 

The Émigré Community 

The Home Front 

Summary 

The Founding of the Republic and the Basis 

of the Czechoslovak Constitutional System 

The Creation and Promotion of the State Bodies 

Recognition of National and State Sovereignty 

Czechs and Germans in a Democratic 

Czechoslovakia, 1918-1938 

Czechoslovakia’s Ethnic Policy 

Legal Aspects of Czechoslovakia’s Ethnic Policy 

Administrative Reforms during the First Republic 

in relation to the Germans 

A Comparison of the Status of Minorities 

in Czechoslovakia and Elsewhere 

German Negativism 

From Negativism to Activism, 1920-1932 

Activism in the Ascendant 

Economic Aspects of Czechoslovak Realities 

From Negativism to Nazism, 1933-1939 

“Sudetenland” and “Sudeten” 

Europe and Czechoslovakia in the 1930s 

The Path to “Munich” 

The “Second Republic” 

The Reality of the Protectorate 

The Protectorate and the Jews 

Germanisation and the Exploitation of the Czech 

Economy and Jewish Property During the Occupation 

The Sudetenland as a Reichsgau 

The Czech Resistance Movement 

Recognition of the Czechoslovak Government and 

the Inception of Decretory Authority 

The Influence of Occupation and War on the Evolution 

of the Transfer Plan 

Beneš, the Home Front and Jaksch after the Defeat of France 

Heydrich’s Terror Radicalises Transfer Plans 

The Assassination of Heydrich and the Subsequent 

Reign of Terror 

The Transfer of Germans from Czechoslovakia – Plans 

Some Questions 

12 

16 

17 

20 

21 

23 

24 

27 

28 

30 

36 

38 

42 

48 

51 

53 

61 

66 

67 

73 

75 

80 

83 

84 

85 

92 

97 

98 

107 

The Break up of Czechoslovakia and the Genesis of 

the Transfer 

116 

119 

122 

123 

137 

159 

162 

167 

169 

178 

182 

185 

189

194 

199 

205 

210 

215 

221 

230 

232 

236 

237 

238 

243 

245 

248 

252 

255 

267 

271 

276 

282 

291 

294 

332 

335 

Jiří Pešek 

The International Framework for the 

Transfer of the Sudeten Germans 

The First Half of the Twentieth Century – 

a Period of Enforced Migrations and Transfers 

Transfers During World War II – Part 

of the Post-War Concept of Europe 

Evacuations and Exodus 

Zdeněk Beneš, Jiří Pešek 

■ Chapter VI 

The Transfer and its Legal Aspects ■ Chapter VII 

Decrees from the Period of the Provisional State 

Decrees and Laws from the Transitional Period 

Decrees Relating to the Transfer of the German and Hungarian 

Minorities from Czechoslovakia 

International Comparison of the Legal Standards 

of the Decrees 

The Issue of Reparation 

Retribution Decrees 

Ratihabitio 

Law No. 115/1946 Coll., and Acts of Anti-German Resistance 

The Question of the Legality and Legitimacy of the Transfer 

The Crimes of Hitler’s Germany and their Boomerang Effect 


The Implementation 

of the Transfer 

The Czech Provinces and the Germans 

In the Immediate Aftermath of the War 

The Process of the Transfer 

Homicidal Excesses of the Transfer 

Victims of the Transfer 

Terminology of the Transfer 

■ Chapter V 

Jan Kuklík, jr. 










Interpretation ■ Chapter VIII 


Decrees of the President of the Republic 

from the Contemporary Perspective 

Pavel Rychetský 

Bibliography 

Documents 

compiled by Jan Kuklík, jr. and Radovan Suchánek 

Some of the Presidential Decrees and their Legal Status 

compiled by Vladimír Mikule 

Appendix 

Contents

Foreword 

The end of eight centuries of continuous cohabitation of Czech and Germans 

on the present territory of the Czech Republic is one of the most dramatic 

and most discussed events of modern history. This is particularly true of its 

closing phase, described traditionally in Czech as odsun (transfer, resettlement) and 

in German die Vertreibung expulsion. On both the Czech and German sides this is 

the subject not only of scholarly research, but also, to a much more visible extent, of 

sometimes passionate journalistic polemic. And, of course, it is an implement of 

political endeavours and conflicts. In some form or another and in varying degrees it 

has thus entered the broader public awareness on both sides of the Czech-German 

border. It therefore merits thorough examination. 

The resettlement of some 2,500,000 people from one state to another is an act that 

cannot be the work of a moment, the outcome of a momentary impulse. Nor can it 

be the voluntaristic act of a single state. The idea for the “total transfer” of the 

Germans from the Czechoslovak Republic was hatched in 1941 and evolved during 

the remaining years of World War II as opinions on solving the future of German 

minorities in the European countries in general changed and became more specific. 

They were also influenced by the concepts of the Polish home resistance and of 

Sikorsky’s government-in-exile. The latter were based on the thesis that in view of 

Nazi policy in occupied Poland the post-war cohabitation of Poles and Germans was 

out of the question. Opinion evolved along similar lines within British foreign policy 

as represented by the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). 

There the question of Czechoslovakia’s German minority was dealt with as part of 

the overall problem of Germany’s status in a post-war European settlement. Within 

the Czechoslovak resistance the question of transfer crystallised in direct connection 

with the Nazi occupation policy in the Protectorate and with the development of 

ideas about the possible post-war evolution of the nation and the state, as well as in 

the light of the negative experiences of the inter-war years. All those considerations 

were also greatly influenced by the transfers of populations carried out by the Nazi 

regime itself in the course of World War II. For those reasons, the transfer of the 

Germans from the Czechoslovak Republic cannot be interpreted as the victors’ 

revenge on the vanquished or be regarded as an isolated phenomenon reducible solely 

to a question of Czech-German relations. The German minority was also transferred 

from Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia (from the territory of present-day Slovenia) 

and many other examples of enforced or voluntary migrations of large populations 

can be cited in the period 1938-1947 on a considerable scale. 

It is the task of historians to study those migrations and the concomitant 

phenomena and processes within the contemporary context, and also to seek the 

reasons and describe the way they occurred and what was their outcome. However 

research cannot be restricted solely to general historical scholarship, seeking 

historical causes and ramifications. It is in the nature of events in modern history 

that they have various additional aspects, not least of which is the legal context. And 

for that very reason legal history occupies quite an important place in our text, 

because legal norms and systems have a historical dimension too without which they 

cannot be fully understood or adequately interpreted. Much the same applies to the 

economic aspects and context, because they sometimes exert an even more 

immediate influence on people’s daily lives than legal systems, for instance, and they 

thus create an important filter for assessing events around us. All the more so, maybe, 

because their omnipresence leads us to pay insufficient attention to them as prisms to 

help us explain and evaluate common attitudes and received opinions. In assessing 

contemporary history it is impossible to avoid judgements, because historical events 

are not simple abstract phenomena but are still a vivid and vital part of social, 

political and cultural events. 

Like all events and phenomena of contemporary history we necessarily perceive 

the transfer of the Germans from Czechoslovakia as a multi-faceted phenomenon. 

8

Foreword 

Stories and memories of – often traumatic – past experiences are passed on through 

the family to younger generations, the older members of which were children at the 

time and the younger members were not even born. The power of family ties, as well 

as of shared traditions and received stereotypes helps to keep these events alive in 

people’s memory and they are therefore part of our own lives too. But at such they 

also come into conflict with the reality they refer to. Alongside scholarship and 

political instrumentalisation, this aspect (described as “social memory” by presentday 

historiographers) represents the third main level of perception and interpretation 

of contemporary history. For this reason our perception of the transfer of the 

Germans from Czechoslovakia is permeated by our personal, social, national, 

political and possibly also religious awareness. It also depends on our experience, our 

knowledge of history and is influenced by a broad range of additional information. 

However to have a real understanding of that period it is necessary to know 

something of the – albeit far from completed – historical research and to have the 

opportunity to work with verified facts and proven linkages. Our text is also marked 

by the incompleteness of the research to date. Open issues must be discussed openly 

through dialogue based on mutual respect and on specialised methodological and 

methodical principles. Such an approach by no means precludes the existence of 

different opinions due to generational and professional diversity or resulting from 

different approaches and methodological concepts. Our concern is to understand 

history, not to stand in judgement on it. 

The historical roots of the transfer, that final phase of the “debacle of Czech- 

German relations” in the 1930s and 1940s can be traced back quite far into the past. 

For that reason our exposition of the transfer starts with its historical roots, its “prehistory”, 

dating right back to the 10 th -13 th centuries. However it is not the job of 

this publication to trace its roots in an overall context. That would require a 

monograph. Therefore we shall solely pay attention to the main factors which 

retrospectively provided the ideological weapons for national argumentation in the 

modern era. The point is that for a long time the relations between Czechs and 

Germans were not determined by the factor of national consciousness. The main 

factors were social, legal and cultural relations and later the problem of religious 

denomination. Modern national consciousness came into existence only in the course 

of the nineteenth century, along with many attitudes to do with identity and values. 

That was the birthplace of the unequal conflict of modern times, in which the 

German side was stronger and more advanced culturally, socially and politically, 

while the Czech side was weaker but developing and asserting its interests with 

increasing consistency and success. The fact that the conflict was resolved violently 

was due to a combination of circumstances, some of them historically determined, 

others fortuitous. As a fact of history it cannot be undone. However, as part of 

historical scholarship and of personal and collective historical consciousness it must 

be food for reflection on the consequences of “dislocated” events. Just two days prior 

to Munich, Karel Čapek reflected on the possible outcome in a sensitive and 

poignantly perceptive way and almost prophetically: “… try to concede secretly 

another possibility – that that country, which I don’t want to name, is defeated; that 

defeat, you can bet your life on it, will be a national catastrophe. Consider that defeat 

and its ramifications as a mere possibility and then decide, in the light of conscience 

and your love for your country, whether your are for war or peace. It would be your 

decision – or your transgression, depending on how you look at it, but it would be a 

dreadful decision or transgression, and you, your towns and your villages would bear 

the brunt of it.” 


9

HISTORICAL 

ROOTS 

10

Chapter I Historical Roots 

History is not a simply regular or 

even logical development. In many 

respects it constitutes events open on 

many sides offering multifarious scope 

for the future. On the other hand, at 

certain moments it seems to follow a 

single course with terrifying directness. 

Moreover, nothing happens in history 

by chance: it does not comprise an 

“absolute zero”. The present always has 

historical roots, sometimes reaching 

An imaginary mediaeval town from 

the King Wenceslas Bible.The founding 

of many towns in Bohemia coincided 

with the arrival of German colonists 

back far into the past. An observer 

gazing at the past follows its 

ramifications and tries to trace their 

story. The roots of one of the most 

sensitive and painful chapters of 

modern Czech history – the relations of 

the Czechs and Germans – tend all too 

often to be sought only in the two 

turning points of the twentieth century: 

1918 and 1938, and in parts of Sudeten 

German literature in the month of May 

1945. They are much older, however, 

and they actually reach back to the very 

beginnings of the Czech state and the 

birth of the German states. In the 

course of the past thousand years they 

have been linked in a thousand and one 

ways and intertwined to create new 

12 

shapes with new ramifications. As 

František Palacký aptly observed, the 

Czechs and Germans both rubbed 

shoulders and crossed swords in the 

course of history, and lived on good and 

bad terms with each other. 

History, in terms of things that 

happened, can be judged and is judged 

in all sorts of ways. There is one History 

but it is generally made up of several 

histories. These select only certain 

strands from the past, only certain 

circumstances. The historians’ task is to 

strive for the most accurate picture of 

the events as a whole, to try to find the 

maximum possible real connections and 

links corresponding to the period, to 

describe all the various shapes, scars and 

tumours that they identify in the history. 

Czech-German relations in modern 

times – described by Jan Křen as a 

“confrontational community”– also have 

their deep-seated causes rooted in the 

past. Czech and Germans alike have 

cited them, used them as arguments and 

fashioned them in the spirit of their 

notions of each other and themselves. 

When that confrontational community 

came into existence in the first half of 

the nineteenth century, this “updating” 

of the past served the ends of national 

self-identification and was often 

subordinated to it. A hundred and fifty 

years later, now that the key part of the 

European continent is striving for the 

closest possible co-operation, perhaps it 

is possible for us to view nationalisms 

with a certain detachment. Nonetheless 

it would be worthwhile tracing briefly 

the lineage of Czech-German relations 

from the early Middle Ages to the 

threshold of the twentieth century. 

CZECHS AND GERMANS 

The history of the cohabitation of 

Czech and Germans on the territory of 

the present-day Czech Republic has 

deep roots, the main ones reaching as 

far back as to the thirteenth century. At 

that time new inhabitants started to 

arrive in the country. They were 

attracted both by the availability of land 

for agriculture and by the opportunities 

to develop trades and commerce in the

towns of the Bohemian kingdom that 

were being rapidly established and 

evolving. It was the beginning of the 

medieval colonisation that historians 

later described as “great”, “external” or 

“German”. The latter description 

reflected the fact that most of the new 

settlers come from the German 

provinces. That migration was brought 

about by major social and economic 

changes linked to the medieval agrarian 

Christian missionaries arrived from the German lands much earlier than the first 

German colonists. One of the oldest churches preserved in its original state is located at 

Budeã and was first built as a rotunda in the castle precincts on the orders 

of King Spytihnûv around the beginning of the 10 th century. 

revolution and urbanisation that 

occurred in western Europe in the 

course of the twelfth century. Increased 

agricultural output released labour from 

the countryside, which subsequently 

enabled the development of towns. 

Meanwhile the more developed areas 

experienced relative over-population, 

creating conditions for people to leave 

even though the living conditions 

elsewhere were not necessarily better 

than in their previous settlements. 

This also applied to the Czech 

provinces. At that time only 15% of the 

13 

Historical Roots 

Chapter I 

Bohemian Basin was inhabited. In the 

early Middle Ages, only the fertile, lowlying 

areas around the Elbe, Eger and 

Vltava rivers offered suitable conditions 

for human settlement, while in Moravia it 

was only its southern part together with 

the Haná Plain and a narrow strip of land 

along the River Oder. It was not until the 

twelfth century with the technological 

advances associated with the agrarian 

revolution and the overall warming of the 

European continent, which was one of 

the factors that brought it about, that the 

higher locations could start to be settled 

and used for agriculture. In the twelfth 

century the first settlers in those areas 

were local inhabitants and that internal 

colonisation pushed the frontiers to the 

foothills of the border mountains. It was 

only when the scope of domestic 

colonisation was exhausted that new 

settlers started to arrive, and not only 

from the neighbouring German areas of 

Saxony, Bavaria, Austria and the Upper 

Palatinate, but also from as far away as


Thuringia, Swabia and even the 

Rhineland. Due to the geographical and 

climatic conditions in the Bohemian 

Basin the only possibility of settlement 

for these newcomers, apart from the 

towns, was the border belt. Thus were 

laid the foundations for the continuous 

and permanent settlement of the Czech 

border areas by a German population. 

The German settlers brought to their 

new places of abode not only their 

Among the literati at the Bohemian 

royal court was the German 

Minnesänger Reinmar von Zweter. He 

arrived in Prague in 1236 but left 

homesick five years later. 

customs and way of life but also distinct 

legal practices. They also brought them 

so-called emphyteutic or “purkrecht” law, 

whereby, in contrast to the older local 

Czech law, the villein received 

hereditary tenure of land in writing. 

The villein thus was given the assurance 

that he could stay on “his” land for 

good; he could lose the right to use it 

only if he committed some prescribed 

offence. He thereby obtained greater 

independence, had a greater interest in 

14 

his own husbandry and therefore 

obtained greater profit from it. This also 

benefited the owner of the land on 

which he worked. It was also of great 

significance that the villein was bound 

ever more strongly to the urban 

environment and money management. 

German law therefore soon started to 

appear more advantageous overall and 

gradually became predominant, 

although in this case its establishment 

on Czech territory was accompanied by 

the adoption of certain principles of old 

Czech law. 

One of the names for German law, 

purkrecht (Burgrecht), refers to the town. 

In the Czech context, the German 

colonists, such as the miners, first 

settled in the towns as a support for the 

power of the sovereign against the high 

nobility. The thirteenth century was the 

main period of their major 

establishment in the Czech provinces, 

and the German community soon 

predominated overall. However, the 

ratio of Czechs to Germans changed 

considerably in the towns. Since the 

medieval town was essentially passive in 

terms of population, it was dependent 

on an influx of inhabitants from the 

countryside. So in general it all 

depended on the character of the 

surrounding settlements whether the 

town remained German or the Czech 

component predominated. Nevertheless 

until the time of the Hussite revolution 

the large and wealthy royal towns 

remained in the hands of a German 

patriciate. 

However, the influx of colonists was 

definitely not the first contact of the 

local Czech population with their 

western neighbours. Demonstrably their 

first historical encounter dates back to 

the period of Greater Moravia, when 

Christian priests from the Frankish 

empire were the first to spread the new 

faith among the wealthy stratum of 

Greater Moravian society. They played 

the same role more than a century later 

in the Czech state, and indeed the first 

bishop of Prague, Detmar, was a 

German, most likely from Saxony. From 

then on German priests and monks

continued to be present on the territory 

of the Czech state. They were soon 

joined by others of their compatriots. 

The growing power of the Prague 

princes and the growing importance of 

the Czech state attracted to Bohemia 

German princesses and noblewomen as 

brides for the Prague rulers or the 

appanage Přemyslid princes. They were 

generally accompanied by a large 

retinue, comprising clerics, as well as 

The Golden Bull of Sicily (left) issued in 1212 by the Roman King Frederick II confirmed 

the Czech rulers’ hereditary title of king. From the 12th century, the most important 

symbol of the Holy Roman Emperors was the Crown of Charlemagne (above right). 

Below right, detail of a contemporary coin depicting the coronation of the Czech king 

Vladislav II by the Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1158. 

ladies in waiting, servants and others. 

Unlike the later colonisation it involved 

solely individuals. Nonetheless they 

were persons of high status and 

wielding a significant influence. Their 

customs and modes of behaviour or 

dress became models frequently 

imitated and adopted by the upper 

circles of Czech society and so passed 

15 


Chapter I 

into the local culture. Thus the eastward 

flow of historical progress brought into 

Czech society western chivalric culture 

which was to flourish chiefly at the 

courts of the great Přemyslid kings of 

the thirteenth century, above all 

Wenceslas II. 

However, there is no historical 

evidence to prove that local Czech 

culture was a mere derivative of a higher 

“German” culture. At the time the latter 

was entering Bohemia, the indigenous 

Czech culture was developing 

independently, drawing inspiration 

from earlier roots and saturated with 

new inspiration. That culture was soon 

to see a major flowering. One may recall 

in this connection the hymn Holy 

Wenceslas, Duke of the Bohemian Land 

from the twelfth century, a mature old-


Czech love lyric, a Czech working of 

the popular Alexandreida – albeit 

written most likely by an author of 

German origin – and The So-called 

Chronicle of Dalimil. 

THE BOHEMIAN STATE AND 

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 

In the thirteenth century, the Czech 

medieval state was among the foremost 

European power centres. 

During the reign of Pfiemysl Otakar II the territory of the Czech state virtually extended 

to the Adriatic.The power of the last Pfiemyslids derived largely from their wealth. 

Among the most valuable European coins was the “Prague Groschen” 

minted from Kutná Hora silver. 

The country had a distinctly 

centralised regime as early as the tenth 

century. Likewise it was a state with 

fairly well defined frontiers, delimited 

by mountain ranges which to a degree 

protected for centuries the 

administrative centre and power base. 

The both made it into a state that 

attracted major international attention. 

From the tenth century the Bohemian 

principality was ranked among the 

states of the Holy Roman Empire, and 

moreover enjoyed a special status: 

decisions of the imperial court did not 

16 

apply on the territory of the Czech 

state, the imperial ruler, the Roman 

emperor or king, owned no property or 

feudal tenure on its territory and Czech 

territory was not included in his tours of 

his empire; he did not even have the 

right to interfere in the election of the 

Czech prince or king, which was the 

sole right of the indigenous feudal lords 

and which derived from older, and even 

pagan, customs. The only time the 

imperial ruler took it into his head to 

intervene in Czech domestic affairs was 

at moments of internal crisis. Probably 

the best known of those was from the 

1170s to the 1190s when Frederick 

Barbarossa intervened in Czech internal 

affairs on several occasions in his effort 

to make it submit to his power. His 

endeavours, which were the most 

serious attempt to destroy the integrity 

of the Bohemian state, ended in failure, 

however. The privileged status of the 

Bohemian prince and the fact that he 

ruled the largest territory in the Empire 

made him one of the most powerful 

imperial princes. 

It is no wonder, then, that he aroused 

opposition to his power within the 

Empire. This intensified all the more 

when the Czech ruler rose higher up the 

power ladder and symbolically 

enhanced his prestige. The road to 

unprecedented heights of power for the 

Přemyslid dynasty was paved by the 

collaboration of Prince Vladislav II 

(1140-1172) with Frederick Barbarossa, 

during whose reign he became the 

second Czech ruler to obtain the title of

king (the first being Vratislav II in 

1085/6), this time in perpetuity. After 

the crisis of the 1170s and 1180s 

Přemysl Otakar I renewed that cooperation. 

His name is also linked with 

a document that became a symbol of 

Czech-German relations in the Middle 

Ages: The Golden Bull of Sicily. That 

charter, issued on September 26, 1212 

by the new Roman King Frederick II, 

codified the relations between the 

Empire and the Bohemian state, taking 

into account all previous features. The 

Czech ruler obtained the hereditary title 

of king and the right to appoint the 

bishops of Prague and Olomouc, and 

his duties vis-à-vis the Roman king 

were defined. Thanks to the Golden Bull 

of Sicily Přemysl I and his successors 

were freed from the danger of direct 

intervention by the Imperial ruler in 

domestic Czech affairs. 

The Bohemian state’s unique status 

within the Empire was enhanced still 

further a century and a half later by the 

Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV of 

1356. Following on from the Sicilian 

Bull, the new Bull not only bolstered 

the independence of the Bohemian king 

within the Holy Roman Empire, it also 

bolstered his independence vis-à-vis the 

Imperial authority in political, 

administrative and financial terms. 

Although Charles’ edict was motivated 

by his efforts to strengthen the power of 

the Luxembourg dynasty, it nonetheless 

established legal norms that could be 

referred to in quite different political 

circumstances. Incidentally, it remained 

in force – albeit only formally – until the 

very demise of the medieval Empire in 

1806 under pressure from Napoleonic 

France. 

“BOHEMI” AND “THEUTONICI” 

We have somehow used the ethnic 

designations “Czechs” and “Germans” 

as a matter of course. However, the 

meaning of these words needs to be 

defined in historical terms, because in 

line with present-day thinking we 

understand by them all members of 

Czech or German society. That was not 

so in the Middle Ages. First and 

17 


Chapter I 

foremost the two terms must only be 

applied to certain members of the 

communities thus designated. Up to 

modern times most members of society 

remained outside political life; they were 

merely its subjects, and only in very rare 

instances, such as the Czech Hussite 

movement or certain phases of the 

German Reformation a century later, 

did the broader strata of society become 

actual actors in political events. 

Moreover most medieval sources are in 

Latin and therefore use Latin 

terminology. In it Czechs are designated 

as “Bohemi” and Germans as “Theutonici”. 

In the twelfth century we come across 

the term “Bohemi” being used for the 

“House of St. Wenceslas” (familia sancti 

Venceslai). As the word familia suggests, 

these were people serving a single lord, 

in this case, the prince. The Vyšehrad 

Canon, which refers to the Czechs in 

this way, used the term in connection 

with the battle between Bohemia and 

the Roman King Lothair II at Chlumec 

(Kulm) in 1126. “Bohemi” is thus used to 

designate the medieval “Czech political 

nation”, those who in some way share in 

the administration of the country and in 

its defence. 

The chronicle referred to described 

the Battle of Chlumec as a divine 

judgement that ruled in favour of the 

Czechs against their enemies, in this 

case, the Saxons, or in modern terms, 

against the Germans. The Germans 

were perceived in the country as 

“aliens”, “foreigners”, “guests”, people 

speaking another language (the Czech 

word for German being derived from 

the word for “dumb”). The Latin word 

Theuton itself derives etymologically 

from the Indo-European word tauta, 

originally denoting a member of the 

tribe as opposed to members of the 

narrower, natural community of the 

family. From there the word teuton, as a 

description of a potentially hostile 

foreigner, entered late classical Latin 

and thence into medieval Latin. 

Not every “foreigner” was necessarily 

a German, however; indeed in Czech 

medieval literature the word “cizozemec” 

(lit. “outlander”) refers to Germans only


in a minority of cases. Nevertheless, one 

cannot ignore the fact that that 

“German” in the sense of foreigner and 

enemy is used here to arouse anti- 

German emotions. In the Czech 

context the negative experience of the 

five-year regency of Otto of 

Brandenburg (1278-1283) undoubtedly 

had much to do with it. The virtual 

identification of the German with the 

enemy was not prevalent, however, until 

the Hussite movement and the 

subsequent period. Nonetheless by the 

beginning of the fourteenth century 

there was a marked aversion towards 

foreigners in Bohemia. It was not 

motivated by what we would recognise 

as (modern) nationalism, however. 

Nevertheless, above all in the fourteenth 

18 

century we encounter a phenomenon 

that one might describe as medieval 

nationalism. It derived from sense of 

shared awareness of being a national 

community based on a common 

language and shared politics with all the 

attendant characteristic ideological 

features and economic interests. 

The most obvious difference was that 

of language – although this would not 

seem to have played any fundamental 

As a mark of gratitude for the Czechs’ victory at the battle near Chlumec 

(Kulm) in 1126, Prince Sobûslav I ordered the rotunda 

of St. George on the fabled Hill of ¤íp to be renovated 

and extended. A dinar of Sobûslav I (right). 

role in the relations 

between Czechs and 

Germans. Of greater 

consequence were legal, 

social, economic and, of course, political 

differences. The aforementioned surge 

of anti-foreigner feelings at the 

beginning of the fourteenth century

St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia, who was murdered by his brother 

Boleslav, was to become a symbol of conciliatory 

policies towards the neighbouring Germans. 

clearly had social, and subsequently 

political, causes. With the end of 

colonisation and an economic upturn in 

the Czech state, the wealthy urban 

patriciate became increasingly selfconfident. 

Their social and political 

ambitions soon took visible form on 

several occasions. As early as 1309, the 

patricians of Prague and Kutná Hora 

19 


Chapter I 

rebelled against the Czech nobility, 

particularly against Jindřich of Lipá and 

Jan of Wartemberg. Also memorable 

was the feud between the wealthy 

Prague patrician families of the Welfs 

and the Wolframovs that broke out in 

earnest in 1319 and in which not only 

the upper nobility but also the king 

himself had to intervene. Probably the


clearest evidence that ethnicity played 

no role is provided by the siege of Kutná 

Hora by Albert of Habsburg in 1304, 

when that wealthiest of Bohemian (and 

also European) mining towns remained 

loyal to the “Czech” Přemyslids 

although governed by a German 

patriciate. There was also opposition to 

the arrival of foreign advisers at the 

court of the new King John of 

Luxembourg. That was blunted by the 

The Bohemian king and Emperor Charles IV (left) made Prague the capital of the Holy 

Roman Empire, not just formally but also through ambitious building projects. His chief 

architect was Peter Parler, a German. 

bohemocentric policy of Charles IV, 

that offered the Czech nobility 

unprecedented scope to intervene in 

politics far beyond the country’s 

borders. 

The fifteenth century brought a 

further change, however. In addition to 

the social and political factors 

influencing Czech-German relations, 

there was now the religious, or more 

precisely, denominational factor. 

NATIONALITY OR FAITH? 

The source of the new divergence that 

was to spill over into hostility, 

particularly in the later tradition, was 

the dispute over the acceptance or 

rejection in Bohemia of the new 

20 

doctrine of Wyclifism. The teachings of 

the English theologian John Wyclif 

won favour particularly among the 

young scholars at Prague University. 

They were members of the natio 

Bohemorum, one of the four university 

“nations”, alongside the “Saxons”, 

“Bavarians” and “Poles”. This was a 

traditional organisational division of the 

university, based on a territorial 

principle and had nothing to do with 

the ethnic origin of its members. Hence 

the natio Bohemorum included both 

Czechs and “local Germans”, although 

the Czechs greatly outnumbered the 

Germans. The Wyclifites at the 

university even received the support of 

King Wenceslas IV who needed the 

backing of the university at the Council 

of Pisa in his efforts to win back the 

Roman crown. That was also the 

political calculation behind the Decree of 

Kutná Hora issued by the king in 

January 1409. 

Nevertheless, it was the reform 

doctrine of Wyclif and Huss that laid 

the foundations of modern Czech 

patriotic thought. Moreover, the Decree 

of Kutná Hora used the term nacio

Theutonica as a category defined by 

language and nacio Bohemica as one 

defined territorially and 

constitutionally. Just a few days before 

the Decree was issued, Master Jerome 

of Prague had published a definition of 

a political community and the 

conditions that members of it must 

fulfil jointly and severally. Jerome 

identified three such conditions: 

language, common origin and faith. He 

called that community nacio Bohemica. 

Each of its members must therefore be a 

Czech-speaker, be of Czech father and 

mother and be of the true “immaculate” 

faith. Admittedly, the nacio Bohemica 

remains a community divided according 

to estate in the medieval spirit, although 

its members are bound together by 

more than ties of estate. And for 

Jerome, and even more so in the 

developments in the subsequent 

decades, faith was already the most 

important factor. 

Jerome also speaks of the “pure 

Czech” (purus Bohemus), being every 

Czech who fulfils the above three 

conditions. Another of the Hussite 

intellectuals, Master Jan of Jesenice, 

speaks at that time of “true Czechs” 

(veri Bohemici). In the Bohemian 

kingdom, the Czech nation should be 

“the head, not the tail, always superior, 

never subordinate”, because it is 

indigenous and not alien, not a 

newcomer. However, in both cases the 

pure or true Czech is a “faithful” Czech, 

in the sense of true to the faith. And the 

principle of faith did not coincide 

entirely with ethnic affiliation. Not 

every Czech necessarily became a 

heretic, just as not every German 

remained a Catholic. 

By all the evidence, during the 

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the 

Czech pre-national consciousness 

evolved at a faster pace than in other 

countries. The historian František 

Šmahel therefore speaks of the “Czech 

anomaly”. Nonetheless it was not a 

unique development. The latest research 

conducted into this aspect in Germany 

has discovered features of strong national 

awareness among the Germans too. 

21 


Chapter I 

However, the German national 

consciousness does not emerge until the 

Reformation, i.e. in the sixteenth century. 

BARBARISM OR CIVILISATION? 

However, religious difference that 

undoubtedly encouraged the birth of 

national consciousness was not the only 

distinction that contributed towards the 

national differentiation of the two 

ethnic groups in the course of the 15 th - 

King Wenceslas IV with 

his queen (above). 

The Kutná Hora Decree (below) 

brought to a head the religious and 

ethnic rift at Prague University. 

17 th centuries. Alongside and coupled 

with it there is also a strand of thought 

inspired by classical themes and 

nourished by the intellectual sources of 

Renaissance Humanism. One of the key 

ideas among the Humanists’ new


perspectives and approaches was 

historicism. In Humanists’ thinking the 

historical perspective was evident at 

various levels: when required, history 

could be used as a political and religious 

argument, and even in support of 

nascent nationalism. But above all, 

thanks to the increasing knowledge of 

classical literature and with the help of 

logical deduction, the view of the past 

was considerably improved. 

The central figure of the rift at the university and later in the church was John Huss, 

burnt as a heretic in 1415 for espousing the reforming ideas of John Wyclif.A year later 

his university colleague, Jerome of Prague, one of the first theorists of Czech nationalism, 

met the same fate (second from the left on the right-hand picture). 

German and Czech historiography 

alike turned their attention to the earliest 

periods of history, in which they sought 

possible connections with antiquity. 

Among the fundamental discoveries in 

Czech historical study was the realisation 

that the Slav population were not the 

first inhabitants of Bohemia, but that the 

first settlers were Germans. It was 

necessary to shift the arrival of the 

Czechs to an early historical period, 

some time in the first centuries AD. 

Eventually the period of the 6 th -7 th 

centuries prevailed as being quite 

22 

compatible with information about the 

Romans. In formulating their ideas 

about the way the Czech provinces were 

cultivated and civilised, the Czech 

Humanist authors drew on classical 

concepts, particularly as presented in 

Tacitus’ Germania.. According to the 

notions then prevalent, the old Slavs – 

unlike the Germans – has been farmers. 

It was therefore they who cultivated and 

farmed the land and they too who 

created the highly differentiated society 

and state, in which the estates had a 

share of the administration along with 

the ruler. For those two main reasons the 

Czech land had become the homeland of 

the Czechs and not the Germans. But at 

the same time it was necessary to explain 

how the one ethnic group had 

superseded the other. The prevailing 

opinion was that settlement had been 

continuous and uninterrupted, and the 

view was even expressed that a few 

Germans remained on the territory 

between the departure of the Germani

and the arrival of the Czechs. This was in 

order that the country should not be 

“deserted”, which, in a tacit reference to 

the Bible, was one of the worst possible 

assessments of its overall state. One of 

the most momentous outcomes of that 

theory of historical development of the 

country (homeland) was the fact that 

from then on the history of the country 

and the history of the nation would no 

longer be identical. In the Humanist 

MÍ·E≈SKO 

UPPER PALATINATE 

BAVARIA 

BRANDENBURG 

LOWER 

LUSATIA 

UPPER 

KINGDOM OF BÖHEMIA 

concept, however, the difference between 

the two ethnic groups was explained in 

terms of agriculture and social civilisation 

and not on the basis of national 

categories. That was the spirit in which it 

was used not only by Czech Humanists 

of the second half of the sixteenth 

century and their immediate successor 

Pavel Stránský from Zapská Stránka in 

his celebrated tract “On the Czech State” 

(1631), but also by Franz Martin Pelcl in 

his Kurzgefasste Geschichte Böhmens. But 

it was not until the nineteenth century 

that this theory of civilisation was 

nationalised and used as an argument to 

justify the nation’s rights. A well-known 

attempt to reinterpret it was the concept 

23 


Chapter I 

of the continuous settlement of the 

Czech provinces by Germans from the 

period of the Marcomanni onwards, put 

forward by Bertold Bretholz. 

“DARKNESS” 

The White Mountain myth still 

survives in the Czech national 

consciousness as the defeat that spelled 

the “end of Czech independence”. 

However, the confrontation at White 

POLAND 

SILESIAN PRINCIPALITIES 

AUSTRIA 

MORAVIAN 

MARGRAVIATE 

SLOVAKIA 

HUNGARY 

The lands of the Bohemian Crown in the late 15 th century. 

Mountain was not so much Czechs 

versus Germans as two distinct 

principles of government: the Estates 

versus Absolutism, expressed in 

political, religious, social and also 

cultural terms. The centralisation of the 

state linked with the establishment of 

royal absolutism as a principle of state 

power and administration was in line 

with the general trend of developments 

in seventeenth-century Europe. It led, 

albeit by a circuitous route, to the 

creation of the modern unitary state. 

The Estates countered the absolutist 

principle with their own feudal 

privileges (“liberties”): the possibility to 

participate in the running of the state


not simply as individuals, but above all 

as social legal communities - 

the Estates. Those principles were, of 

course, shared by the Czech, Austrian 

and German estates, as well as their 

Polish and Hungarian counterparts, 

who always defended them. It was to 

apply in the eighteenth century, for 

instance, when provincial patriotism 

was awakened in response to the 

pressure of the Enlightenment state. 

In other respects, however, they were 

not unified; the estates of the different 

countries often felt themselves to be 

competitors, became involved in mutual 

quarrels and contradicted each other on 

many issues. And they were also 

xenophobic – newly arrived foreigners 

who settled in their country could 

represent an economic or political 

threat. And it was necessary to defend 

themselves against them. In sixteenthcentury 

Czech texts one finds plenty of 

complaints against that influx. Even 

later one can read the well-known 

sentence, that “the time will come when 

a Czech on Charles Bridge will be as 

rare as a deer with golden antlers”. But a 

Czech was still above all someone who 

had lived in Bohemia for several 

generations, although by then he was 

also expected to be a Czech speaker. 

When in 1615 the Czech provincial 

diet adopted the famous ruling that 

whoever wanted to purchase property in 

the country had to learn Czech and 

teach their children the language, their 

decision was implicitly an expression of 

the Estates’ concept of state interest. 

By then marked elements of modern 

national consciousness were already 

coming into being. Comenius’ 

definition of the nation from the 1660s 

sounds very modern even nowadays: 

“The nation is a large number of people 

belonging to the same tribe, living in 

the same place on earth (as if in a shared 

home, which they call their homeland). 

They speak the same language and are 

bound by the same links of shared love, 

concord and striving for 

the common good.” 

However, as it came into existence 

the new state did not require simply a 

24 

unified administration, involving the 

creation of a state bureaucracy, but 

increasingly a unified state language. In 

the countries under Habsburg rule that 

language eventually became German by 

law, although it wasn’t until Joseph II 

that it became the compulsory official 

language. Until then it asserted itself by 

means of actual communication needs 

and possibilities. But other languages 

were commonly used in addition to 

German: Czech, of course, but also 

Italian and Latin. Central Europe of the 

16 th -18 th centuries was multilingual. 

However, after German was established 

as the official state language it also 

became increasingly nationalised in the 

course of the nineteenth century. It 

became a tool and argument in the 

national conflicts and national 

movements. 

FROM ETHNIC GROUP 

TO NATION 

During the second half of the 

eighteenth and the first half of the 

nineteenth century, the Czechs and 

Germans underwent a process, whereby 

– in modern terms – they were 

transformed from ethnic groups into 

nations. That process of nationalisation, 

i.e. the creation of a modern nation, is a 

complex phenomenon that was 

component of European history from 

the second half of the eighteenth 

century. It may be said to have 

culminated in the nineteenth century 

but it did not end until World War I 

and its aftermath. It was referred to in 

older historiography as “national 

revivals” and known popularly as “the 

springtime of the nations”. 

According to the broadly-based 

comparative analyses of the Czech 

historian Miroslav Hroch, which have 

received international recognition, 

nation building was a three-phase 

process. In the first phase, the ethnic 

group was simply the object of scholarly 

interest; its language, culture and ways 

of life were the subject of study. That 

interest was aroused by the scholarly 

curiosity and patriotism of the 

Enlightenment intellectuals and their

25 


Chapter I 

The Battle of the White Mountain was not so much a clash of hostile nations as of 

contradictory principles of government.The Estates were trying to defend their 

traditional privileges in the face of ascendant imperial absolutism. Nonetheless their 

defeat marked the destruction of the Czech elite and helped strengthen 

Germanising tendencies. 

budding emotional attachment to their 

own ethnic group. In the Czech context 

the very symbol of that initial phase was 

Josef Dobrovský, while on the German 

side one could mention the historian 

Augustus Schlözer. 

The second phase is that of “national 

agitation”, during which intellectuals 

with patriotic sentiments try to 

persuade the members of their ethnic 

group that it has the same rights as 

already existing nations. If that 

propaganda is successful, towards the 

end of that phase the ethnic group starts 

to form a nation, although its existence 

is not yet fully assured. That can only be 

achieved if there is mass identification 

with the national ideals and the 

evolution of the full social composition 

of modern society, which happens in 

phase three. One component of this 

final step in the building of a modern 

nation is economic emancipation. The 

third phase then concludes with the 

fulfilment of the political goals of 

national movement, namely the 

achievement of the widest autonomy or 

political independence in the form of 

“their own” state. 

If we focus solely on the Czech- 

German aspect, we soon notice that the 

emancipation of the Germans was not 

only more rapid, it was also more 

offensive. Above all, it was extremely 

complex. Not only did it take place 

before a unified German state existed, it


Max ·vabinsk˘’s painting “The Czech Spring” is a tribute to the writers whose work 

culminated revivalist activity and brought Czech culture near to world standards. From 

the left: Svatopluk âech, Jan Neruda, Jaroslav Vrchlick˘, BoÏena Nûmcová and Julius Zeyer. 

actually occurred in a situation in which 

the previous states of Germany were in 

profound crisis. The expansion of 

Napoleonic France, which had occupied 

the bulk of the German core of the 

Holy Roman Empire, brought with it 

the ideas of the French Revolution and 

its practical consequences, which 

included a civil code, whose significance 

was enormous. Napoleon’s offensive was 

bound to provoke a defensive reaction, 

however. Out of it grew the idea of a 

unified Germany. It assumed a spiritual 

dimension, expressed in German 

philosophical and artistic thinking, but 

also had a political and a military aspect. 

Jahn’s gymnastic Turnverein movement 

or the student Burschenschaften were 

obvious examples of that. 

In terms of the development of the 

26 

state, the Napoleonic era saw the final 

demise of the Holy Roman Empire, 

which, for a long time already, had been 

no more than a formal entity with no 

real power. It was not without a certain 

significance, however. Its disappearance 

sparked off the need for new efforts of 

self-identification and a necessity for 

new political constellations. The anti- 

Napoleonic liberation struggle and the 

creation of the Deutsche Bund (German 

League) altered the relationship 

between the two German 

“superpowers”, Austria and Prussia, and 

also transformed the status of the other, 

smaller German states. The creation of 

the Austrian Empire and its increasing 

involvement in Italy and Danube Basin 

tended to alienate the Habsburg 

monarchy from German issues.

Meanwhile the position of Prussia was 

considerably strengthened; to it fell the 

role of the “Wacht am Rhein”. Gradually 

the stage was set for the 

“Prussianisation” of Germany. 

The Czech national movement 

evolved in a much smaller geographic 

context and its circumstances were in all 

respects much more modest. In its 

second phase it concentrated above all 

on cultural activities, which – as has 

been demonstrated above all by the 

studies of Vladimír Macura – were an 

echo of the German endeavours. Czech 

culture developed first of all as a sort of 

mirror image of the more developed 

culture of the Germans, but also in 

opposition to it. However, it soon 

started to a specific path of its own, that 

German culture also came to accept and 

respect in the end. But during the 1840s 

a Czech political programme 

crystallised as well. 

And it triggered a struggle. 

THE 1848 REVOLUTION 

In the Czech provinces, 1848 was the 

crucial moment in the development of 

Czech-German relations in the 

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As 

persuasively described by Ferdinand 

Seibt, the 1848 revolution had a 

significance for central Europe similar 

to that of the 1789 French revolution 

for the western part of the continent. Its 

complex and in many ways 

contradictory history reveals all the 

region’s extremes and contradictions, as 

well as the political, national and social 

relationships within it. As is generally 

true at such great moments of history, at 

first a kind of panacean radiance from 

the sun of Liberty shone all around. 

After a brief period of common 

euphoria and great expectations of the 

imminent era of liberty, in which Czech 

and German politicians found common 

ideals as well as a path to mutual 

rapprochement, there came 

estrangement and mutual 

incomprehension. While the 

undoubtedly more mature German 

milieu may have been ready to respect 

Czech cultural autonomy, it was not 

27 


Chapter I 

prepared to accept a policy of Czech 

independence, or its programme. The 

decisive role in this respect was played 

by František Palacký’s celebrated Letter 

to Frankfurt of April 11, 1848, which 

declared Bohemia, both as a nation and 

territory, to be separate from the pan- 

Germanic concept of the union of 

German territories. In opposition to 

such ideas, the Bohemian and Moravian 

Germans drafted their first political 

Representatives of three phases in the 

formation of the Czech nation: Josef 

Dobrovsk˘ (above left) had a purely 

academic interest in the nation, Josef 

Jungmann (above right), used scholarship 

for agitation, Josef Kajetán Tyl (below left) 

used plays to spread patriotic fervour, 

and Franti‰ek Palack˘ (below right) 

formulated a comprehensive 

programme for the emerging nation. 

programmes, motivated by the fear of 

possible Czech domination if the 

Czechs’ demands for their own state 

were satisfied. Thus the Czech and 

German political programmes found 

themselves in a position of 

insurmountable confrontation: 

recognition of the Czechs’ political 

demands would prevent German union 

in the pan-Germanic sense, and vice 

versa, the assertion of German concepts 

aroused justified fears of Germanisation 

on the Czech side. As summed up aptly


in Jan Křen’s description, as the Czechs 

gradually gained the upper hand a 

defensive mentality was created among 

the Bohemian Germans that was to be 

one of the major psychological 

constants in the subsequent evolution of 

Czech-German politics right to the 

bitter end. 

NINETEENTH-CENTURY 

NATIONALISATION 

The emergence of the “confrontational 

community” of Czechs and Germans in 

the Czech provinces is linked with the 

birth and expansion of the “national 

movements” of the two nations, part 

and parcel of which were their political 

programmes. However, the movement 

of emancipation also asserted itself 

through culture, education and, not 

least of all, though economic 

emancipation. 

From 1848 to World War I, Czech 

politics were centred on the Habsburg 

monarchy, or rather, on the restoration 

of Czech statehood within it. The first 

fundamental proposal for this was 

brought to the Kroměříž Parliament by 

František Palacký. It resembled 

Löhner’s proposal (providing for a 

specific German territory in the border 

regions), but called for Bohemia, 

Moravia and Slovakia to be linked in 

one of several proposed sub-states. It 

was unsuccessful – the Kroměříž 

Parliament was tending towards 

acceptance of a more conservative 

variant when it was broken up by the 

bayonets of the Imperial troops. 

Following the subsequent period of 

revived absolutism (the “Bach regime”), 

a new chance arose for Czech politics, 

which had continued to remain loyal to 

the House of Habsburg after the 

Austro-Prussian war of 1866 – the 

reconstruction of the Austrian Empire. 

However, this went no further than the 

creation of a dual system, i.e. the 

Empire’s separation into Austria 

(Cisleithania) and Hungary 

(Transleithania). The Czech failed to 

achieve “trialism”, which would have 

included the Czech state as an equal 

partner. There was nothing left for it 

28 

but to work for an “inferior” entity, socalled 

“subdualism” as part of 

Cisleithania. Even this failed, so that 

had to make do with a “policy of 

crumbs”, a description that summed up 

just how far they had been marginalised. 

Yet even in that situation, the core of 

the Czech political leadership (with the 

exception of a few radical groups) did 

not turn its back on the monarchy, and, 

under Kaizl’s guidance, adopted a socalled 

“positive policy” towards it, aimed 

at Czech infiltration of the organs of 

state in Vienna and Prague, but still from 

a position of loyalty to the “Habsburg 

home”. It all came to an end, as we shall 

see, with the First World War. 

Within the context of these main 

evolutionary phases, Czech-German 

relations took the path of 

nationalisation in all spheres of political, 

social, economic and cultural affairs. 

In the Czech provinces, two inwardlooking 

national communities came 

into being, which were increasingly in 

confrontation. Nonetheless there were a 

few periods when that mutual animosity 

was less pronounced. One was the 

period 1905-1908, when again the 

democratisation of political life gave rise 

to common expectations that 

culminated in the introduction of 

universal suffrage in Austria. One can 

also find instances of deliberate positive 

co-operation and understanding in the 

field of culture and in everyday life. 

The mutual conflicts, on the other 

hand, reached a peak in the 1890s. 

It started with the attempt at a 

preliminary agreement in 1890, which 

sought to settle the national issues by 

dividing Bohemia up on an ethnic basis 

and led to the culminating crisis caused 

by Badeni’s Language Ordinances of 

1897 that partly accorded the Czech 

language equality with German. 

A deep crisis in mutual relations also 

occurred in the years 1908-14. 

Developments in Moravia in the 

second half of the nineteenth century 

were somewhat calmer. National 

conflicts there did not assume the same 

intensity as in Bohemia and indeed in 

1905 there was a kind of ethnic

econciliation with the so-called 

Moravian Pact, whereby the Moravian 

provinces were de facto divided up 

according to proportional ethnic 

representation. 

It is by means fortuitous that as early 

as the 1848 revolution one encounters 

such schemes and proposals for solving 

Czech-German relations and they, or 

rather echoes of them, resurface in 

subsequent decades when the 

The immediate cause of the Prague revolution of 1848 was a ruthless assault by imperial 

troops on a peaceful procession of citizens. 

cohabitation of the two nations was 

headed for catastrophe. Indeed in 1848 

the Austrian politician Ludwig von 

Löhner, submitted a plan to parliament 

for creating separate, self-governing 

German regions in Bohemia. That idea 

was also voiced in the preliminary 

agreement of 1890. In quite different 

circumstances, after the creation of the 

independent Czechoslovak State, 

T. G. Masaryk and Edvard Beneš gave 

consideration to the creation of selfgoverning 

German districts. 

By 1888 Julius Grégr came forward 

29 


Chapter I 

with another proposal whereby the 

outlying border areas would be hived off 

from Bohemia. This would reduce the 

number of Germans on Czech territory 

by about a third and ease the way for the 

achievement of Czech statehood. We 

shall see how even that idea resurfaces 

during the crisis of September 1938. 

The idea for ceding part of a territory 

as a means of solving ethnic problems is 

not encountered solely in connection 

with Czech-German relations. It also 

formed part of the “Klein Österreich” plan 

for hiving off the Slav territories of 

Dalmatia or Galicia. Within the Pan- 

German group at the Viennese 

Reichsrat in the 1890s, on the other 

hand, the idea was mooted for the actual 

expulsion of the Czechs (the term 

Vertreibung being employed), and at the 

end of the first decade of the twentieth 

century, the German historian Karl 

Lamprecht speculated on the transfer of 

the Czechs to Bosnia. (Meanwhile, on 

the other side, Jakub Arbes was heard to


call for expulsion of the Germans from 

Bohemia). Of course these were 

extreme views on the fringe of politics 

without any real influence, but they 

were voiced nonetheless. 

ECONOMIC NATIONALISM 

In the process of its national revival the 

Czech nation succeeded in elevating its 

language and laying the basis of a modern 

culture and scholarship. However it 

lacked an adequate economic elite, both 

in the countryside, where the Germanspeaking 

nobility were the decisive 

economic and political component, and 

above all in the cities. At the beginning of 

the last quarter of the nineteenth century, 

the nascent national bourgeoisie were still 

a fairly narrow social stratum with little 

influence. In the course of the industrial 

revolution that had ended shortly before, 

the German bourgeoisie had established 

In the era of intensifying nationalism the other 

nation tended to be maliciously derided in the 

cartoons of the day.The Germans pictured the 

Czechs as primitive migrants (above) or street 

musicians (below left), while Czech caricatures 

depicted the Germans as domineering and 

aggressive (above right). 

a decisive economic position in the 

Czech provinces. 

The Czech political, economic and 

even cultural elites were well aware of 

the above reality. At the end of the 

1880s, the emancipatory process 

within the dynamically evolving 

Czech society was stepped up in the 

30

economic sphere also. It is no accident 

that the following two decades were 

described as the “economic national 

revival”. In the course of it, Czech 

business make such strides that the 

social structure of Czech society was 

almost on a par that that the local 

German society. It can be said to have 

“caught up” in social terms. 

The expression used at the time was 

“positive economic patriotism” (Albín 

A favourite theme of the cartoonists was the impossibility of any reconciliation between 

the Czechs and Germans in the Czech provinces. Here a German caricaturist shows 

how he thinks Czechs conceive such reconciliation: Michl the German dances to the 

tune played by wily Wenceslas the Czech accompanied by his twin-tailed dog-sized lion. 

Bráf ); present-day historiography 

tends to use the more apposite term of 

“economic nationalism”. The very fact 

that at the turn of the twentieth 

century the economy was interpreted 

as a political tool of the national 

movement indicates its enormous 

significance – it was encapsulated in 

the ideological vocabulary of those 

days in the slogan “each to his own”. It 

implies that Czechs should buy from 

31 


Chapter I 

Czech shopkeepers and put their 

savings into Czech savings banks, and 

Czech businesses should co-operate, 

where possible, only with other Czech 

businesses, etc. A German version of 

the same phenomenon 

applied to the Germans. 

The banks were among the most 

typical components of economic 

nationalism. On the Czech side, the 

first large Czech bank, the Živnostenská 

banka (Commerce Bank) came into 

existence in the years 1868-69, and 

because it was the strongest, it was to 

play a crucial role for many subsequent 

decades. The Živnostenská banka was 

the centre for Czech savings banks and 

was a counterweight to the Viennese 

and German banks operating in the 

Czech provinces. Another financial 

institution that was to play a crucial role 

in later years was created on the


German side in 1911, during the next 

wave of nationalism: the Kreditanstalt 

der Deutschen; this was in formal terms a 

credit union, but actually operated as a 

bank. However, in the last quarter of the 

nineteenth century, other institutions 

were established that supported 

economic nationalism and sought to 

promote it in everyday life. In particular 

there were the “national defence 

associations”, which, despite their 

Industrialisation boomed in the Czech provinces in the second half 

of the 19 th century financed by German, Jewish 

and Czech investments. 

proclaimed objectives, often tended to 

become aggressive formations of the 

national struggle. On the Czech side, 

the biggest organisation of that kind 

after the Národní jednota pošumavská 

(National Šumava Society), set up in 

1884, was the Národní jednota 

severočeská (National North Bohemian 

Society), set up in 1885. In the first year 

of its existence, the latter already had 

119 branches and some 3,700 members. 

By 1914 it had 250 branches and 19,000 

members. With the establishment of 

the Czechoslovak Republic, its 

significance as a “national defence 

association” virtually lapsed, which was 

also acknowledged, but its activity 

continued so that by the end of the first 

republic the number of its branches 

increased until it had more than 

32 

100,000 members. The main objective 

of the Society was to collect funds to 

support the Czech minorities in the 

border areas and ethnically mixed 

districts, but it also assisted Czech 

education and organised various cultural 

events and set up public reading rooms. 

It was also involved in economic issues, 

buying up agricultural land and 

fulfilling certain charitable functions. Its 

activity was terminated finally in 1948, 

while its operations had only been 

suspended during the period 1943-45 

by the Nazi occupation authorities. 

The most important German 

“defence association” on Czech territory 

was the Bund der Deutschen in Böhmen, 

which was set up in 1884 and later 

founded the Kreditanstalt. At the 

beginning of the twentieth century it 

had 60,000 members, i.e. 8,000 more 

than the North Bohemian Society. 

Shortly afterwards, it was affected by a 

crisis, but it soon recovered and by 

1914, it already had 1200 branches and 

120,000 members. The establishment of 

the Czechoslovak Republic threw the 

Bund into a further crisis that almost 

closed it down. But it pulled through 

again and by 1921 it had already pushed 

its membership up to 130,000. That

figure continued to grow, but in the 

1930s its further growth in membership 

and overall activity was increasingly 

linked to the Henlein movement. 

The activity of those associations, of 

which there were over a score on both 

sides in the second half of the nineteenth 

century, was a widespread and above all 

influential component of Czech and 

German public life, and that activity was 

very aggressive in character, particularly 

Whilst the Îivnostenská banka took care of Czech economic interests its counterpart 

on the German side was the Kreditanstalt der Deutschen 

(a picture of its branch in âeské Budûjovice). 

on the German side. But everyone had a 

tendency towards unscrupulous national 

confrontation. On the other hand, in 

many communities and mountain 

districts and foothills, Czechs 

collaborated with Germans to good 

effect in everyday life. Relations were 

somewhat different among working 

people, and it is by no means fortuitous 

that around the turn of the twentieth 

century, there were no working-class 

members of the “defence associations”, or 

scarcely any. That situation reflected the 

social composition of the nationalist 

movement at the time, which was 

essentially a middle-class affair. 

T.G.Masaryk also turned away from 

militant economic nationalism, for 

33 


Chapter I 

instance, although he was well aware of 

the importance of the economy and the 

property relations within it. “What’s the 

point of political independence,” he 

wrote in 1905, “when the nation is 

economically dependent? And he 

continued, “these days it is not so much 

the sword that subjugates, as goods – 

goods to a much greater degree, in fact. 

It won’t profit us to write the name in 

Czech on our goods. We have to achieve 

economic independence too. It means 

bearing that economic independence in 

mind. Political independence is 

impossible without economic 

independence.” 

But he was also aware of the fact that 

the process of economic national 

emancipation had an international 

dimension and context too. These were 

ideas that Masaryk was subsequently to 

develop in greater detail in the course of 

World War I. They were ideas that he 

helped to put into practice as 

Czechoslovak President. The situation 

outlined was above all the result of the 

efforts of the middle classes, since they 

were the main protagonists of the 

nationalist movement at that time.

THE CZECHS AND GERMANS 

AND THE BIRTH 

OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA 

34

Chapter II The Czechs and Germans and the Birth 


WORLD WAR I AND THE 

STATUS OF THE CZECHS 

World War I ended in November 1918: 

the fighting on the various fronts ended 

either with their collapse or with the 

capitulation of the armies of the Central 

Powers. The ending of the war brought 

about a sudden and radical 

transformation of the political and 

social map of Europe. Two monarchies 

– the German and the Habsburg – 

36 

Initially the motive power for this 

change came from the radical German- 

Austrian forces controlling not only the 

army but also “the Crown” to all intents 

and purposes, i.e. the ruling camarilla 

around Emperor Franz Josef, which had 

a decisive influence on the policies of 

the state. Now the war had also swept 

away even the imperfect elements of 

Austrian democracy, those forces 

decided that the Germans now had a 

Austria-Hungary in the last years of peace.The Czech provinces lie in the very 

heart of central Europe, which the German leadership 

liked to regard as its own. 

disappeared from the political map of 

Central Europe. In the case of the 

Habsburg monarchy, military defeat led 

to collapse of the state. Austria- 

Hungary disintegrated into five newly 

emerging states and part of its territory 

was acquired by Rumania and Italy. 

One of these emergent states was the 

Czechoslovak Republic. Clearly its 

birth was determined to a degree by the 

historical development of the Czech 

provinces and the legal existence of the 

Czech state. But it must be borne in 

mind that the war destroyed previous 

Czech-German relations and became 

an “orogenic” force, reshaping them and 

altering their form and content. 

golden opportunity to trounce the 

bothersome and even perfidious 

Czechs. In particular, this involved 

closing down the parliamentary 

assemblies and setting up a rigid 

military-cum-police regime with 

tougher press censorship and intense 

anti-Czech police operations, even 

leading to death sentences on leading 

politicians in Bohemia, including Karel 

Kramář and Alois Rašín. This was all 

aimed at transforming Austria-Hungary 

into a state that was German in 

character, denying any scope for other 

nations to develop their full potential, 

and above all the strongest of them, the 

Czechs. Even the idea of resettling the



Czechs in Bosnia resurfaced, albeit as 

an extreme opinion that was purely 

ideological and quite unfeasible in terms 

of realpolitik. Although it was scarcely 

more than a political oddity, it did 

reflect pan-German sentiments that had 

been buoyed up by military successes at 

that time. Moreover the idea was by no 

means an aberration, as can be 

demonstrated by the persecution and 

expulsion of the Srem Serbs in 1914 or 

37 

constitution. The following year, the 

German national demands were 

developed even further in the “Easter 

Programme”: The non-German nations 

in Austria were not to threaten the preeminent 

political and cultural status of 

the Germans. This was to be the 

Austrian contribution to the underlying 

idea of a German Mitteleuropa, 

formulated in 1915 by Friedrich 

Naumann in his well-known treatise of 

Leading Czech politicians Karel Kramáfi (left) and Alois Ra‰ín (right). 

In 1916 they were condemned to death but amnestied 

a year later by the new Emperor. 

the Trentino Italians in the years 1915- 

16; in Germany the idea of expelling the 

Poznan Poles was again mooted. In the 

spring of 1915, the Union of German 

National Deputies in the Reichsrat 

(Imperial Diet) drafted a list of demands 

including the establishment of a 

constitutional union of Austria and 

Germany and the creation of a customs 

union between them. The proposal also 

included the renewed demand for hiving 

off Galicia from “the Austrian Empire” 

so as to ensure German superiority 

within it, as well as the demand for 

German to be introduced as the official 

language. The union with the German 

Reich was also to be enshrined in the 

Chapter II 

the same name. His scheme for 

Germany’s political domination of 

central Europe was more significant and 

convincing at that time than the more 

extreme ideas that involved resettlement 

of populations. 

This policy that threatened to nullify 

all the achievements of Czech 

politicians in the course of their years of 

cohabitation with the Austrian 

Germans and “the Crown”, gradually 

aroused the disgust of the Czechs and 

led to a hatred of the “yellow and black” 

monarchy in most cases, combined with 

a desire for emancipation and the 

creation of their own Czech and Slovak 

state – initially under the protection or

Chapter II 

guardianship of czarist Russia 

(Kramář), and later as a western-style 

republic (T.G.Masaryk). 

The struggle to achieve the latter 

lasted almost the entire war and was 

waged on three “fronts”: at home; with 

Masaryk in exile; and in the ranks of the 

main anti-German allies of the Entente. 

It was a struggle that knew successes and 

failures and the outcome likewise had its 

strengths but also entailed risks. 

THE ÉMIGRÉ COMMUNITY 

The concept of Czechoslovak statehood 

first crystallised abroad during World 

War I, due largely to the efforts of 

Tomáš G. Masaryk. He was not its sole 

creator, but was by far the most 

important figure to formulate the 

concept precisely. The merits of 

Czechoslovak statehood were 

proclaimed at gatherings of Czech and 

Slovak emigrant associations in Europe 

and the United States of America. The 

emigrants lent considerable support to 

the resistance movement abroad. The 

views and political orientation of the 

representatives of those associations 

mostly reflected the political 

atmosphere and political culture of 

those countries where the emigrants 



38 

lived. Of particular significant were the 

declarations and rallies of the 

associations in the USA. The best 

known of these is the Pittsburgh 

Convention of May 30, 1918 that 

expressed the atmosphere and 

experience of the United States. Albert 

Mamatey, Chairman of the Slovak 

League in the USA, formulated there 

the principles of Slovak autonomy in a 

future republic comprising the Czech 

Posters designed in the USA by Vojtûch Preissig appealing to Czech and Slovak 

emigrants and exiles to volunteer for the Czechoslovak Legions. 

lands and Slovakia. In Russia, on the 

other hand, the émigré gatherings were 

initially held under the influence of 

czarist pan-Slavist policies and it was 

only after the March Revolution of 

1917 that the émigré associations and 

military units created on Russian 

territory expressed their support for the 

democratic principles of the Provisional 

Government. Thus a declaration issued 

by the Czechoslovak troops in Russia 

on March 7, 1917 proclaimed the 

union of the Lands of the Czech Crown 

and Slovakia in a single, independent 

state and recognised T.G.Masaryk as 

the provisional dictator of an 

independent Czechoslovak state. The 

legionaries in Russia played a major 

role, which assumed international



significance after the October 

Revolution in 1917 when major splits 

occurred in their ranks, with some 

legionaries joining the Red Army. 

However, the major part of the Czech 

and Slovak troops was to become the 

main anti-Bolshevik military force in 

the country. 

The first congress of Czechs and 

Slovaks was already held in Paris in 

January and February 1915. It demanded 

that the constitution of a Czech state 

comprising all Czech and Slovak 

territories be based on liberal principles 

and that the state should have a 

constitutional government similar to 

those of France and England. The 

declaration of the Czech Committee of 

November 14, 1915 voiced the demand 

for an independent Czechoslovak state as 

an expression of resistance to the ruling 

dynasty which maintained its rule with 

the help of “a feckless nobility, a 

nationless dynasty and an anti-national 

officer corps.” The congress also 

condemned “the shameful trials” of Serbs 

and levelled at the Austro-Hungarian 

government the charge that “it 

unscrupulously used faked documents 

against the Yugoslavs that had been 

manufactured in their own embassy and 

Vienna and Budapest continue this war 

on the basis of such forgeries. Now, on 

top of these forgeries, they are resorting 

to barbaric vindictiveness and cruelty 

against the non-German and non- 

Magyar nations.” That declaration once 

more voiced the demand for an 

independent Czechoslovak state. The 

Czech and Slovak activists signing the 

declaration included the Reichsrat 

deputies Josef Dürich and T.G.Masaryk, 

the Czech émigré association 

representatives Karel Pergler and 

Emanuel Voska from Chicago, Bohdan 

Pavlů from Petrograd, and Albert 

Mamatey and Ivan Daxner 

representatives of the Slovak League in 

the USA. The declaration was also signed 

by a number of Czech artists living 

abroad, such as František Kupka in Paris. 

All the declarations abroad, starting 

with Masaryk’s treatise “Independent 

Bohemia” from 1915 (which marked 

39 

Chapter II 

the author’s final rejection of Austria) 

stressed that only the people back 

home, the “legitimate representatives” 

would be able to take the final decision 

about the future organisation of the 

state. This would only be possible after 

the war, in a free state. The most 

eloquent exposition of the programme 

of the Czechoslovak resistance was the 

Declaration of the Independence of the 

Czechoslovak Nation by the Provisional 

The first headquarters of the 

Czechoslovak National Council created 

in Paris in 1916 as the supreme body of 

the movement for national 

independence. 

Czechoslovak Government, of October 

18, 1918 (the Washington Declaration). 

It was drafted by T.G.Masaryk with his 

American friends and was strongly 

influenced by the ideas of American 

democracy. The declaration called for 

the Habsburgs to be deposed from the 

Czech throne and proclaimed an 

independent Czechoslovak nation and 

state. Regarding Slovakia, it stated that 

it had once formed part of a common 

state (during the Greater Moravian 

Empire) with historic lands. The 

Declaration endorsed the American 

Declaration of Independence, the 

principles of Lincoln and the French

Chapter II 

Declaration of the Rights of Man and 

of the Citizen, as being consistent with 

the ideas of the Hussite movement. It 

set out the principles of the organisation 

of the Czechoslovak state and its 

constitution, based on the principle of 

historical and natural law. The final 

decision on the future form of the 

Czechoslovak state would be taken by 

the legal representatives of the liberated 

and unified nation. 

The Declaration included the 

stipulation that the state would be “a 

republic with a parliamentary form of 

government, using the principle of 

people’s initiative and referenda”, and 

guaranteeing universal suffrage. It also set 

out further fundamental principles of the 

future constitution, including extensive 

rights and freedoms, the equality of men 

and women, the abolition of aristocratic 

titles, the separation of church and state, 

the expropriation of large estates, and farreaching 

economic and social reforms. 

The rights of minorities were to be 

secured through the principle of 

proportional representation. The 

Declaration thus constituted a draft of 

the constitution of the new state. 



40 

T.G.Masaryk set out the programme 

of the future Czechoslovak state in even 

greater and more radical detail in his 

treatise, “The New Europe. The Slav 

Position”. He wrote it in the years 1917- 

18 and it was first published in Russia 

and then shortly after in the USA. He 

conceived the creation of 

Czechoslovakia as part of the 

reorganisation of central and eastern 

Europe. In this respect, he considered of 

The historian Josef Pekafi (left) was one of the academic and political opponents of 

Tomá‰ G. Masaryk (right) but respected his achievements. 

crucial importance the creation of a 

Yugoslav state and the unification of 

Poland, and stressed the need for the 

democratic transformation of Russia as 

a bulwark against theocracy and pan- 

Germanism. Masaryk also gave a 

detailed justification of the need for 

extensive economic reforms. The land 

reform, for instance, was also intended 

as redress for the enormous injustices 

committed in the wake of White 

Mountain (1621). 

Noteworthy are his ideas about the 

free market economy: 

“Trade is free; the protection of one’s 

own industry and commerce against 

unfair competition is permitted and 

regulated by international convention.



The doctrine of old-style liberalism that 

calls for total freedom of trade is often 

formulated in the abstract… Free trade 

can be used by the strong to dominate 

the weak just as effectively as war; it’s 

worse and more demoralising, in fact. 

All countries will therefore protect 

themselves against exploitation. The 

slogan of free trade must be viewed 

from that broader, cultural perspective, 

and international trade must be 

regulated by international conventions 

appropriately and justly for all nations.” 

The ideas quoted were in line with 

the then generally accepted concept of 

state sovereignty and international law. 

Masaryk regarded democracy as a 

political organisation of society based 

on ethics and humanitarian principles, 

in contrast to aristocracy, oligarchy and 

monarchy, which, in his view, were 

based on oppression, religion and the 

church. He considered democracy to be 

the way out of class oppression and for 

him it therefore embodied social 

democracy. He therefore believed that 

democracy was based on labour, but in 

democracy there are no people or classes 

exploiting the labour of others. 

Democracy was discussion, in which 

people were controlled by argument, not 

by arbitrary will or violence. Therefore 

democracy was inconceivable without 

science and education; it was the 

organisation of progress in all branches 

of human activity. 

According to Masaryk, states should 

be the equal of nations and nationality 

was the best means of achieving 

internationality. States were the 

instruments of nations and the 

development of nations was the goal. 

“New Europe” represented the 

political programme of the new state 

and was intended to convince the world 

of Czechoslovakia’s usefulness in the 

new world order. His presentation of 

the ideas of new Czechoslovak 

statehood thus had international 

political aspects and were to be asserted 

in respect of domestic politics also. In 

Masaryk’s view, the fundamental 

changes brought about by the world war 

constituted a world revolution and he 

41 

Chapter II 

was to return subsequently to its 

principles and content. 

Masaryk’s role in that new state was 

summed up well by his academic and 

political opponent Josef Pekař, who in a 

eulogy on the occasion of the 

President’s jubilee did not fail to 

mention the differences between his 

own and Masaryk’s concept of history: 

“Masaryk thought that the national 

idea, which I regard as the vehicle of our 

When the monarchy needed to borrow 

money for the war effort, it also appealed 

to Czech patriotism. 

historical life, was of less cultural worth, 

unlike the religious and humanitarian 

ideal which he regarded as the original 

motive force of our history – but it was 

Masaryk who assisted the ideal of 

Czech nationalism to achieve a victory 

never believed possible to such an 

extent.” 

It was in that spirit that Pekař 

assessed Masaryk’s and Beneš’s services 

to the creation of the Czechoslovak 

state and their Staatsidee: “Masaryk was 

for a patriotism that would meet 

European criteria, one armed with the 

progressive, mental endeavours of other 

countries. He was convinced that such a 

patriotism should give precedence to

Chapter II 

ideals common to all mankind, the 

striving for truth and justice, and 

attention to the progress of democracy 

and social justice. Ever since he became 

President of this republic (created 

essentially in the spirit of his democratic 

ideals), and helped determine the 

development of our state and society 

(within the constraints placed on him 

by the constitution) he has wielded 

considerable influence in all these 

aspects. His approach, which disdained 

narrow and complacent national 

preoccupations, also helped to create 

more far-sighted and juster policies, 

particularly vis-à-vis the German 

minority in our republic – and I regard 

what Masaryk said about this matter on 

more than one occasion before the war, 

and his proposed solutions, to be a 

particularly eloquent testimony to his 

enlightened and mature grasp of the 

situation.” 

THE HOME FRONT 

The Czechs therefore did not welcome 

the war, let alone the anti-Czech 

measures related to it. Why should they 

die on the front or live from hand to 

mouth on the home front? “For the 

Emperor and his family?” Or maybe 



42 

even to bring about their renewed 

subjugation within a new German 

Austria? 

Nevertheless, there was no immediate 

active resistance on the home front. The 

Czechs enlisted in the forces, even if 

they were known to march to 

treasonable songs, and the mobilisation 

generally proceeded in an orderly 

fashion. But when they reached the 

front, the Czech regiments turned out 

Recruits in the streets of âeská Lípa, where a reserve 

garrison was located in November 1914. 

to be fairly unreliable; some 300,000 

deserted to the Russians, and about 

60,000 of them enlisted in the 

Czechoslovak legions in Russia, France 

and Italy alongside Czech emigrants. 

After the armies of the great powers, 

they represented the largest military 

contingents of the Entente. They 

fought with courage and lent an 

appropriate weight to the efforts of the 

exiled politicians. 

Calm reigned for the most part on 

the Czech home front during the first 

half of the war. This was due partly to 

fear of reprisals on the part of the 

regime and partly to the opportunistic 

behaviour of the Czech politicians at 

home. The latter were very cautious and 

even obsequious in their dealings with 

the state and in regard to the war effort,



out of fear of the monarchy’s predictable 

retribution if it won. However, a small 

group of politicians, headed by Přemysl 

Šámal, Karel Kramář and Edvard 

Beneš, created an illegal organisation, 

later known as the Maffia, that 

supported Masaryk’s efforts abroad and 

maintained secret links with him. 

As war-induced hardship increased – 

above all hunger and political/police 

repression – resistance grew. Moreover, 

ever since the initial success of 

Brusilov’s offensive that brought the 

Russian army within reach of Slovakia’s 

north-eastern borders, nearly 500 

political trials had taken place during 

the years 1914-15, with seven death 

sentences handed down. During the 

second half of the war, resistance grew, 

so that after 1917 and the revolutions in 

Russia, it assumed the character of mass 

strike action, demonstrations and 

mutinies. These were implicitly anti- 

Austrian, but probably out of fear of 

the consequences, it was not until the 

autumn of 1918 that the overt demand 

for the dissolution of Austria-Hungary 

and the creation of a Czechoslovak 

republic was voiced openly. There were 

even mutinies in the army. 

43 

Chapter II 

Once the resistance was openly anti- 

Austrian and there were growing 

expectations of the final defeat of the 

Triple Alliance, which was by now 

clearly at the end of its tether (even 

though it was still able to notch up the 

defeat of Russia, the Germans’ advance 

almost to Paris and the Imperial armies’ 

brief success on the Piave in Italy), it 

was instrumental in transforming the 

attitude of the Czech politicians at 

Mobilisation in Turnov. The photograph shows a field mass attended by nearly five 

thousand soldiers on their way to the front. One hundred and fifty 

citizens of Turnov died in the war. 

home. For a long time, they had 

continued to uphold Palacký’s vision of 

the Austrian state. This increasingly 

proved to be an illusion and often 

verged on outright opportunism. 

However, it plumbed the depths of 

ignominy in 1916, when the Czech 

deputies of the so-called Czech Union 

issued an utterly servile declaration in 

support of the Habsburg monarchy. The 

depth of that ignominy can be gauged 

from the fact that the key section of the 

text was re-drafted by the Austrian 

foreign minister, Count Czernin, in 

order to greater emphasise its expression 

of loyalty: accordingly, the Czech 

nation, “declares categorically that as in 

the past, so now and in times to come, it 

sees its future and the conditions of its

Chapter II 



After the death of Franz Joseph I, the Emperor Karl ascended the throne. He tried in vain 

to save the monarchy at the last moment by promises of federalisation. 

development solely under the Habsburg 

sceptre.” 

By now this was too much to take, 

not only for the Czechoslovak National 

Council that had meanwhile been 

formed in Paris, but even for the 

increasingly politicised Czech public. In 

May 1917, partly under the influence of 

the March revolution that deposed the 

Czar, 222 Czech writers signed a 

44 

manifesto rebuffing the Czech Union 

and confuting its servility towards 

Czernin. 

“We turn to you, gentlemen, at a 

momentous period of our nation’s 

history for which we will all be 

answerable for centuries to come… 

“Unhappily there is no Czech 

parliament at this time and for the time 

being the only possible free forum of



Czech representatives is the Reichsrat in 

Vienna. Well, gentlemen, at least show 

yourselves there to be true spokesmen of 

your nation. There, at least, tell the state 

and the world what your nation wants 

and what it insists on!… 

“The Czech nation will not be able to 

acknowledge the present delegation’s 

right to speak and act in its name within 

the Reichsrat until complete civic 

freedom has been secured for our public 

life!… 

“The yearnings and rights of the 

Czechoslovak nation are gaining new 

support and a new vigour by the course 

of the World War to date, which is 

ensuring a democratic future Europe. 

“The nation’s eloquent silence, 

unaffected by oppression, however 

great, ought not to be disturbed in any 

way until the end of the international 

contest. However, the doors of the 

Austrian parliament are now open and 

the political representatives of the 

nations have their first opportunity to 

speak and act freely if they so choose. 

“The nation demands of you, 

gentlemen, that you rise to this great 

historical moment. If you are unable to 

discharge everything the nation requires 

of you now then it would be better for 

you to step down… and appeal to your 

highest authority: your nation!” 

At that moment, however, a dam 

seemed to burst. In January 1918, under 

the influence of the October Revolution 

in Russia, a general strike took place 

against the brutal attitude of the 

German and Austrian delegations at the 

peace talks at Brest-Litovsk. The Czech 

Union of Deputies in the revived 

Reichsrat realised that it had to change 

course, and it drew up with the Czech 

deputies of the Diets of the Bohemian 

Crown an “Epiphany Manifesto” calling 

for self-determination for the 

Bohemian lands and Slovakia. 

The Czech deputies and other 

representatives of political and cultural 

life subsequently signed a political oath 

on April 13, 1918, which stated: 

“To the Czechoslovak nation! 

“The boundless war is reaching its 

height. Countless multitudes of 

45 

Chapter II 

Czechoslovak men and women stand in 

agony and horror. Czechoslovak blood 

continues to gush in streams on the 

battlefields. Countless graves of the 

dead are memorials to the losses of the 

Czechoslovak nation. Boundless and 

endless woes have decimated the people 

and the anxious gaze of mothers is fixed 

in despair on the generations of 

Czechoslovak youth as they waste away. 

All these immeasurable sacrifices were 

imposed on us by a war we did not want 

and for which we are not responsible. 

Unbroken and steeled by suffering, our 

nation believed that from the tempest of 

the world war would at last flower a 

better life for it too, and that its 

yearnings will be sanctified by a 

universal peace that will preserve 

mankind for ever from a repetition of 

the present catastrophe. We have only 

ever wanted to live a free and 

independent life and to manage our 

own destinies under our own 

sovereignty and build our own free and 

unfettered existences as every conscious 

nation does throughout the civilised 

world. 

“This is our most sacred right! 

“It is the national right and the 

international right of a nation that has 

contributed to world culture, a nation, 

which by its standard of education, 

moral fibre and economic development 

has proudly placed itself, through its 

own efforts, in the front ranks of the 

democratic nations of the world. 

“Such is the nation’s unanimous and 

concerted will! 

“Nothing will alter this 

determination, neither the malevolent 

incitement of resentment among our 

neighbouring nations, nor the 

fraudulent use of mothers’ and women’s 

tears, nor even greater attempts to 

starve the nation. Vain are all attempts 

to break the nation or undermine its 

resistance by means of threats. 

“Czechoslovak nation! 

“We are gathered here as your chosen 

representatives to declare far and wide 

that the entire nation, united as never 

before in your history, stands as a 

granite bastion foursquare behind your

Chapter II 

deputation, as manifested in its 

momentous historical declarations. So 

here we stand! Firmly and steadfastly 

trusting in the final victory of our most 

illustrious rights, in the victory of 

justice, in the victory of law over 

violence, freedom over subjugation, 

democracy over privilege and truth over 

deceit, at this great watershed in world 

history, we raise our hands, and true to 

the memory of our forefathers, before 

the eyes of our resurrected nation and 

over the graves of our fallen, we promise 

today and for all time in the mighty 

chorus of all our souls: We shall stay 

where we stood! Faithful in our labours, 

faithful in the combat, faithful in 

suffering, faithful unto the grave! We 

persevere until final victory! We 

persevere until we hail the 

independence of our nation! 

“Hail, Czechoslovak nation! 

“May you remain a growing branch. 

May your time come! Grow and 

flourish, free in your homelands, and in 

the great fraternal family of the world’s 

nations for your own happiness and for 

the good of future liberated mankind!” 

The pace of events hotted up. On the 

Western Front, the German army was 

forced to retreat in the face of a fresh 

offensive by the French, British and 

Americans, and the Italian front 

collapsed. Germany and Austria- 

Hungary were completely exhausted, 

particularly the latter. On top of that, 

US President Wilson informed Austria- 

Hungary on October 18, 1918 that he 

was no longer at liberty to accept mere 

autonomy for the Czechoslovaks and 

Yugoslavs (as he had in his “Fourteen 

Points” speech of January 8), but it was 

now up to those nations themselves to 

decide how to satisfy their 

national aspirations. 

In this situation, the new Habsburg 

emperor, Charles (the “old monarch” 

Franz Joseph having died in November 

1916) tried to save the monarchy by 

offering a federal solution for 

Cisleithania. That might have 

succeeded in 1848 or a little later, but 

not at that moment, with the war lost 

and everything that entailed. All the 



46 

“Emperor’s nations” (including the Slav 

nations of Hungary, even though 

federalisation was not intended to 

involve them) rejected his proposal. 

Masaryk, immediately announced the 

Czechs’ and Slovaks’ separation from 

the Habsburg monarchy. He did so in a 

manifesto issued by the Provisional 

Czechoslovak Government set up by 

himself, Edvard Beneš and the Slovak, 

Milan R. Štefánik, which was gradually 

recognised by all the countries of the 

Entente. The manifesto 

stated inter alia: 

“Federalisation, let alone 

independence, has no meaning under 

the Habsburg dynasty. Our nation 

cannot develop freely in a Habsburg 

bogus federation, which is nothing 

more than a new form of the 

assimilationist oppression that we have 

suffered over the past three centuries. 

“We neither can nor wish to go on 

living under the direct or indirect 

hegemony of those who raped Belgium, 

France and Serbia, who sought to 

murder Russia and Rumania, who have 

murdered tens of thousands of citizens 

and soldiers of our own flesh and blood, 

and share guilt for countless 

unspeakable crimes in this war 

committed against humanity by these 

degenerate and irresponsible dynasties. 

The Habsburg dynasty, which bears an 

immense legacy of errors and crimes, is 

a constant threat to world peace, and we 

consider it our duty to mankind and 

civilisation to assist its downfall and 

annihilation. 

“Our nation elected the Habsburgs to 

the Bohemian throne of its own free 

will and by the same right it deposes 

them. We hereby declare the Habsburg 

dynasty to be unworthy to lead our 

nation and we deny it any right to rule 

in the Czechoslovak lands, which – as 

we proclaim here and now – shall 

henceforth be a free and independent 

nation and state.” 

The final momentum to the collapse 

of the Habsburg monarchy was 

provided by the note signed by the 

Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister, 

Count Andrassy, on October 27, 1918,



accepting Wilson’s conditions and suing 

for peace. The first defectors from “old 

Austria” were not the Czechs, but the 

German Austrian deputies , who, on 

October 21, had “without regret, taken 

leave of this state, in order to rely on the 

47 

Chapter II 

On October 28, 1918, Czech flags were unfurled to the roar of the citizenry on the 

District Council building in Turnov and other country towns. 

vital resources of their own nation and 

create a new home state”, which meant, 

in the final analysis, being part of the 

planned Greater German Reich. 

Only then came the Czechs’ “28 th of 

October”, after which, on October 14,

Chapter II 

under the leadership of the Prague 

National Committee an independent 

Czechoslovak Republic was proclaimed 

(preceded by the activities of a “Socialist 

Council”). In parallel with this, a 

delegation of the National Committee, 

headed by Karel Kramář, held talks in 

Switzerland with a delegation of the 

exile Provisional Government led by 

Edvard Beneš, at which a similar 

outcome was reached: a Czechoslovak 

Republic would be established with 

T.G.Masaryk as President. These moves 

were endorsed on October 30 by the 

Slovak National Council, which, at its 

meeting at Turčianský Svätý Martin, 

expressed its approval for the 

establishment of a Czechoslovak state. 

Because it passed off peacefully and 

without bloodshed, the Czechoslovak 

revolution has been ironically referred 

to as a revolution officially sanctioned 

by Austria. However, as Jan Křen has 

pointed out, “the fact that 28 th October 

was not particularly militant or violent 

does not merit irony; rough, violent and 

savage revolutions might be the source 

of heroic sagas, but they seldom give 

rise to new, democratic values, 

particularly not as far as far as ethnic 

issues are concerned. In view of the fact 

that revolutionary moments can 

influence society’s consciousness for 

years to come, the peaceful nature of the 

Prague revolution was not without 

significance: its idyllic character meant 

that relations with the Germans were 

not burdened with too great a debt of 

retribution and violence, which would 

have poisoned future relations.” 

SUMMARY 

The establishment of an independent 

state, the Czechoslovak Republic, was 

the supreme turning point in Czech- 

German relations since 1526, when the 

lands of the Czech crown entered into 

union with the Habsburg Empire, a 

union which was gradually transformed 

from a mere personal union of monarchs 

into an alliance as part of a centralised 

empire, and lasted almost 400 years. 

Contrary to the view that has 

prevailed in our country since World 



48 

War I, which simply designated the 

Habsburg Empire as the “prison-house 

of the nations” (which was only partly 

true), Czech politicians from 1848 to 

World War I regarded it as somewhere 

useful in which the Czech nation could 

shelter, develop with certain difficulties 

and be protected from the imperial 

designs of the two powers “on the 

wings”– Germany and Russia. This 

presupposed, of course, the need for a 

national readjustment within the 

monarchy, and a certain 

democratisation. This concept, whose 

architect was František Palacký, was 

summed up in the maxim, “if the 

Austrian state hadn’t existed from time 

immemorial, we would have had to see 

that it was created in the interest of 

Europe, and even of mankind.” This 

positive concept of the Habsburg 

Empire inspired the majority of Czech 

politicians to put forward proposals for 

reform of the empire and for an 

adjustment of the Czechs’ status within 

it, such as Palacký’s 1849 proposal for a 

federal solution, the attempts to achieve 

Trialism and readjustments in 

Cisleithania (the “fundamental articles” 

and the “preliminary agreements”), and 

the “positive policies” aimed particularly 

at achieving the involvement of Czechs 

in the administration of the Bohemian 

lands and of Cisleithania as a whole. 

The objective of all these policies was to 

achieve some form of Czech statehood 

or even the actual creation of a Czech 

state within the empire, not the latter’s 

destruction. (Similar tendencies could 

be observed among the “Emperor’s” 

other nations. 

It was only when all these attempts 

had failed and even the partial gains 

were to be suppressed by the 

reinforcement of German hegemony in 

the empire, that a U-turn occurred in 

Czech politics, which may be described 

as historic. It did not happen at once. 

Its germ can actually be identified in 

Palacký’s “alternative thesis” – a warning 

voiced in respect of Austro-Hungarian 

dualism: “We were here before Austria 

and we will be here when it is gone.” 

The anti-Austrian position was



subsequently defended by the smaller 

radical Czech parties, but it was only 

confined to a minority of the Czech 

political scene. 

Thus the volte-face in Czech policies 

did not occur until World War I because 

of the horrors of war and the plans for 

hegemony in central Europe (the 

Germans) and within Austria (the 

Austro-Germans). But even then, the 

change was not immediate. It occurred 

first of all within Masaryk himself 

(who, until the war, had also been in 

favour of preserving a reformed 

monarchy) during his exile activities, 

and among his supporters back home in 

the Maffia. However, as has been 

pointed out, the majority of Czech 

politicians on the home front continued 

to favour the preservation of the 

Habsburg empire right up to the 

beginning of 1918, partly for utilitarian 

reasons, partly out of opportunism or 

fear that the Central Powers might be 

victorious. Eventually, when it was 

obvious that the Entente would win the 

war, all the Czech politicians organised 

in the Union of Czech Deputies at the 

Reichsrat in Vienna and in the Prague 

National Committee suddenly switched 

their support to the idea of an 

independent Czechoslovak state, which 

was to triumph on October 28, 1918. 

As the idea of federalisation 

(regarded by the “emperor’s nations” for 

seventy long years as their longed-for 

goal) was advanced by the imperial 

party too late in the day – and in an 

unsatisfactory form (indeed at a time 

and in a form that suited no one, not 

even the Austro-Germans), nation 

states triumphed throughout central 

and south-eastern Europe and the 

eastern Baltic coast (where Russia was 

the loser). The Austro-Germans then 

switched to the old idea of a Greater 

Germany, which the Entente prevented 

them from realising. 

That outcome of the World War 

therefore transformed the entire space 

“between the Baltic and the Adriatic” 

(Masaryk). Instead of being ruled by 

three large empires, it became a zone of 

small and medium-sized nation states, 

49 

Chapter II 

which, however, had their minorities, 

and they were nation states de iure, 

rather than de facto. Moreover they 

were still hemmed in by the two 

traditional “giants” on the wings – 

Russia (now no longer czarist but 

Bolshevik), and Germany, a democratic 

republic in the immediate post-war 

years, but soon transformed into a Nazi 

dictatorship. 

This settled the contradictions of the 

old organisation of the area in question, 

but it created new ones. Now, so many 

years after the post-war peace 

agreements signed at the chateaux of 

Saint-Germain, Trianon and, above all, 

Versailles, it is clearly appropriate to pose 

the question – which anyway has been 

raised ever since 1918 – whether the new 

post-Versailles system was better than 

the previous one. The question is 

certainly not irrelevant, particularly after 

the experience of the Brest-Litovsk 

Treaty, Nazi German expansion and 

occupation, and World War II, not to 

mention the transformation of the entire 

area on the fringes of the Soviet Russian 

empire, as well as in the light of the 

current creation of an integrated 

European Union. 

The fragmented nature of the new 

states (“Balkanisation” or 

“Kleinstaaterei”) disturbed the once 

extensive internal market, particularly of 

the former Austria-Hungary, and this 

created considerable economic 

difficulties. Instead of the anticipated 

democracies, the regimes set up in the 

new states were often authoritarian or 

semi-fascist. Eventually the 

Czechoslovak Republic remained the 

sole democratic exception. The 

weakness of those states and the 

conflicts between them made it easier 

for Hitler’s Germany to make economic 

and political inroads and eventually to 

unleash World War II with objectives 

and using methods that made the 

expansionism of Wilhelm II’s Germany 

look like mere unfinished business – 

which is also true when one compares 

the two world wars. The revival of 

“Kleinstaaterei” also enabled the creation 

of the Soviet Russian empire in

Chapter II 

the wake of World War II, an empire 

that was to include Czechoslovakia. 

These facts would seem to justify not 

only the current critique of “Versailles” 

and the New Europe but also the 

circumspect or even opportunistic 

attitudes towards the Habsburg Empire 

that are also shared by some Czech 

politicians. However, there are also 

arguments for the opposite view. Would 

it really have been possible to preserve 



50 

It is true that the latter initially toyed 

with the idea, but in reality they soon 

switched to the demand for unity 

within a greater Germany. Pan- 

Germanism, which, on the basis of the 

traditional ideology, would have ideally 

united all the Germans and their 

territories in a single state, was, in 

reality, the only electrifying idea that 

could possibly have been set against the 

idea of self-determination of the smaller 

The proclamation of an independent state by the Czechoslovak National Committee on 

October 28, 1918, was welcomed by enthusiastic throngs in the streets of Prague. 

Austria-Hungary or to create a 

Danubian Confederation, which is what 

the critique of post-Versailles central 

Europe boils down to? In terms of 

practical politics at the end of the war 

and after it, the answer must be a clear 

no, both as regards the general situation 

and the specific case of the Czechs. This 

was because, as we have already 

indicated, nobody wanted the potential 

federation that was proposed. Neither 

the Entente, nor the nations of the new 

states, nor the Austrian Germans, even. 

nations. That is why the Germans posed 

the question (and some Sudeten 

Germans still do), why selfdetermination 

was applied in the case of 

the smaller nations, while they, the 

Germans, were denied the right to 

unifying self-determination? And they 

regard it as a historical injustice. 

Essentially, the idea of selfdetermination 

is certainly legitimate. 

But it need not necessarily go as far as 

“separation”, nor is it always feasible, 

particularly in that sense. This is



because one nation’s self-determination 

can often be detrimental to the selfdetermination 

of another, and time and 

again things go so far that the solution 

simply germinates from the balance of 

forces in the conflict thus created. So 

long as they felt themselves to be in the 

strongest position, the Germans – in the 

Reich, in Austria and in Bohemia- 

Moravia – were not enamoured of the 

idea of self-determination and did not 

support it. On the contrary, they firmly 

and consistently opposed it (with the 

exception, to a certain degree, of the 

social democrats). When they came up 

with it after losing the war, their aim 

was to obtain at least something to 

make up for their defeat. However they 

found themselves up against a balance 

of forces that had been established as a 

result of “their” war – and they paid the 

penalty. It was a penalty due to the war 

and nothing could be done about it. 

Besides, what would pan-Germanism 

prove capable of in the grip of Nazism? 

Thus disintegration as a solution had 

its positive aspects for the nations of 

central Europe and the situation there. 

In his manifesto entitled “The New 

Europe”, T.G.Masaryk summed it up 

roughly as follows: in the space 

“between the Adriatic and the Baltic”, 

conditions would be created for 

eliminating theocracy – the big powers, 

headed by the monarchs and other 

feudal relics – and setting up democratic 

regimes. He proposed a gradual 

federalisation of the “space” – first 

economic and later political – only at a 

later stage. (The fact that almost 

nothing happened in that respect is 

another matter.) 

THE FOUNDING OF THE 

REPUBLIC AND THE BASIS OF 

THE CZECHOSLOVAK 

CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM 

Czechoslovakia thus came into 

existence as an independent state by an 

act of revolution on October 28, 1918. 

On that day, the Prague National 

Committee proclaimed itself the 

government of the new state, that would 

discharge state sovereignty and also 

51 

Chapter II 

assume legislative power (Proclamation 

of the Czechoslovak National 

Committee on the Independence of the 

Czechoslovak State of October 28, 

1918, Law No. 11 Coll., of October 28, 

1918 on the establishment of an 

independent Czechoslovak state). It 

took complete control of the state. It 

took over the legislative and executive 

powers previously belonged to Austrian 

Emperor, the Austrian Imperial Diet 

The nature of the state was decided in 

advance at a meeting of the exile and 

home political leadership in Geneva. In 

the middle of the front row: Karel Kramáfi 

and Edvard Bene‰. 

(Reichsrat) and the provincial diets. In 

constitutional terms, Czechoslovakia 

emerged out of a revolution against 

Austria-Hungary. 

The principle of the unity of 

legislative and executive powers was 

expressed in the Proclamation of the 

National Committee and its first law, 

published in the official collection on 

November 6, 1918 under No.11/1918 

Coll. The National Committee also 

fulfilled the function of Head of State in 

the new republic. Hence it also took 

over some of the judicial powers, as it 

had to decide on amnesties, which up to 

then had been the prerogative of the 

head of state. As the vehicle of 

sovereign power in the state it 

announced an amnesty in Regulation 

No. 28 of November 5, 1918 “desirous 

of repairing the injustices of the former 

Austrian judicial authorities and the 

consequences of the wartime 

conditions, in respect of acts committed

Chapter II 

up to October 28, 1918. A new 

constitutional category was introduced 

into constitutional developments on the 

territory of the former Lands of the 

Bohemian Crown – the sovereignty of 

the Czechoslovak nation. 

On October 28, 1918 the form of the 

state had not yet been decided. 

According to the aforementioned Law 

No. 11, the form of the state should be 

determined by the National Assembly 

after agreement with the Czechoslovak 

National Council in Paris (Article 1). 

However, by then the Czechoslovak 

National Council had been transformed 

into the Provisional Czechoslovak 

Government, which was also recognised 

in international law. 

The Provisional Czechoslovak 

Government abroad consisted of Tomáš 

G. Masaryk as Chairman of the 

Council of Ministers and Minister of 

Finance, Milan R. Štefánik, as Minister 

of National Defence and Edvard Beneš 

as Minister of Foreign Affairs and 

Minister of the Interior. On October 16, 

1918, that Provisional Government 

had issued a Proclamation of 

Independence of the Czechoslovak 

Nation in Paris (the seat of that 

government). 

So at the moment of its birth the 

Czechoslovak state was represented by 

two governments – the Prague National 

Committee and the Provisional 

Government based in Paris. Each of 

them issued a statement proclaiming 

the creation of an independent state. As 

mentioned earlier, from 28 to 31 

October, a delegation of the National 

Committee headed by Karel Kramář 

held talks in Geneva with Edvard Beneš 

as a representative of the Provisional 

Government about co-ordinating their 

activities. On October 31, the National 

Committee delegation drew up a 

record, of the proceedings and issued a 

communiqué about the joint meeting. It 

endorsed all the military and diplomatic 

activities of the Czechoslovak National 

Council, now “transformed into the 

Provisional Government of the 

Czechoslovak Lands,”, as well as all the 

agreements signed by that government 



52 

to date, and the all the obligations 

assumed by that government. The talks 

had also dealt with the establishment of 

a provisional government in Prague to 

be entrusted with the administration of 

the state pending the convening of a 

Constitutional Assembly, and the 

creation of a definitive parliamentary 

government. 

At home, the National Committee 

controlled all the powers of state. In 

Tomá‰ G. Masaryk was elected President 

of the Republic while he was still 

resident abroad. 

practical terms, the function of 

government was exercised by the 

Presidium of the National Committee 

and that of a parliament by its plenum. 

The form of the Czechoslovak state 

was finally decided in the Provisional 

Constitution of November 13, 1918. 

The Constitution stipulated that the 

National Committee would be 

transformed into the National 

Assembly (Article 1). The day after the 

Provisional Constitution was adopted, 

Karel Kramář, on behalf of the National 

Assembly, declared that the dynasty of 

Habsburg-Lorraine had been deposed



and that “the Czechoslovak state is the 

free Czechoslovak Republic” and 

proclaimed Tomáš G. Masaryk 

President of the Republic. All the acts 

of executive or regulatory power taken 

up till then by the National Committee 

were ratified by the Constitution. 

According to that Provisional 

Constitution and to the previous legal 

status after October 28 it was possible 

to designate the form of government as 

the rule of a parliament based on a 

unified authority. 

The change from the rule of 

parliament to a parliamentary republic 

with a more extensive division of powers 

did not occur until the amendment of 

the constitution in May 1919 (Law 

No. 271 of May 23, 1919). At Masaryk’s 

request, the amended Constitution 

enhanced the status of the President, 

particularly vis-à-vis the government. 

The President of the Republic was thus 

accorded the right to attend and chair 

meetings of the government, to demand 

written reports from the government 

and its members, to appoint and dismiss 

the prime minister and members of the 

government, and decide on the 

appointment of ministers on the basis of 

the prime minister’s recommendations. 

A clause about the President’s travel 

abroad in respect of the exercise of his 

office was replaced by another clause 

about the exercise of his office in the 

event of illness. In the case of illnesses 

lasting more than one month, the 

National Assembly was to elect a deputy 

President of the Republic. In stipulated 

instances, the Prime Minister could 

stand in for the President of the 

Republic. The President’s powers were 

also strengthened in respect of the 

single-chamber National Assembly and 

the powers of that legislative body were 

defined in greater detail. 

The democratic and republican 

principle of equality was enshrined in 

Law No. 61/1918 Coll. of December 10, 

1918, which abolished the nobility, 

orders and titles. According to that 

regulation, the former members of the 

aristocracy were not allowed to use titles 

or attributes. The nobility had not taken 

53 

Chapter II 

part in the struggle for an 

independent state. 

The creation of Czechoslovakia, also 

justified on the grounds of historical 

state right, had thwarted attempts to 

destroy the historical entity of the 

Lands of the Bohemian Crown 

(Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia). The 

division of those lands (“provinces”) and 

the abolition of the historical entity in 

the interest of the German population 

started to be implemented 

during the war. 

The representatives of the new 

political power were relying more on 

natural than historical law when they 

declared a common state with the 

Slovaks, even though for reasons of 

historical legitimacy in various 

documents stress was laid on the 

common nation and state at the time of 

the Great Moravian Empire. The 

Slovak political leadership, represented 

abroad chiefly by Milan R. Štefánik and 

the National Committee by Vavro 

Šrobár supported that common 

statehood. The Slovak National Council 

did likewise in the “Declaration of the 

Slovak People” signed at Turčianský 

Svätý Martin on October 30, 1918 

before it knew about the proclamation 

of the Czechoslovak state. 

THE CREATION AND 

PROMOTION OF THE STATE 

BODIES 

The National Committee and the 

National Assembly that emerged out of 

it were made up of delegates of political 

parties. The representation of the 

various parties in those assemblies was 

based on the results achieved by those 

parties in the elections to 

the Reichsrat in 1911. 

(Originally, the National Committee 

was set up on the basis of a manifesto of 

nine political parties on November 9, 

1916, as a standing national committee 

comprising representatives of the 

political parties that signed the 

manifesto. It was intended as a support 

to the Czech Union of Reichsrat 

Deputies in respect of moral and 

political issues affecting the nation as a

Chapter II 

whole, i.e. those that fell outside the 

deputies’ usual terms of reference.) 

The fundamental ideological and 

organisation transformation of the new 

body, already known as the 

Czechoslovak National Committee, 

came about on the basis of its manifesto 

of July 13, 1918. At that time the 

Committee was constituted according 

to a decision of political parties 

“representing the unanimous will of our 

entire nation”. The manifesto was 

addressed to the “Czechoslovak 

Nation.” At that time, the National 

Committee comprised politicians, 

cultural activists and other leading 

figures (such as the writer Alois Jirásek, 

the poet Josef Machar, various 

university professors, etc.). Its presidium 

consisted of Karel Kramář as Chairman, 

Václav Klofáč and Antonín Švehla as 

Vice-Chairmen, and František Soukup 

as its Secretary. 

The first constitutional amendment 

of March 11, 1919, increased the 

number of members from 256 to 270. 

New seats, although not enough, were 

assigned to the Slovak Club. 

In terms of nationality the Parliament 

consisted essentially of Czechs with a 

small number of Slovaks. Neither the 



54 

German nor the Hungarian 

representatives were involved in the 

creation of those bodies. The German 

political parties were opposed in 

principle to Czechoslovak statehood, so 

talks broke down between the National 

Committee and their representatives 

about their participation in the organs of 

state power then being created. On the 

other hand, members of the Jewish 

minority played an active part in the 

In some areas the new Republic asserted 

its sovereignty with the help of the army. 

During political unrest among the 

German inhabitants in north Bohemia in 

March 1919, Czechoslovak soldiers shot 

dead over fifty demonstrators (left). In 

Slovakia they fought troops of the 

Hungarian Soviet Republic. 

creation of Czechoslovak statehood and 

the country’s constitution. This reflected 

the fundamentally positive attitude 

towards the emergent Czechoslovakia 

adopted by the Jewish community as the 

“third nation” in the historical provinces. 

The President and the 

Government of the Republic 

According to Article 5 of the 

provisional constitution, the President 

of the Republic was to be elected by the 

National Assembly. At least two-thirds 

of the deputies had to be present. At 

least of two-thirds of the members of 

that unicameral assembly present had to 

vote for the candidate proposed. 

Tomáš G. Masaryk was already elected 

President of the Republic while he was 

still living abroad – by acclamation (i.e. by



applause and shouts of approval). He was 

sworn in as President when he returned 

from exile on December 21, 1918. The 

government and the prime minister were 

elected according to the constitution by 

the National Assembly. The government 

was accountable to the National 

Assembly, which could vote it out of 

office by a simple majority of at least half 

of the deputies, which could be in a 

motion of no-confidence. 

The Civil Service 

Essentially the Czechoslovak state took 

over the Austrian civil service in the 

Czech lands providing its members 

swore an oath of loyalty to the Republic. 

Particularly awkward was the 

situation in Slovakia and Carpathian 

Ruthenia, where the existing civil service 

was almost exclusively Hungarian. The 

civil service in Slovakia was essentially 

created by the special Ministry for 

Slovakia headed by Vavro Šrobár. 

A knowledge of the Slovak language 

was compulsory for acceptance into the 

Slovak civil service. Czechs were to join 

its ranks in large numbers either 

voluntarily or for other reasons. Certain 

55 

Chapter II 

concessions in the matter of civil service 

qualifications were made to former 

members of the legions, as many of 

them found themselves unemployed on 

their return from Russia. 

The Assertion of Czechoslovak 

Sovereignty throughout the Territory 

and Population 

The new regime had to assert state 

sovereignty throughout the territory and 

“Down with Czech Tyranny!”The troops’ actions against the German irridentists sparked 

off public protests in Vienna and other Austrian towns. 

the entire population. It did so by 

political, economic and military means. 

In areas that were not populated solely 

by Czechs, major efforts had to be made 

by state bodies to prevent interference 

from outside and to tackle resistance on 

the actual territory of the state. 

The defeated countries were in a state 

of major disorganisation and some of 

them were in the throes of revolutions 

that were setting up soviets on the 

Russian model. Not even the form of 

statehood of the surrounding countries 

was stable, and they supported 

secessionist efforts by compatriot 

minorities living on the territory of the 

Czechoslovak state.

Chapter II 

At that time it was not entirely clear 

whether Austria would remain an 

independent state, or whether the forces 

calling for union within a Greater 

Germany would triumph. The German 

deputies had already set up their 

National Assembly on October 21, 

1918 and elected a committee as the 

germ of a future Austro-German 

government. At the first two meetings 

of the Provisional National Assembly 

they proclaimed a territorial secession 

from the historical Bohemian state 

amounting to 26,000 square kilometres 

with a population of three million. By 

virtue of a law of November 22, 1918, 

the towns of Brno, Jihlava and 

Olomouc were declared dependencies 

of the Austrian Republic and other 

adjustments were also planned (in 

connection with Ostrava, for instance). 

The rebellion of the secessionists on 

the territory of Bohemia and Moravia- 

Silesia had proved fairly easy to suppress 

in 1918 by economic means and minor 

military force – which indicates the lack 

of support from the rank-and-file 

Sudeten Germans. As a result, a 

Czechoslovak state administration was 

set up throughout the historical lands. 

Czechoslovak constitutional order was 

established in place of the Austrian one 

and the Czechoslovak state imposed its 

sovereignty. Attacks on Czechoslovak 

state bodies and armed clashes occurred 

not only in December 1918 (such as in 

Teplice), but also at the time of the 

inaugural session of the Austrian 

parliament in March 1919, when over 

fifty German demonstrators were shot 

dead (particularly at Kadaň). 

Acceptance of Czechoslovakia was 

not unanimous in Slovakia either, 

particularly among the Hungarians. 

The main resistance came from the 

Slovak Soviet Republic proclaimed in 

Prešov on June 16, 1919 that was set up 

and supported by the Hungarian 

communist revolution. That rebellion, 

supported by Hungarian troops, was put 

down by the combined efforts of the 

new Czechoslovak armed forces and 

certain sections of the French and 

Italian legions in July 1919. The 



56 

imposition of sovereignty in Carpathian 

Ruthenia was affected by the extremely 

complex ethnic, religious and social 

situation there. 

The Carpathian Ruthenian 

emigrants in the USA and the Central 

Ruthenian National Council in 

Užhorod had come out in favour of 

annexation to Czechoslovakia, but 

Czechoslovak statehood was established 

there only in stages. Previous proposals 

for the integration of Carpathian 

Ruthenia into other states (Hungary, 

the Ukraine, Poland) had been 

influenced by the international situation 

and been rejected by the Carpathian 

Ruthenian political leadership. 

On the other hand, as early as 

October 28, 1918, representatives of 

Jewish organisations met with 

representatives of the National 

Committee as the first step towards cooperating 

in the creation of the 

Czechoslovak state, in which the Jewish 

minority and the Jewish national 

movement, as well as members of 

Jewish society, irrespective of their 

religious or linguistic options, enjoyed 

full equality with other citizens. 

The “Czechoslovak” nation 

and population 

By virtue of Law No. 11/1918 Coll., the 

“Czechoslovak nation” became de iure 

the bearer of Czechoslovak state 

sovereignty, although it did not exist de 

facto. However, according to the 

“Martin Declaration” of October 30, 

1918, the representatives of all the 

Slovak political parties organised 

themselves within the Slovak National 

Council into the Slovak branch of the 

unitary “Czechoslovak” nation. Likewise 

the “Washington Declaration” of 

October 18, 1918, set out the principles 

of the concept of a unified Czechoslovak 

nation, whose state was to be a republic. 

Even earlier, the “Czechoslovak” nation 

had received international recognition as 

a subject of international law. That laid 

the basis for the international 

recognition of the Czechoslovak state. 

The content of the term 

“Czechoslovak” was not unambiguously



defined either in the political statements 

or the legislature or the judiciary. In his 

book “The New Europe”, and in various 

statements during the war and 

immediately after it, T.G.Masaryk did 

not regard it as a fundamental issue 

whether the Czechs and Slovaks were 

separate nations, or two branches of the 

same nation. What was fundamental for 

him was the building of a common state 

as the home of equal citizens. Along the 

lines of the previous Austrian and 

Hungarian regulations, all those who, 

57 

Chapter II 

on October 28, 1918, had right of abode 

in a community over which the 

Czechoslovak state exercised its 

sovereignty, were regarded as 

Czechoslovak citizens. 

The population on the territory of 

the emergent Czechoslovak state was 

markedly heterogeneous in terms of 

culture, religion and language. Both in 

theory and in politics, the creation of a 

state required the existence of a 

Staatnation. The concept of the nation 

for the creation of the state was also 

THE NATIONALITY OF ALL INHABITANTS 

OF THE CZECH PROVINCES AND 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA PRESENT IN 

1921 AND 1930 

Czech provinces Czechoslovak Republic 

Pop. Absolute no. in Absolute no. in 

thousands % thousands. % 

1921 1930 1921 1930 1921 1930 1921 1930 

Total 

10 006 10 647 13 613 14 729 

Of which: 

Czechoslovak 

6 775 7 319 67,71 69,02 8 020 9 757 64,79 66,24 

German 3 061 3 150 30,60 29,58 3 218 3 318 23,63 22,53 

Magyar 7 11 0,07 0,11 762 719 5,80 4,89 

Jewish. 36 37 0,36 0,35 191 205 1,40 1,39 

Polish. 104 93 1,03 0,87 110 100 0,81 0,68 

Ruthene 13 23 0,33 0,21 477 569 3,51 3,85 

Other 10 12 0,10 0,11 35 61 0,26 0,41 

(Table prepared by Václav Kural)

Chapter II 

important in terms of international law. 

The previously dominant nations in 

Austria-Hungary (the Germans in the 

Austrian part and the Magyars in the 

Hungarian part) became minorities in 

the new state, thus losing their 

supremacy and it was necessary to deal 

with their status in the state in terms of 

international and constitutional law. 

The concept of nation was 

understood differently in different 

European states (natural nation, 

political nation), and differently yet 

again in terms of constitutional law in 

Czechoslovakia. Thus the 

Czechoslovaks were proclaimed the 

Staatnation (like the Germans in 

Germany, the French in France, 

irrespective of linguistic or ethnic 

differences). The implication of 

recognising the “Czechoslovaks” 

as a nation was that Czech was given 

constitutional recognition as the 

official language in the Czech lands, 

and Slovak in Slovakia. The other 

groups became minorities in 

the new state. 

The national composition of the 

emergent state was not known precisely. 

The statistical records from the period 

of the monarchy were based on census 

information that did not include the 

criterion of nationality. Apart from 



58 

national inequalities, the figures were 

biased in favour of the Germans by the 

census findings because the census 

criterion was the language of 

communication. Another cause was 

religious inequality due to the dominant 

position of the Roman Catholic church. 

The latter was linked to the ruling 

dynasty and the monarchy through the 

constitution and in personal ties, and 

was therefore hostile towards the 

Czech and Slovaks 

Germans 

Hungarians 

Ruthenians 

Poles 

Even with the Czechs and Slovaks linked as a single Czechoslovak nation, the ethnic 

make-up of the Republic was very varied. 

republic. T.G.Masaryk described a state 

of that kind as a theocracy in contrast to 

the western democracies. Although at 

that time the Slovak political leadership 

in Slovakia and Prague supported the 

idea of a united Czechoslovak nation, 

there remained differences in the 

interpretation of that unity. The 

fundamentally different interpretation 

of national rights also stemmed from 

the fact that the Czech leadership 

linked those rights above all with 

language and education at all levels of 

education. The Catholic majority of 

Slovaks chiefly emphasised religious 

issues and the status of the Slovak 

clergy, particularly due to the previous 

persecution of Andrej Hlinka in 

Hungary. 

A more reliable picture of the 

population’s structure at the time the state 

was established, based on nationality and



other criteria, was provided by the census 

of 1921, organised in accordance with 

Law No. 592 of 1920. 

The row headed “Czechoslovak” are 

combined figures for Czechs and 

Slovaks. According to those same 

statistical findings, 1 952 368 persons 

declared themselves to be Slovak 

speakers (as against 1 687 112 in 1910). 

After the republic was established a 

number of Czechs moved to Slovakia 

and Carpathian Ruthenia chiefly to 

work in the education system and the 

civil service. The row headed “Jewish” 

includes only those Jews who declared 

themselves to be of Jewish nationality, 

so it does not relate to religious 

affiliation or other criteria. 

A significant issue in relation to the 

establishment of Czechoslovakia were 

the levels of illiteracy among certain 

minorities, which rose progressively 

eastwards. The 1921 census recorded in 

the Czech lands 2.38% illiteracy among 

the Czechoslovaks and 2.52% among 

the Germans (an average of 2.44%). In 

Slovakia, illiteracy among 

Czechoslovaks was 15.72% but 43.55% 

among the Ruthenians (an average of 

15.03%), while in Carpathian Ruthenia 

the level was 16.29% among 

Czechoslovaks, but 65.67% among the 

Ruthenians (an average of 50.16%.) 

Considerable differences in levels of 

education were also reflected in the 

national consciousness of the population 

in individual parts of the republic. 

The largest minority in the historical 

lands were the Germans. They could not 

constitute a homogeneous group, 

however, either in national or tribal 

terms, but in terms of language (dialect), 

culture and politics, they were linked to 

the German populations in the 

neighbouring provinces and states. That 

difference in attitude was expressed in 

the attempts at secession and annexation 

by other states after the establishment of 

Czechoslovakia in 1918. 

From the outset the Czechoslovak 

leaders paid close attention to the 

relationship with the German minority. 

In his first message to the National 

Assembly as President of the Republic 

59 

Chapter II 

on December 22, 1918, T.G.Masaryk 

declared that the territory of the 

Czechoslovak state inhabited by 

Germans would always remain part of 

the state. He urged the Germans to 

abandon their aggressive pan-German 

and anti-Czech policies and assist in 

building the new state. In accordance 

with the “Washington Declaration”, he 

promised that minorities would enjoy 

full national rights and equality as 

citizens, but the state would never 

consent to the secession of its territory, 

just as the United States had resisted 

the secession of the South. 

The leaders of the home resistance 

also accorded major significance to 

relations with the German minority and 

voiced their conviction that they would 

manage to live together in harmony 

according to democratic principles. 

However, the German population for 

the most part sought to preserve their 

previous supremacy and privileges. 

Law No. 592 of 1920 enshrined the 

right of all to choose their nationality. 

The criteria of nationality were 

essentially subjective, i.e. personal choice, 

and not based on an assessment of 

external features (mother tongue, tribal 

affiliation, etc.) by the authorities, as was 

the case in other countries. The law was 

chiefly intended to give choice to the 

Jewish population which until then had 

suffered most from state regulation and 

restrictions. While it is true that since the 

mid-nineteenth century they had not 

been obliged to live in ghettoes, they had 

been subject to attacks from different 

quarters. (The emperor Joseph II had 

obliged them to adopt German surnames 

as part of his authoritarian policies.) 

Within the Jewish community, the 

choice of national affiliation under that 

law greatly varied in different parts of 

the territories making up 

Czechoslovakia. The Jewish minority as 

a whole supported the Czechoslovak 

state, whose democratic regime 

guaranteed political equality and 

minority rights, and above all prevented 

the racial discrimination and pogroms 

that applied in the surrounding states. In 

Bohemia 49.9% of the Jewish minority

Chapter II 

opted for Czechoslovak nationality, 

34.63% for German nationality and 

14.6% for Jewish nationality. In 

Moravia, 15.1% of that minority opted 

for Czechoslovak, 34.85% for German 

and 47.84% for Jewish nationality, while 

in Slovakia 22.27% of the Jewish 

community chose Czechoslovak 

nationality, 22.27% Jewish nationality, 

6.69% German nationality and 16.49% 

Hungarian nationality. 



In a German caricature from the end of the war, the Czech delegation demands from 

US President Wilson access to the sea on the grounds that in his “Winter’s Tale” 

Shakespeare wrote about the “shores of Bohemia”.The cartoon’s aim is to ridicule 

Czech territorial claims which seemed outrageous to the Germans. 

In Bohemia, in spite of their 

differences in terms of religion and 

nationality and the largest proportion of 

so-called “assimilated Jews”, the Jewish 

community represented a culturally 

defined entity – “a third nation”, that 

also acquired political representation in 

the constitutional bodies. From the time 

it was created, Czechoslovakia offered 

individuals and groups from various 

countries, who suffered persecution and 

discrimination, opportunities to study, 

including at university; this also applied 

to Jews from countries where Jews had 

officially restricted access to education. 

60 

The large size of the Jewish minority 

must be viewed in terms of all criteria, 

not only nationality and language, but 

also religion and culture. 

The largest proportion of Jews in the 

population was in Carpathian Ruthenia 

(15.4%), where the absolute majority 

declared themselves Jewish, in terms of 

both nationality and religion. However, 

the figures, which were supplied by 

Livia Rothkirchen must be viewed in 

the light of census results and internal 

differences. In absolute figures, that 

minority numbered 110 000. 

After the establishment of 

Czechoslovakia there were also major 

political upheavals caused by changes in 

the ecclesiastical and religious structure 

of the population. There was sharp 

property disputes between the different 

churches that continued for many years 

and involved criminal activities; in some 

cases, these were the subject of 

amnesties. The close ties between the 

Catholic hierarchy and the Austrian 

monarchy and its resistance to all



reforms led to a section of the pro- 

Czechoslovak clergy breaking away 

from the Roman Catholic church and 

setting up or joining other churches 

such as the Czechoslovak Church and 

the Orthodox churches. 

RECOGNITION OF NATIONAL 

AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY 

The process of creating the 

Czechoslovak state was just one of the 

revolutionary changes in central and 

eastern Europe in the wake of World 

War I. It thus had an important 

international dimension. A major spur 

in the early stages was the peace 

programme of the US President Wilson 

known as the “Fourteen Points”. The 

situation of the central and eastern 

European countries was also influenced 

by the revolutionary changes in Russia, 

particularly where revolutions took 

place on the Russian model (soviet 

republics). 

The creation and recognition of the 

sovereign Czechoslovak state was 

chiefly the result of the diplomatic and 

61 

Chapter II 

military efforts of the Czechoslovak 

resistance abroad. The number of 

members of the external Czechoslovak 

forces was impressive, as was their 

bravery and determination to win an 

independent Czechoslovak state. 

Without that armed struggle, the 

diplomatic efforts would not have 

succeeded. The current attempts to 

devalue the importance of the armed 

struggle of the Czechoslovak legions by 

During the ceremonial presentation of the standard to a brigade of the Czechoslovak 

legions at Darney, French President Poincaré declared the Czechoslovak 

nation’s right to an independent state. 

highlighting the numbers of Czechs and 

Slovaks who fought in the Austrian and 

Hungarian armies right up to the end of 

the war, fail to take into account the 

difference between the volunteer units 

whose members were treated as traitors 

if captured, and units made up of 

conscripted citizens, whose involvement 

in the war was enforced by harsh 

sanctions. 

The sovereignty of the state as an 

essential attribute of its creation also 

had an international legal aspect. It was 

linked above all with the recognition of 

the Czechoslovak nation as a 

stateworthy nation.

Chapter II 

On December 16, 1916, the 

President of the French Republic issued 

a decree whereby the Czechoslovaks 

organised into an autonomous army 

would fight the Central Powers under 

their own flag. France recognised that 

the administration of this national army 

was a matter for the National Council 

of the Czech and Slovak Lands based 

in Paris. The decree enshrining that 

reality became an official part of French 

legislation. On May 31, 1918, the 

French President decreed that military 

justice in the Czechoslovak units 

should be administered in the name of 

the Czechoslovak nation. 

On behalf of the Czechoslovak 

National Council, Milan R. Štefánik 

signed an agreement with the Italian 

Prime Minister on April 25, 1918, 

whereby the Royal Government of Italy 

recognised the existence of a unified 

and autonomous Czechoslovak army, 

answerable nationally, politically and 

legally to the Czechoslovak National 

Council. The Italian government 

declared that it recognised the 

Czechoslovak National Council and 

the autonomous national army because 

the National Council acted fully in 

accordance with the principles of 

humanity and liberty proclaimed jointly 

by the Entente powers in the course of 

the war. There was a specific clause 

recognising the Czechoslovak nation 

and the appointment of an Italian 

military emissary to the high command 

of the Czechoslovak Army in France. 

That agreement was subsequently 

interpreted by the Italian government 

as recognition of the Czechoslovak 

National Council as the de facto 

government. On June 30, 1918, Law 

No. 1, signed by Milan R. Štefánik, was 

issued on Italian territory in Czech and 

Italian, stipulating that laws of the 

Czechoslovak National Council were 

binding on Czechs and Slovaks in the 

states of the Entente. 

Even more categorical was the letter 

sent by the French Foreign Minister on 

June 29, 1918 to Edvard Beneš, as 

General Secretary of the Czechoslovak 

National Council, concerning the 



62 

military efforts of the Czechoslovak 

units. In the name of the French 

government, he declared that it was 

both just and imperative to recognise 

the Czechoslovak nation’s right to 

independence and to recognise the 

National Council officially as the 

“supreme body of the general interests 

and legal basis of the future 

Czechoslovak government”. In that 

respect, he stressed the Czechoslovak 

nation’s centuries of independence and 

declared the historical rights of nations 

to be inalienable. For those reasons he 

recalled the French principle of respect 

for rights of nations and attachment to 

the liberation of oppressed peoples, 

declaring that the French government 

considered the demands of the 

Czechoslovak nation to be just and 

justified and that it would make every 

effort so that Czechoslovak yearnings 

for independence within the historical 

territories freed from the oppressive 

yoke of Austria-Hungary should be 

promptly fulfilled. He voiced the wish 

that by the joint efforts of the all the 

allies and in close co-ordination with 

Poland and the Yugoslav state, the 

Czechoslovak state should soon become 

an inviolable frontier against German 

aggression and a factor of peace in a 

Europe rebuilt on the principles of 

justice and the rights of nations. The 

French minister’s letter included many 

formulations identical to those 

contained in the proclamations of the 

Czechoslovak resistance, particularly in 

the speeches of T.G.Masaryk. 

An even more important step 

towards the recognition of the 

Czechoslovak National Council as the 

representative of sovereign state power 

was the supplementary agreement 

signed between the Czechoslovak 

National Council and the Italian 

government on June 30, 1918. It stated 

in its first article that the laws passed by 

the Czechoslovak National Council 

would be enforceable in the Kingdom 

of Italy on the day they were published 

in the official gazette of the National 

Council and the principle of 

Czechoslovak national sovereignty was



stated in other articles of the 

agreement. 

In a declaration on August 9, 1918, 

Great Britain recognised the 

Czechoslovaks as an “Allied Nation” 

and their three armies as “regular 

belligerents” in the war against Austria- 

Hungary and Germany and its 

National Council as “present trustee of 

the future Czechoslovak government” 

and therefore competent to exercise 

authority over those armies. In a 

proclamation on September 2, 1918, 

the government of the United States 

recognised the state of war between the 

organised Czechoslovak armies and the 

empires of Germany and Austria- 

Hungary, and the Czechoslovak 

National Council as de facto 

belligerents, with the appropriate 

powers to deal with the military and 

political affairs of Czechoslovakia. One 

cannot agree with L. Oppenheim, who 

gives different dates for these 

documents. He also advances the view 

that the enemy was not bound by that 

recognition and was entitled to regard 

the members of those armies as traitors. 

The military successes of the 

Czechoslovak legions in Russia also 

after the end of the World War were an 

important spur to international 

recognition of Czechoslovak statehood. 

The process of recognition of 

Czechoslovak bodies by the leaders of 

63 

Chapter II 

the Entente as legitimate 

representatives of the Czechoslovaks’ 

political resistance continued 

successfully. On October 14, 1918 a 

provisional Czechoslovak government 

was established in Paris. Edvard Beneš, 

as its Foreign Minister, informed the 

Foreign Minister of the French 

Republic and the other allied 

governments accordingly. At the same 

time he requested the accreditation of 

diplomatic representatives to the 

French Republics and the other allied 

governments. France recognised the 


on October 15, 1918. There followed 

recognition by the governments of the 

other states and declaration by the 

representatives of those nations striving 

for independent statehood. 

The international legal recognition of 

the sovereignty of the organ of a nation 

or state which had not yet imposed its 

authority on its own territory was an act 

without precedent in international law. 

At that time and later that act was 

justified in theory and practice on the 

grounds that recognition of the 

“Czechoslovaks” and the Poles as 

nations and the recognition of the right 

to create autonomous military corps 

anticipated the recognition of the future 

states. For that reason the term 

“Czechoslovaks” had not only domestic 

but also international legal significance.

CZECHS AND GERMANS 

IN A DEMOCRATIC 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 1918-1938 

64

Chapter III 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA’S 

ETHNIC POLICY 

The newly-created Czechoslovak 

Republic was a democratic state based 

on the principle of the equality of all its 

citizens. It was also defined as a 

democratic republic, whose citizens 

enjoyed the same and equal rights. 

However, in the course of negotiations 

on the constitution, the supreme 

administrative court ruled that the 

The 35-year-old Edvard Bene‰ in 1919 at the peace conference in Paris where he was 

Czechoslovakia’s top diplomat. 

Czechoslovak Republic was a nation 

state of the “Czechoslovak nation”. 

Within that legal and political term 

their lurked the danger of the 

multifarious and sometimes expedient 

interpretations that have 

dogged it ever since. 

The fact that the Czechoslovak 

Republic was not a nation state but an 

ethnic state was the reflection of the 

stickiest political issue in terms both of 

domestic politics and international law. 

The republic’s relationship to its 

minorities was determined both by its 

constitution and international law. The 

Versailles peace accord had also 

included an agreement on the 

protection of minorities that 

Czechoslovakia signed at the Saint- 



66 

Germain conference in Paris on 

September 10, 1919. Article 128 of the 

Czechoslovak Constitution stipulated 

that all citizens of the republic were 

equal before the law and enjoyed the 

same civil and political rights 

irrespective of their race, language or 

creed. And Article 106 stated that all 

inhabitants of the Czechoslovak 

Republic enjoyed “complete protection 

of life and liberty, irrespective of their 

origin, citizenship, language, race or 

creed”. Moreover, the constitution also 

prohibited forcible assimilation 

(Article 134). It was also a crime to 

incite ethnic, religious or racial hatred 

or violence. 

All citizens of the Czechoslovak 

Republic had equal rights of access to 

the public authorities, services and 

offices, equal rights to engage in any 

trade or profession, to found at their 

own expense schools with a national 

language of instruction, as well as 

“national” humanitarian and religious 

institutions. Another equal right was 

the use of a national language “in 

private relations and commercial 

dealings, in the press and all 

publications, at public gatherings and



in religious contacts”. According to law 

on the protection of freedom, the 

national minority enjoyed protection 

also in respect of dismissal of 

employees on ethnic grounds. 

Compared to the status of other 

minorities in Europe, the German 

minority in the Czechoslovak Republic 

was one of the few eventually to be 

represented in government (1926- 

1938) and to have its own independent 

and complete educational system up to 

university level. In those districts 

where they represented over 20% of the 

population, Czechoslovakia’s Germans 

were allowed to communicate with the 

state authorities in their mother 

tongue, which was the case of 90% of 

inhabitants of German nationality. 

Nevertheless even that legislation, 

which was extremely tolerant for its 

time, had its shortcomings. It failed, for 

instance, to provide a precise definition 

of the term nationality, and simply 

derived it de facto from the mother 

tongue. Another weakness of 

interpretation was the definition of 

equal rights for the citizen, i.e. the 

individual, while ignoring the rights of 

communities. Those lacunae served to 

further the impression of the 

Czechoslovakia as a nation state, a state 

of “Czechoslovaks”, conceived not in 

terms of civil law but of the legal 

construct of “the Czechoslovak nation”. 

That aspect of the state was reinforced 

by the constitutional provisions 

regarding language rights. The official 

language of the state was “the 

Czechoslovak language”, which meant 

Czech and Slovak. That provision 

meant the de facto supremacy of the 

Czech language in everyday life. In the 

interests of the truth it is necessary to 

point out that the actions of nationallyoriented 

Czech politicians helped to 

reinforce the national character of the 

state. And yet it is by no means without 

significance that the Czechoslovak 

Republic was proclaimed a nation state 

not by Parliament but solely by a ruling 

of the Supreme Administrative Court 

just prior to the adoption of the 

Constitution, on February 20, 1920. 

67 

Chapter III 

President Masaryk held rather 

different views about the status of 

national minorities than many other 

Czech politicians, particularly Karel 

Kramář, who was responsible for many 

of the “nationalising” provisions of 

Czechoslovak legislation. Masaryk 

assumed that German would be the 

second official language of the state, 

that Prague would be a bi-lingual city, 

that the Czechoslovak Germans would 

have at least one minister in the 

government, and that the 

administration of the country would be 

cantonal, based on a territorial unit 

known as the župa, with two or three of 

the ten župy having a majority German 

population. This was no mere lip 

service; as soon as the republic was 

established Masaryk offered the 

Germans two cabinet posts, and soon 

after the Prime Minister, Vlastimil 

Tusar, actually offered them four. 

However, under pressure from the 

leading Sudeten-German politician 

Lodgman von Auen, Chairman of the 

German National Party, the German 

parliamentary union, representing all 

the German parliamentary parties in the 

Czechoslovak Republic except the 

Social Democrats, rejected German 

participation in the government, even 

though it was recommended by 

diplomats of the German Reich. 

LEGAL ASPECTS OF 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA’S ETHNIC 

POLICY 

The minority question was one of the 

main political problems of the first 

Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938). It 

was far from simply an internal issue, 

because the most important minorities, 

the Germans and Hungarians, received 

support from Germany, Austria and 

Hungary. A number of other states were 

in a similar situation (e.g. Poland and 

Rumania) and any internal dispute over 

minorities was capable of sparking off a 

conflict involving the whole of Europe. 

For that reason the international public 

and the world powers were deeply 

concerned about the minority issue and 

did their best to settle minority disputes

Chapter III 

by means of political pressure and 

international agreements, i.e. by 

international law. 

A major influence on the status of 

minorities in the first Czechoslovak 

Republic and in other countries 

between the wars was exercised by the 

international legal measures to protect 

minorities sponsored by the League of 

Nations, the forerunner of the United 

Nations. Under League of Nations’ 

auspices an extensive system was 

established that laid down, at least de 

iure, the rights of certain minorities. It 

was a fundamental step forward as 

regards the legal status of minorities – it 

was of particular significance in 

monitoring how commitments to 

protect minorities (mostly on the basis 

of international conventions) were 

being respected. An important element 

was the work of the world court, the 

Permanent Court of International 

Justice, which helped monitor the 

protection of minorities and also 

contributed towards improving 

international law on minorities. 

Protection of minorities only concerned 

a limited number of states, however, 

(particularly those in central and eastern 

Europe) and no general agreements on 

minorities were adopted by the League 

of Nations and nor did the 

organisation’s Covenant include any 

such provisions. 

Protection of minorities under 

international law made significant 

strides in the inter-war years. It was not 

based on a single covenant, but on the 

contrary derived from a large number of 

sources of law of many different kinds. 

While their legal content was similar, 

the historical circumstances of their 

origin and development differed greatly. 

In terms of their origin they may be 

divided into four groups. The first group 

comprises peace agreements reached at 

the Paris peace conferences of 1919- 

1920 between the victorious powers and 

the states defeated in World War I – i.e. 

Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey, 

but not Germany – which included 

clauses protecting the rights of 

minorities. The second group were the 

agreements on the protection of 



68 

minorities signed by the victorious 

powers (also at the peace conferences) 

with some of their allies – 

Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yugoslavia, 

Rumania and Greece. The third group 

consisted of declarations about the 

protection of minorities which were 

made by different states before the 

Council of the League of Nations as a 

condition of their membership, e.g. 

Albania, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, 

Estonia and Iraq. The fourth group was 

made up of mutual (usually bilateral) 

agreements on the protection of 

minorities and various other questions 

signed by a number of mostly 

neighbouring states (including 

Czechoslovakia – with Poland, Austria 

and Germany). Of greatest significance 

were the legal norms monitored by the 

League of Nations, namely those in the 

first three groups, plus some of those in 

the fourth group. Apart from details 

they were almost all identical. The 

consisted of three main sections: 1) a list 

of rights guaranteed to all inhabitants, 

2) regulations governing the acquisition 

of citizenship (as some states denied 

citizenship – and thus also political and 

other rights – to minorities), 3) the most 

important and most extensive section, 

which dealt with the rights of citizens of 

the state, who differed from the majority 

in terms of race, language or religion – 

i.e. the actual rights of the minorities 

(e.g. civil and political equality, equal 

access to the authorities, the right to use 

their own language, establish schools 

and other institutions, etc.). 

The agreements on minorities were 

part of the overall transformation of 

international law that started in the 

nineteenth century and continued more 

vigorously in the twentieth century. 

And the first Czechoslovak Republic 

was precisely one of the countries most 

concerned with the evolution of that 

new international system and law, since 

it was surrounded by often hostile 

countries, a fact of which the very 

capable foreign minister of many years 

standing (and future President) Edvard 

Beneš, was well aware. The 

Czechoslovak Republic wanted to see a 

ban on wars of aggression and measures



towards disarmament and collective 

security. In view of those endeavours it 

is not entirely surprising, that 

Czechoslovakia, unlike certain other 

countries, adopted a positive attitude to 

interventions in state sovereignty, which 

also included the international legal 

protection of minorities. 

Czechoslovakia was one of the 

countries with an agreement on 

minorities that it promised to sign in 

Article 57 of its peace treaty with 

Austria. In that way the great powers 

obliged the new Czechoslovak state, in 

return for benefits – e.g. the acquisition 

of a border zone with a German 

minority in accordance with the terms 

of the peace with Austria (sometimes 

called the “greater St-Germain treaty”) 

– also to accept onerous obligations 

towards the minorities (the so-called 

“smaller or minority St-Germain 

treaty”). For Czechoslovakia the 

Minorities treaty was the “Treaty 

between the Principal Allied and 

Associated Powers and Czechoslovakia” 

signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 

September 10, 1919 (published in the 

Czechoslovak Collection of Laws as 

No. 508/1921). Czechoslovakia thereby 

undertook to assure all its inhabitants 

full and complete protection of life and 

liberty, as well as the right to profess 

publicly or privately any creed, religion 

or belief, providing its practices not 

consistent with public order and public 

morals (Article 2). Particular attention 

was paid to the issue of citizenship 

(Articles 3-6). 

According to the treaty, all nationals 

(i.e. non-foreigners) had to be equal 

before the law and enjoy the same civil 

and political rights irrespective of race, 

language or religion. Citizens had the 

right to use any language in private 

intercourse, commerce, in religion, in the 

press or publications of any kind, or at 

public gatherings. Should the 

Czechoslovak Republic choose to 

establish an official language, 

Czechoslovak nationals having a mother 

tongue other than Czech also were to be 

given adequate facilities to use their 

language, either orally or in writing, 

before the courts (Article 7). Citizens 

69 

Chapter III 

belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic 

minorities should be treated in 

accordance with the law and under the 

same conditions as other citizens. In 

particular, they should have the 

opportunity to establish and control at 

their own expense religious and social 

institutions, schools and other educational 

establishments and to freely use their own 

language therein (Article 8). 

By virtue of Articles 2-8 of the 

Minorities Treaty, Czechoslovakia 

promised to recognise “as fundamental 

laws and that no law, regulation or 

official action shall conflict or interfere 

with these stipulations, nor shall any 

law, regulation or official action prevail 

over them” (Article 1). This was a fairly 

problematic undertaking as the 

provisions of Articles 2-8 of the treaty 

had to have precedence over 

Czechoslovak legislation, including the 

constitutional laws. Czechoslovak legal 

experts between the wars were 

somewhat at a loss in respect of this 

complex issue. In practice, 

Czechoslovakia’s international 

obligations were fulfilled by adopting 

legal norms with a similar content and 

generally at the constitutional level: 

Paragraphs 128-134 of the 

Constitution, the (constitutional) 

language law and the law on acquisition 

of state citizenship (likewise 

constitutional). 

According to the final Article (9), 

Chapter I, which was no longer 

indicated as basic law, Czechoslovakia 

guaranteed public education of 

members of minorities in their mother 

tongue in areas where they were settled. 

Minority schooling had already existed 

during the monarchy, and indeed the 

situation in Austria-Hungary with its 

long history of solving ethnic conflicts 

was a major inspiration for the framers 

of the minority treaties at the Paris 

peace conference. Whereas the 

provisions of Chapter I (Articles 1-9) of 

the Czechoslovak Minorities treaty 

were essentially the same as in the 

treaties with the other states, Chapter II 

(Articles 10-13) dealt chiefly with the 

specific issue of the autonomy of 

Carpathian Ruthenia.

Chapter III 

As far as international security of the 

implementation of obligations was 

concerned, the provisions of all the 

minorities treaties were identical. The 

regulations covering members of racial, 

religious or linguistic minorities 

constituted obligations of international 

interest and were guaranteed by the 

League of Nations. They could not be 

altered without agreement of the 

majority of the Council of the League 

(the forerunner of today’s Security 

Council). Basically, the states represented 

in the Council had two rights – to draw 

attention to violation of the treaty and 

submit the contravention to the 

Permanent Court of International 

Justice. However only members of the 

Council were entitled to take that step, 

i.e. representatives of the great powers 

and a number of elected states, which ran 

somewhat counter to the principle of 

equality of states. Thus the treaty 

provided for violations to be dealt with 

internationally in two ways: either by 

action of the Council or by decision of 

the Permanent Court of International 

Justice. In theory it gave the Council very 

wide powers to intervene, even as soon as 



70 

a violation of treaty obligations was 

threatened: “…the Council may 

thereupon take such action and give such 

direction as it may deem proper and 

effective in the circumstances.” (Article 

14, Paragraph 2). By and large those 

procedural issues were dealt with fairly 

tersely in the treaty and gave rise to a 

number of ambiguities. One of the most 

important of these was the practical issue 

of how members of the Council were to 

Edvard Bene‰ and his wife receive a rapturous welcome in âeske Budûjovice on their 

return to the home country in September 1919. He had managed to have almost all of 

Czechoslovakia’s territorial claims included in the peace treaty. 

learn about violations of treaty 

obligations (the sending of petitions by 

members of the minority) and that was 

the most discussed question. 

The minorities treaties represented 

fairly far-reaching obligations as far as 

Czechoslovakia and the other countries 

were concerned, but they also provided 

certain benefits. Previously, more 

powerful states had been able to use the 

protection of minorities as a pretext for 

interfering in the internal affairs of 

other countries. Now, however, this 

issue had been shifted, in theory at least, 

out of the sphere of international 

politics into that of international law, 

since the world powers were no longer 

free to decide on possible intervention



the issue was governed by international 

legal regulations. 

In addition to the minority treaties 

(linked with the League of Nations), 

Czechoslovakia was also bound by a 

number of bilateral treaties with 

neighbouring states dealing with the 

minorities issue: with Austria ( July 7, 

1920), with Germany ( June 19, 1920), 

with Poland (November 29, 1920 – 

unratified – and April 23, 1925). Those 

treaties were often based on the 

Minorities treaty, and clarified its 

interpretation and application in respect 

of mutual relations. 

In Czechoslovakia, honouring the 

commitments in practical terms hinged 

on the Constitution, but the 

relationship between international law 

and the constitutional law of the 

republic was not clear. Most provisions 

dealing with minorities were 

concentrated in Chapter VI -Protection 

of national, religious and racial 

minorities,” (Articles 128 - 134). The 

key issue in Chapter VI was the 

relationship of the Constitution to the 

Minorities treaty. The preamble to the 

Constitution also acknowledged that 

Paragraphs 128 - 132 had been drafted 

according to the Minorities treaty, but 

the relationship between the Treaty and 

the Constitution and the significance of 

the Constitution for the actual 

circumstances in the state were a moot 

point. Many legal experts were at pains 

to emphasise that the inclusion of 

minority protection was not due to 

outside pressure, because the 

Czechoslovak Republic would have 

given minorities favourable treatment 

anyway, even if the major powers had 

not imposed the Minorities Treaty. 

Opinions on the relationship between 

national and international law are far 

from unanimous and vary greatly 

between countries and periods of history. 

In general terms, the Constitution of the 

Czechoslovak Republic of 1920 did not 

define in any way the relationship 

between national and international law, 

and that vacuum was an unregulated area 

for the judicial bodies and jurisprudence. 

Individual courts differed in their 

71 

Chapter III 

approach and relationship between 

Czechoslovak law in and international 

law was even debated among theorists. 

Having outlined the complex 

theoretical aspects of the influence of 

international law on the situation of 

minorities in Czechoslovakia it is 

necessary to consider the practical 

aspects, and in particular interventions 

in the internal circumstances of the first 

Czechoslovak Republic by the League 

of Nations under the terms of the 

Minorities Treaty. In the inter-war 

period there was, generally speaking, a 

marked discrepancy between theory and 

practice as regards the protection of 

minorities within the framework of the 

League of Nations, in other words, 

between international legal norms and 

the action that was actually taken in the 

various countries. It was aggravated by 

the fact that a whole set of issues, 

particularly procedural ones, were only 

sketched out, while others had to be 

dealt with by subsequent resolutions of 

the League of Nations and many were 

to remain unclarified. When it came to 

the protection of minorities in practice, 

it was obvious throughout that the 

system of politicised and the actual 

international situation took precedence 

over the law – although this is nothing 

unusual in international law. On the 

other hand, during the period it was 

operative – the twenties and thirties – 

the system of minority protection of the 

League of Nations was genuinely 

functional, and in spite of all its 

shortcomings quite a lot was done. 

The major practical problem in those 

countries that had minority treaties 

under the League of Nations (including 

Czechoslovakia) was the scope for the 

members of the minority communities 

to submit complaints about treaty 

violations, i.e. the matter of petitions, 

their acceptability and how they were 

processed. Mostly they were submitted 

by members of minorities, but they were 

then dealt with at inter-state level. The 

underlying principle for dealing with 

petitions was the League’s endeavour to 

mediate and persuade, and to forge 

compromises, because often the only

Chapter III 

possible practical sanction against an 

intransigent state was to bring the 

matter before the world public. The 

actual methods adopted were thus at 

variance with the provisions of the legal 

norms; they were adapted to the needs 

of the moment and particularly to the 

international circumstances. The person 

who had most influence on the way the 

system operated in practice was Erik 

Colban, Director of the Minorities 

Section of the League of Nations 

Secretariat, which helped to deal with 

petitions and collected information 

about the different countries. Its 

members also made visits to those areas, 

including Czechoslovakia, which was 

very important for the situation of those 

minorities. 

Petitions addressed to the League of 

Nations concerned many different 

issues. Some of them criticised 

constitutional provisions, in others 

individuals demanded their rights and 

complained about injustices. Many 

leaders of the minorities movement 

fully realised that their demands were 

unrealistic and simply used petitions as 



72 

a means of creating difficulties for the 

countries they lived in. The Council of 

the League was aware of that risk in the 

minorities’ activity, and of their contacts 

with the Nazis, for instance. It was 

usually loath to take action against 

states on account of their minorities. 

However, when a major power 

(particularly Great Britain) regarded a 

minorities problem as a risk to 

European peace, it was always ready to 

A very touchy issue of the minorities was education.The Czech cartoon of the 

man-eating giant of 1895 (left) highlighted the fact that over 20,000 Czech children 

were obliged to attend German schools.The German cartoon from 1920 tried 

to suggest that the Czechs acted as colonisers towards the Germans 

and abducted their children to Czech schools. 

debate the matter in the Council and 

put pressure on a country, even outside 

the framework of the treaties. 


countries against which many of the 

petitions were directed. Most often the 

German minority submitted them to the 

League of Nations. On November 1, 

1920, for instance, the German Union 

for Democratic Control submitted a 

petition headed “Repression of 

minorities, the requisition of the Estates 

Theatre and threats to Dr. Wien-Claudi 

and his family”. On May 15, 1922, the 

German Parliamentary Union (the 

deputies of the German parties in 

Czechoslovakia, apart from the Social



Democrats) submitted a petition 

entitled: “Non-compliance with the 

Saint-Germain Treaty (i.e. the 

Minorities Treaty) by the revolutionary 

National Assembly, octroi laws, 

education, language laws, land reform”. 

In September 1923, the German 

“League of Nations Association” sent a 

total of three petitions against the 

nationalisation of the forests and the 

land reform, which considerably affected 

the minorities – the previous ruling 

nations. Petitions were also sent by 

individuals. On May 17, 1925, for 

instance, a certain Colonel R. Lesonitzky 

submitted a complaint that he was being 

refused a pension. A particularly 

notorious petition was submitted on 

April 24, 1936 by the deputies and 

senators of the Sudeten German Party 

regarding the exclusion of Germans 

from military supplies (the so-called 

Machník Decree). The great majority of 

the German petitions were submitted 

between 1922 and 1926.They mostly 

concerned the land reforms, dismissals 

of civil servants belonging to national 

minorities, and state citizenship. By and 

large the petitions were dealt with by a 

letter from the Czechoslovak Foreign 

Ministry to the Director of the 

Minorities Section of the League of 

Nations, in which Prague clarified the 

situation (e.g. by enclosing a finding of 

the Supreme Administrative Court) and 

there the matter rested. A series of 

petitions against Czechoslovakia were 

also sent by Hungarian groups and 

individuals. Like those of the Germans, 

their petitions enjoyed minimal success. 

Admittedly the Minorities Section 

would generally ask the government for 

its opinion, but the Committee of 

Three, comprising representatives of 

Council members, which dealt with 

minorities disputes, accepted the 

government’s response. Even though 

most of the petitions from the minorities 

came to nothing, some of them caused 

Czechoslovakia serious problems, 

particularly those sent by individuals. 

Public opinion and the propaganda 

directed at it played a extremely 

important role in the international 

73 

Chapter III 

protection of minorities. Negative 

publicity risked undermining the allies’ 

support for Czechoslovakia, which it 

needed in international politics. A 

minority conflict within the country 

would also place its frontiers in jeopardy, 

by raising doubts about whether the 

territory with minorities belonged to 

the republic. 

The influence of international law on 

the situation of minorities in the first 

Czechoslovak Republic I was therefore 

considerable. This related chiefly to the 

protection of minorities under 

international law in connection with the 

League of Nations. After World War I, 

a number of mostly new states were 

required to sign minorities treaties 

essentially in return for obtaining 

extensive territories with national 

minorities, and international law was 

thus intended to guarantee acceptable 

conditions for those minorities, which 

were then not allowed to demand 

frontier changes, and so solve the 

dangerous problem of the stability of 

states with minorities, such as 

Czechoslovakia. In spite of its 

shortcomings, the system functioned for 

many years and its importance cannot 

be underestimated. However, in the 

1930s, under pressure from aggressive 

states, that entire international system 

collapsed. 

At the time of Munich, the system 

for protecting minorities – i.e. including 

the Germans – was totally 

circumvented, because it rejected 

enforced frontier changes and Germany 

was no longer a member of the League. 

After World War II, many minorities 

were resettled and international 

protection was refused – including in 

Czechoslovakia. The inter-war 

minorities treaties are now regarded as 

null and void. 

ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS 

DURING THE 1 ST REPUBLIC IN 

RELATION TO THE GERMANS 

In relation to the situation of the 

Germans in the Czechoslovak Republic, 

mention is sometimes made to 

administrative reforms, particularly the

Chapter III 

introduction of the župa system. This is 

because the organisation of public 

administration, along with the issues of 

the official language and national 

schooling, were traditionally, i.e. during 

the monarchy, crucial for the status of 

nations. 

When it was set up, Czechoslovakia 

inherited from Austria-Hungary 

systems of local government which 

fundamentally differed – the Austrian 

system in the Czech provinces and its 

Hungarian counterpart in Slovakia and 

Ruthenia. As early as 1919 there were 

efforts to combine the systems and at 

the same time to radically modernise 

and democratise public administration. 

Although the situation in the country 

was extremely complicated in the initial 

period and in deep economic crisis, the 

new republic decided on a fairly radical 

reform of local government. The reform 

naturally had many aspects, but the 



74 

most visible and must publicly discussed 

component was the introduction of a 

territorial unit called the župa on the 

Slovak model, hence it was known as 

the “župa reform”. Local government is 

the basis of a state and constitutes a 

complex system which evolves over a 

lengthy period, so attempts to transform 

it encounter innumerable obstacles. 

Apart from those substantive problems, 

e.g. financial issues, the attempt at 

Work on building the grammar school in Liberec started in 1917 and it was to be the 

second German secondary school in the town. Eventually the Czech grammar school 

was housed here too, although its pupils were obliged to use a side entrance and the 

corridors were partitioned to prevent ethnic brawls.The barriers were removed 

in 1925. During the occupation the building housed the 

administrative offices of the Reichsgau Sudetenland. 

reform was also complicated by political 

disputes in which the nationalities issue 

was a key factor. 

The Germans were not yet reconciled 

with the new situation and there were 

repeated attempts at secession. 

Nonetheless some of the planned župy 

would have a German majority and 

central government would have a 

limited say in their administration. For 

that reason the Czech nationalist Right, 

headed by Karel Kramář’s National



Democrats, put up a powerful resistance 

to the proposed German župy as 

possible bulwarks of irredentism. Much 

was made of the somewhat exaggerated 

fears of oppression of the Czech 

minorities there. Other politicians, such 

as T.G.Masaryk, were willing to accord 

the Germans fairly extensive rights, 

which included the German župy 

planned under the local-government 

reform. Their assumption was that 

giving the Germans the opportunity to 

run their own local government would 

tend to reconcile them to the new 

republic. The drafting of the “župa 

reform”, which was a very hurried 

process, called for compromises. As a 

result local-government powers which 

might be abused by the Germans were 

fairly restricted and there was a lot of 

gerrymandering in the division of the 

territory in an effort to weaken the 

position of the Germans and Magyars. 

Some politicians were of the view that 

the fragmentation of the territories they 

inhabited would encourage assimilation. 

In spite of those interventions, the 

nationalist Right was still unhappy with 

the reform and the passage of the bill 

was extremely thorny. The “župa 

reform” – Law No. 126/1920 on 

establishing župy and district authorities 

in the Czechoslovak Republic was 

eventually adopted together with the 

Constitution and various fundamental 

laws on February 29, 1920. 

The law was passed in February 1920 

but the will was lacking to implement it 

rapidly – because of the complexity of 

the issue, the government itself would 

have to decide when the reforms would 

be implemented. After much shillyshallying 

the župa reform eventually 

came into force on January 1, 1923, but 

only in Slovakia. The shortcomings of 

the planned reforms and the continuing 

opposition of the nationalists meant 

that the reform was never introduced in 

the Czech lands. The National 

Democrats, the main opponents of the 

župy and democratisation of public 

administration, joined the government 

and in 1927 helped steer through a law 

on the organisation of public 

75 

Chapter III 

administration. This involved 

abandoning the župa system; the main 

unit of administration remained the 

země or province, and the 

administrative powers of the centre were 

considerably strengthened. This meant 

that the scope for the minorities – 

particularly the Germans – to run their 

own local government were greatly 

restricted. 

The German question had a major 

influence on the issue of localgovernment 

reform in the First 

Republic. But it must be realised that 

reform is always a complex matter with 

a whole lot of practical organisational 

and financial ramifications. Hence the 

national question was linked with a 

whole lot of other practical issues, and 

its significance must be seen in the light 

of them. 

A COMPARISON OF THE STATUS 

OF MINORITIES IN 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND 

ELSEWHERE 

If one is to make a historically relevant 

assessment of the situation of the 

German minority in Czechoslovakia, 

one must take into account the situation 

of minorities in other countries. It is 

necessary to assess not only the situation 

of the Germans but also the situation of 

minorities in general, particularly in the 

states of central and eastern Europe, 

which, in common with 

Czechoslovakia, were bound by 

international undertakings to protect 

their minorities and were to a certain 

extent under the oversight of the 

League of Nations. The objection is 

sometimes voiced that there were so 

many Germans in the first 

Czechoslovak Republic that they could 

not be regarded as a minority. At the 

international level, however, the 

Germans in Czechoslovakia were 

regarded as a minority along with other 

groups, and this was not objected to 

either by Germany (virtually up to 

Munich) or Austria. It is true, however, 

that the Germans in Czechoslovakia 

were one of the largest groups in both 

relative and absolute terms.

Chapter III 

In the inter-war period, the 

minorities question was a burning issue 

particularly in the countries of central 

and eastern Europe, including 

Czechoslovakia. Those countries all had 

similar obligations under international 

law to protect their minorities – i.e. the 

minorities treaties monitored by the 

League of Nations, which were 

intended as a basis for the treatment of 

minorities and took precedence over any 

other laws of those countries. Serious 

minorities problems had existed even 

before World War I, such as the 

oppression of the Armenians in the 

Ottoman Empire, but at that time only 

powerful minorities received attention. 

The World War and Wilson’s slogans 

about self-determination helped boost 

the morale of various groups and the 

minorities problem emerged in 

countries where they had not existed at 

all previously. Minorities were not 

restricted to central and eastern Europe, 

of course, but the radically altered 

situation and frontiers in that area 

activated those populations most of all. 

The creation of new states or frontier 

changes made minorities out of 

members of nations which had 

previously been dominant there: in 

central Europe this concerned the 

Germans and the Magyars. 

Even according to often unreliable 

official statistics, the percentage of 

minorities within the populations of 

those states was considerable: in Poland 

34%, in Czechoslovakia 33%, in 

Lithuania 29%, in Latvia 25%, in 

Greece 20%, in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria 

15%, in Rumania 13%, in Hungary 12% 

and in Austria 8%. In other words not 

only were there large minorities in the 

new states such as Czechoslovakia, but 

even in countries, such as Hungary, 

which lost part of their territory after 

the war, many members of other 

nationalities remained. The treatment 

of minorities by different states 

displayed enormous variations and it is 

hard to make comparisons because of 

the dissimilarity of legal systems, the 

extremely diverse forms of public 

administration, the great variety of 



76 

cultural conditions, and last but not 

least, because the self-identification 

factors and characteristics of the 

individual minorities varied so greatly. 

Of those countries with international 

treaty obligations, the policies of 

Czechoslovakia and Estonia were the 

most favourable, but minorities in 

Austria, Lithuania and Latvia also 

received favourable treatment. Less 

satisfactory was the situation in Poland 

Despairing architect of the bridge of 

German-Czech reconciliation on a 

Czech cartoon from 1913: 

“Goodness gracious, you’ll never 

come together like this!” 

and Hungary, and it was even worse in 

Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece and 

Rumania. Albania and Turkey blatantly 

oppressed their minorities. But the 

status of individual minorities within 

the same state could also vary. This was 

because in addition to the overall 

international undertakings, there were 

often bilateral treaties that were more 

advantageous to specific minorities. In 

Yugoslavia, for instance, there were 

special treaties covering the Italian and 

Rumanian minorities signed with their 

mother countries. In practice it chiefly 

depended on the social level of a given 

group, in other words, the degree to 

which they were capable of asserting



their rights at home and at the 

international level (the German 

minorities tended to be best at that), 

and the actual political situation in the 

given country. The most favourable 

status was achieved by those minorities 

that managed to reach a consensus with 

the state. In certain countries the 

situation of minorities was literally 

tragic. There were mass expulsions of 

populations at the beginning of the 

1920s, particularly in Greece and 

Turkey, involving huge massacres. The 

West was unable make Turkey honour 

international obligations even 

subsequently. Turkey even tried to force 

its minorities to “voluntarily” forego the 

guarantees afforded them under the 

minorities treaty. 

The most frequent problems of the 

minorities can be summarised under 

several main headings: 

1. failure to introduce regulations to 

enforce the laws protecting 

minorities, and general violations of 

those laws, 

2. political attempts at national unity, 

3. restrictions on the influence of 

minorities, 

4. extremism and chauvinism on both 

sides that were an obstacle to 

compromise 

5. inadequate or no representation of 

minorities within official bodies, 

6. restricted or non-existent scope to use 

their language in official 

communications, 

7. inadequate or non-existent education 

for minorities, 

8. land reform that penalised the 

wealthier groups, and economic 

pressure. 

It would be possible to list other, 

more detailed factors. It is interesting to 

take a look at the situation of minorities 

in those countries that were not bound 

by any international treaty to protect 

their minorities, i.e. USA, Great 

Britain, France and Italy. Sometimes 

that protection was not even required of 

them de facto – although they 

themselves imposed minorities treaties 

on other countries and interfered in 

their internal affairs. Even though Italy 

77 

Chapter III 

acquired minorities numbering almost a 

million as a result of the war, it was 

never made to accept international 

obligations, because its status as a world 

power wielded more influence than the 

force of noble ideas. On the contrary, 

the government introduced changes in 

the administration of its new territories 

that led to greater centralisation at the 

expense of local government. This also 

undermined the position of the 

Germans in South Tyrol. Particularly 

harsh treatment was meted out to the 

Slovenes in the form of violence during 

elections or the imprisonment of 

activists. “Italianisation” was particularly 

stepped up after the establishment of 

the fascist regime, which brought with it 

the terror of the mob, increased activity 

by the fascist militia and campaigns 

against the minorities by various 

associations and in the press, as well as 

official pressure and anti-minority 

legislation. France, the acclaimed model 

of many of the newly emergent states, 

simply refused to recognise the existence 

of its minorities (e.g. 1,200,000 Bretons 

and the same number of Germanspeaking 

Alsatians), because since the 

French Revolution it had recognised 

only individual, not collective rights. 

Minority languages could not be used 

before the courts or in the 

administration, and the same applied to 

education, where French was the sole 

language of instruction. This so-called 

“direct method” ensured that from their 

very first year in school, children were 

taught only in the official language and 

never heard a single word in their 

mother tongue. That approach was 

adopted not only in France, but also in 

the Netherlands and Spain, and usually 

in Germany, Hungary, Greece, etc. 

Great Britain did not give legal 

recognition to any national minorities 

and therefore there existed no 

legislation to cover the situation of 

minorities. Minority issues existed, but 

in a situation quite distinct from that of 

continental Europe; whereas the 

language issue elsewhere, such as in 

Czechoslovakia, was crucial, there it was 

often insignificant (the Irish mostly

Chapter III 

spoke only English). In the USA and in 

other states of the Americas, the 

minorities issue was regarded as a purely 

European problem, and the idea of 

protection for the minorities on their 

territories was utterly unacceptable – 

immigrants were expected to assimilate 

rapidly. From that brief glance at the 

situation in Italy, France, Britain and 

the USA, which were the creators and 

subsequently the de facto supervisors of 



Prague 

Bohemia 

the inter-war system of minorities 

protection, it is clear that they did not 

honour the principle of protection in 

their own countries. Moreover, the 

situation in Britain and the USA 

differed so much from conditions in 

continental Europe and the knowledge 

of the leaders of those countries often 

had only a very hazy idea of the 

situation abroad, which had a 

detrimental effect on the creation and 

operation of the system of minorities 

protection. 

The world power most concerned 

with the minorities issue in the interwar 

period was Germany, due to the fact 

that enormous numbers of Germans 

lived outside its borders. Germany 

readily presented itself internationally as 

78 

a champion of (not only German) 

minorities and a promoter of their 

international protection, even though its 

policy at home towards its own large 

minorities (1,700,000 Poles and 

130,000 Lusatian Sorbs) was far from 

favourable. Admittedly, article 113 of 

the Weimar Constitution dealt with 

minorities, but it was never 

implemented because of extensive 

restrictions. Due to the suppression of 

Moravia 

The total area of Deutschböhmen (German Bohemia) in October 1918. 

minority education, for instance, a large 

majority of the minority populations 

remained illiterate in their mother 

tongue. Only about a third of the 

Lusatian Sorbs, for instance, could write 

in their own language. After the Nazi 

regime took power, however, the 

minorities were completely deprived of 

their rights, their activists were 

imprisoned or executed, minority 

education was abolished, organisations 

were disbanded and publishing activity 

was stopped. Even the private use of the 

minority language was prohibited. In 

spite of its own internal minorities 

policy, the Nazi regime happily took 

advantage of minority movements in 

support of its own ends. This was 

particularly the case of German



populations. It managed to gain support 

for the Third Reich from the majority 

of Germans living in Czechoslovakia, 

Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, 

Denmark and elsewhere. It also had an 

effect on ethnic issues in other 

countries. 

It is also worth considering the 

situation in the USSR – the future 

model for Czechoslovakia. Its complex 

federal structure admittedly gave very 

extensive linguistic and cultural rights 

to non-Russian nations, but being a 

totalitarian state it had no need to fear 

that non-Russian territories would be 

tempted to secede, as the power 

structure was totally under the control 

of the Communist Party, in which 

Russians were supreme. All attempts, 

such as by the Ukrainians and 

Georgians, to extend their rights and 

achieve a confederal structure were 

79 

Chapter III 

bloodily suppressed and during the 

Stalin purges the number of victims in 

the non-Russian areas of the USSR 

was higher. 

The brief outline could only deal with 

a few countries, particularly the smaller 

states of central and eastern Europe, 

which, in common with the 

Czechoslovak Republic, were bound 

anyway by international treaties on the 

protection of minorities. 

Rudolf Lodgman von Auen (1877-1962) descended from an Irish family that settled in 

Bohemia around the year 1600. As a student in Prague he already took part in ethnic 

conflicts. Later he entered politics and uncompromisingly defended the interests of the 

German minority. In Vienna, on October 28, 1918 he declared the German-settled areas 

independent of the new Czechoslovak Republic. In the 1920s he represented the 

German nationalists in the National Assembly, although he later took a back seat. He reentered 

politics only after the fall of Hitler as one of the leading representatives of the 

Sudeten-German Landsmannschaft. Josef Seliger (1870-1920), a leading representative of 

Social-Democracy in Bohemia, made common cause with von Auen after the 

proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic, but after the Paris Conference decreed the 

territorial integrity of Czechoslovakia he adopted a more conciliatory approach and 

devoted himself to politics within the new state. 

Czechoslovakia’s minorities policy was 

not ideal, but it does not compare 

unfavourably with other countries, 

including democracies. Only a few other 

countries gave their minorities greater 

rights in the inter-war years. Finland’s 

approach was more favourable, 

particularly towards the Swedish 

minority. Estonia also had a positive 

approach to the minorities issue and in 

that respect was more accommodating

Chapter III 

than Czechoslovakia. In Belgium and 

Switzerland too the nations had 

essentially equal status, although the 

situation there, including historical 

circumstances, were very different from 

those of central Europe. 

GERMAN NEGATIVISM 

Thus from the very outset a crucial 

section of German politicians adopted 

an unequivocally negative stance to the 

newly created state. At the end of 

October and beginning of November 

1918, the leaders of the Germans in 

Bohemia and Moravia proclaimed four 

German provinces on the historic 

territory of the Bohemian state; two of 

them, which did not share a border with 

Austria, actually created their own 

provincial governments. These were the 

Deutschböhmen in north-west Bohemia, 

with its centre at Liberec, the 

Sudetenland in northern Moravia and 

Silesia with Opava as its capital, the 

Deutsch-Sudmähren in southern Moravia 

with Znojmo as its administrative 

centre, and finally the Böhmerwaldgau, 

having its capital at Prachatice. These 

provinces, together with the linguistic 

enclaves of Jihlava, Brno and Olomouc 



80 

were to become part of German 

Austria; the coal basin of the Ostrava 

region was to be a neutral territory. 

However, German Austria itself was 

proclaimed by the Provisional National 

Assembly of the Austrian Republic, 

with the overwhelming support of its 

population, a part of the German 

Republic. The National Assembly of 

the Weimar Republic also agreed with 

the union of Austria and Germany. 

In 1926, German ministers were included in the government of Antonín ·vehla. 

Nationalist tensions seemed to have been overcome.The government is portrayed here 

with President Masaryk. 

By a decision of the Austrian 

parliament of November 12, 1918, the 

provinces and linguistic enclaves on the 

territory of the Czechoslovak Republic 

were to become part of an intended 

Great Germany. However, the peace 

treaty forbade the union of Austria and 

Germany. Besides, the Austrian 

economy was in a poor state. the 

Czechoslovak Republic lent it 

considerable economic assistance and 

soon normal relations were established 

between the two states, confirmed in 

1921 by the so-called “Treaty of Lány”. 

Attempts to hive off a part of the 

territory of the Czech lands could not 

be countenanced by the political 

leadership of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, let alone by the Czechs as



a whole, as it would jeopardise the very 

existence of the newly emergent state. 

Nor did such a solution accord with the 

aims of the Entente powers. The 

victors, and particularly France, would 

not permit the creation of a greater 

German state, whatever its political 

regime, because it is would virtually 

mean reversing the outcome of the 

World War. With the tacit support of 

France, on November 29, 1918, the 

Czechoslovak government ordered light 

regiments to occupy the border areas 

with the assistance of the nationalist 

Sokol gymnastic movement. This had 

been carried out with practically no 

resistance, by mid-December and a 

Czechoslovak administration was set up 

there. Besides, Germany was the first 

state, after the victorious powers, to 

recognise the Czechoslovak Republic 

and German diplomats discretely 

recommended the Czechoslovak 

Germans to integrate themselves into 

the political life of the new republic 

without delay. The reasoning behind 

that recommendation was that this 

would create more favourable 

conditions for the anticipated ethnic 

negotiations, “that it was not a struggle 

against the state but a struggle for a 

state”. Moreover, the actual resistance to 

the intervention in the border areas by 

the Czechoslovak authorities was 

minimal; there were even places, such as 

Ústí nad Labem, where the local 

authorities actually requested 

Czechoslovak intervention. The reasons 

for that approach and behaviour were 

pragmatic. The situation was also 

affected by fear of social strife or even 

the sort of revolution, that was already 

rocking neighbouring Germany. And 


victorious powers, which brought 

considerable benefits. Another factor 

was fear of competition from the 

powerful German industry. Indeed, the 

following years were to confirm the 

economic advantages of 

Czechoslovakia’s international standing. 

One example was the separation of the 

Czechoslovak currency from the Austrian 

effected on February 25, 1919. That 

81 

Chapter III 

monetary measure created a stable 

national currency of a high standard, 

which, in the final analysis, benefited the 

Czechoslovak Germans also – even 

though initially it meant financial losses 

for many. This was because many 

Germans, unlike the Czechs, invested in 

war loans, which were devalued as a result 

of the currency separation. There was a 

wave of German protest against the 

measure, claiming that the Czechoslovak 

Republic had no right to take such a step 

before the peace treaty had been signed. 

Protests against the over-stamping of 

bank-notes merged with the events 

surrounding the inaugural session of the 

newly elected Parliament of the Austrian 

Republic (March 4, 1919). The 

Czechoslovak government had banned 

the holding of elections to that 

parliament in the Czechoslovak border 

areas. On the day of that first session, the 

German parties in the Czechoslovak 

Republic held a general strike. Protest 

demonstrations were held in many places. 

Most of them passed off peacefully, but in 

certain towns, particularly Kadaň, they 

became violent; German radicals attacked 

the Czechoslovak troops, gendarmes and 

police who were guarding official 

buildings, post-offices and courthouses. 

The defenders were not only assailed with 

stones or sticks, but also by firearms in 

some places. The state authorities 

responded in kind and the result was fifty 

Germans killed. It is obvious that the 

authorities were also worried that the 

demonstrations might be misused to stir 

up social strife, because the German 

Social Democrats were also involved and 

their party had not yet lost its communist 

wing. And indeed radical slogans about 

social conditions were also heard at the 

demonstrations. 

In spite of that unfortunate March 4, 

which was to taint Czech-German 

relations for a long time to come, 

T.G.Masaryk once more offered the 

Germans ministerial posts and again 

Lodgman von Auen refused. Even the 

leaders of the Weimar republic regarded 

that decision to be one of the worst 

mistakes ever made by the Sudeten- 

German politicians. It accurately

Chapter III 

reflected the tenor of the German 

negativism of that period. In the words 

of one of the Sudeten German deputies 

of the Czechoslovak parliament, the 

“cracks” between the Czechs and 

Germans “must be kept open”. It was a 

matter of “an eye for an eye and a tooth 

for a tooth” as another of the Czech 

German politicians declared, on the 

grounds that no agreement was possible 

with the Czechs. 

However, the Czech side was not be 

entirely outdone in those turbulent and 

hot-tempered years of 1919-1920. 

Apart from individuals in street 

skirmishes, the brunt was borne by 

monuments to Emperor Joseph II. On 

November 11, 1920, a statue to Joseph 

was demolished in Teplice, which 

caused an uproar; the historian Josef 

Pekař, who was a very perceptive judge 

of Czech-German relations, tersely 

called the action “a colossal stupidity”. 

The week after, on November 17, 

Czech actors took over the German 

Estates Theatre in Prague thereby 

bringing to a violent end the “struggle” 

that had broken out in March 1919 over 

whether the theatre would be Czech or 

German. The President immediately 



82 

afterwards made a demonstrative visit 

to the New German Theatre in Prague 

(today’s State Opera). 

During the first two years of its 

existence, the Czechoslovak Republic 

offered the Czechoslovak Germans a 

legal status that far exceeded what 

generally applied in respect of national 

minorities in other European countries, 

except, perhaps, for the small German 

minority in Estonia. Admittedly, the 

The German Agrarian politician Franz Spina was a minister in various Czechoslovak 

governments up to 1938. Ludwig Czech, Selliger’s deputy in the Social-Democratic 

leadership, served as a minister in the years 1929-1938. He died in Terezín 

concentration camp during the war. 

Germans did not acquire territorial 

autonomy, because it was a solution that 

might encourage fresh attempts at 

secession and had been compromised by 

the Germans’ lengthy striving to divide 

up the Czech lands and above all the 

Sudeten-German separatist attempt of 

Autumn 1918.That gave the 

Czechoslovak ruling circles ample 

reasons to reject and fear the territorial 

autonomy of the border areas. Mutual 

distrust was the prevailing mood of 

Czech-German relations during the 

birth and creation of Czechoslovakia. 

However, The Germans’ status in the 

Czechoslovak Republic was a kind a 

compromise between personal 

autonomy and a “positive policy” that 

would have meant involvement in the



government. That “goodwill” turned out 

to be insufficient, however. The attitude 

of the Czechoslovak Germans to the 

republic and their perception of 

individual events was coloured by 

nationalist prejudice and mental 

stereotypes which were the legacy of the 

previous epoch. The Czechoslovak 

Republic was a reality, however, and one 

that was not at all unbearable. Apart 

from a few shortcomings, it held out to 

its national minorities ample scope for 

their national, cultural and also political 

life, when all was said and done. 

FROM NEGATIVISM TO 

ACTIVISM –1920-1932 

The more moderate German politicians 

soon came to terms with the reality of 

the Czechoslovak Republic. The Social- 

Democrat leader Josef Seliger was the 

first to recognise the existence of the 

Czechoslovak state, although he 

demanded that it should be a socialist 

republic and be organised ethnically 

along Swiss lines. The next to adopt a 

similar approach were the German 

Agrarians. The declared that they would 

judge the Czechoslovak government by 

its deeds and not according to some 

83 

Chapter III 

preconceived stereotypes. The activist 

current in German politics gradually 

grew in strength until by the middle of 

the decade it was in the ascendant. 

Activism brought with it not only 

loyalty to the Czechoslovak Republic 

but also a commitment to democracy; 

negativism, on the other hand, as we 

shall soon see, tended towards 

authoritarianism and eventually fascism. 

A sign that the activist approach now 

Robert Mayr-Harting (left), leader of the German Christian-Social Party, was one of the 

chief initiators of ·vehla’s multi-ethnic coalition government. The deputy Erwin Zajicek 

(right) represented that party in the National Assembly and his entry into HodÏa’s 

government in 1936 signalled a revival of German activism. 

prevailed was the entry of German 

parties into the Czechoslovak 

government in 1926. A crucial role in 

that was undoubtedly played by the 

economic situation in Czechoslovakia, 

particularly compared to the situation in 

neighbouring Austria, and, above all, 

Germany. And even when the post-war 

crisis hit Czechoslovakia in the years 

1921-23, it was in a milder form than 

elsewhere. Indeed the following years 

saw an unprecedented economic boom. 

One instance is particularly indicative. 

Just as elsewhere, war-induced inflation 

was felt in the early years of the 

republic. In 1923, the wholesale price 

index in the Czechoslovak Republic was 

995 points compared to 1913, i.e. 

nominal prices had risen almost 1000

Chapter III 

times. However, if one compares the 

situation of the last year of the post-war 

crisis in Czechoslovakia with that of 

Austria, the index there was 21,754 

times higher, namely, 21,645,826 

points); in Germany it was an incredible 

16,081,021 times higher. 

The German parties joined the 

government under different 

circumstances and conditions than at 

the time when Masaryk had made his 

initial offer. This time it was no longer a 

matter of trying to reconcile the two 

nationalities by means of participation 

in the country’s political life, but chiefly 

the result of a political calculation, 

based on the opportunity for the 

Agrarians to form a government 

coalition without the socialists. Proof of 

that was the participation of the 

extreme nationalist Czech National 

Democrats in Švehla’s new right-wing 

government, formed in autumn 1926. 

The new government, in which the 

German Agrarians were represented by 

Franz Spina, and the Christian Social 

Party by Robert Mayr-Harting (joined 

in 1929 by the Social Democrat Ludwig 

Czech), adopted an administrative 

reform in 1927 whereby the country 

was organised on the basis of the země 

(province) and the local territorial unit 

was the district (okres). This was a 

concession to Slovak demands, as 

Slovakia became a province, or, in 

modern-day parlance “a top-tier 

administrative unit”. At the same time, 

however, the reform dashed the 

Germans’ hopes, in that it prevented the 

establishment of predominantly 

German župy, because in the Czech 

lands the top-tier local-government 

units were now the země of Bohemia 

and Moravia-Silesia. Along with that, 

the government also revised the 

language law that made it much more 

difficult to use languages other than 

Czech or Slovak for official 

communication, and this affected 

German most of all. This was a political 

sop to the right-wing Czech nationalist 

parties. Notwithstanding, the coalition 

including the German activist parties 

lasted up to 1938, and the German 



84 

democrats – the Agrarians, the 

Christian Social Party and, above all, 

the Social Democrats – were also 

instrumental in preserving 

Czechoslovak democracy up to the final 

months of the first Czechoslovak 

Republic. 

ACTIVISM IN THE ASCENDANT 

The second half of the 1920s was the 

period of greatest prosperity in inter- 

Jaroslav Preiss, the top Czechoslovak 

financier in the inter-war years, pictured 

with his wife. 

war Czechoslovakia. Unemployment at 

that time amounted to a mere 2-3% and 

incomes rose steadily, including in those 

branches of industry that were prevalent 

in the German-settled border areas. As 

will become evident, this economic fact 

was to be of enormous significance. 

Alone in central Europe the German 

minority in the Czechoslovak Republic 

registered positive demographic growth 

– of the order of 100,000 over twenty 

years. Incidentally, throughout the 

period of inter-war Czechoslovak 

Republic there was almost no 

emigration on the part of the German 

minority. Thus, the German population 

of a prosperous Czechoslovakia had no



great economic motivation to openly 

oppose the state. The activist policies of 

the German minority were also 

reflected in the attitude of the Czech 

political spectrum. Consideration was 

even given to the possibility of 

according autonomy to the Czech and 

Moravian Germans, in other words, a 

policy that had previously seemed 

unfeasible to Czech politicians because 

of the risks involved. After all a mere 

âeská Lípa was already a centre of trade in northern Bohemia in the Middle Ages.The 

tradition of seasonal markets with agricultural and industrial goods continued into the 

1920s, although they were of marginal significance by then. 

glance at the map and recollection of 

the German political declarations and 

attitudes in the early days of the state 

were reason enough to fear that the 

granting of autonomy would lead to 

secession of those territories from the 

republic. Meanwhile activist policies 

were winning increasing support among 

the Germans themselves. In the general 

election of 1929, the activist parties 

obtained no less than 75% of the 

German vote. This meant that a 

situation was being created in which the 

sensitive issue of 

Czecho(slovak)/German relations could 

conceivably be resolved through some 

85 

Chapter III 

kind of ethnic reconciliation, which 

President Masaryk referred to in his 

momentous speech on the occasion of 

the 10 th anniversary of the Republic. 

Time was too short for such a step, 

however, as events were to prove. In just 

a few short years the overall climate was 

to be radically transformed. The change 

was heralded by the Wall Street crash in 

October 1929. Nevertheless at least 

some forms of so-called “personal 

autonomy” were achieved, particularly 

as regarded education. 

ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF 

CZECHOSLOVAK REALITIES 

The nascent Czechoslovak Republic 

tackled its economic problems in the 

same resolute fashion as it had 

confronted the political issues. It was 

motivated in part by the fear of social 

unrest that manifested itself towards the 

end of the war and in the first post-war 

months and continued to dog the 

republic until the end of 1920. The first 

major task was to rid the economy of its 

dependence on the Austro-German and

Chapter III 

Hungarian financial elites, which had 

been increased due to the wartime 

economic measures. On February 25, a 

separate Czechoslovak currency was 

created. That monetary measure and the 

strongly deflationary policies of the 

Minister of Finance, Alois Rašín, 

provided Czechoslovakia with a stable 

currency during the first half of the 

1920s, but it needed to be supported by 

a prospering economy. That was a 

The chalets in the Giant Mountains were mostly owned by Germans, 

but they were also popular with Czech tourists. 

harder task. It was assisted by the 

establishment of an independent 

Czechoslovak customs area. 

Because of its structure and territorial 

distribution, the economy of the new 

republic was not entirely balanced and 

as a whole it was among the moderately 

developed economies. In 

macroeconomic terms the 

Czechoslovak Republic could be 

regarded as a industrial and agricultural 

country having a strong regional 

economy (looked at from neighbouring 

Germany). After all, it inherited 

roughly 70% of the entire industry of 

the former monarchy! Closer 

inspection, however, reveals a somewhat 

less rosy picture. Industrially speaking, 

the most developed parties of the 

country were in the Czech lands; 

Slovakia and the territory of Carpathian 

Ruthenia (annexed in 1920) were 

agricultural areas. However, Czech and 



86 

Moravian industry was essentially based 

on small and medium-sized companies 

whose equipment and manufacturing 

technology were backward compared to 

the advanced and leading-edge 

technologies of those days. There were 

only a few large companies with 

appropriate technologies; these 

undoubtedly included the Baťa shoe 

factories and the Poldi iron and steel 

works at Kladno, and among the 

Germans, the Mannesmann works at 

Chomutov and the Varnsdorf hosiery 

factory. The state’s economic policies, a 

combination of direct state intervention 

and liberalism that left decision-making 

up to the individual entrepreneurs, were 

complicated at the outset by two 

different sets of regulations, one for the 

parts of the country that belonged to 

Cisleithania before 1918 and those that 

were part of Hungary (Transleithania). 

The combined model of economic 

management also meant that economic 

policies in the republic were always 

subject to a motley combination of 

political and economic forces that was 

heavily influenced by the economic 

situation abroad. Czechoslovakia had an 

open economy whose stability depended 

on exports. Foreign trade accounted for 

about a third of the nation’s income. 

Nonetheless it was not long before a 

powerful and influential financial group

centred on the Živnostenská banka, the 

wealthiest Czech financial institution, 

held an exclusive position in the 

national economy. 

This was not fortuitous. As was 

noted earlier, local Czech politicians 

had deliberately worked on the 

creation of an independent state 

during the war years. This also 

involved economic policies. In 

September 1918, Jaroslav Preiss, the 



The functionalist BaÈa building in Liberec, built by the local firm Fanta and Co. to plans by 

BaÈas’ own design office in Zlín, naturally bore both Czech and German signs. 

Director of the Živnostenská banka, 

was asked to draft the new economic 

policy. Preiss and others drafted a “law 

on the economy”, which envisaged the 

introduction of a new currency, the 

regulation of exports and imports and 

the subordination of the foreign 

exchange economy to the 

Czechoslovak state. In simple terms, 

the part of the economy located on 

Czechoslovak territory was to come 

under Czechoslovak state sovereignty 

as soon as possible. There were also 

plans for the state purchase of large 

landed estates, the nationalisation of 

the railways and armaments 

companies and even state ownership 

of the spas. 

87 

Chapter III 

As those recommendations started 

gradually to be implemented in one way 

or another, the Živnostenská banka 

group acquired a decisive influence on 

the country’s economic affairs. 

However, the Czechoslovak economy 

gradually went into decline. A major 

blow was the electoral defeat of 

Kramář’s National Democrats, who 

were politically linked with the 

Živnostenská banka group. However 

they continued to exercise an influence 

up to the first half of the 1930s. From 

the second half of the 1920s, 

businessmen connected with the 

Agrarian Party started to wield 

increasing influence. 

In the same way that the 

Czechoslovak German politicians had 

not participated in the political 

establishment of the state, so also 

German businessmen had little 

influence on the country’s economic 

policies. As we have shown, they were 

subordinated from the outset to the 

economic interests of the state, and 

Czech nationalism exercised an 

obvious influence on them. The needs 

of the state gave rise above all to so

Chapter III 

called “domestication”, whereby all 

firms operating on Czechoslovak 

territory were obliged to move their 

head offices there and the officials of 

the ministry saw to it that the boards 

of management consisted of Czechs. 

The “domesticated” companies also 

had to be vetted by domestic and 

preferably Czech national banking 

institutions. “Domestication” also had 

a major financial aspect – the 

A glassworks at Kamenick˘ ·enov in 1932. During the years of the slump, factories 

survived only by drastic cost-cutting measures, including wage cuts. 

companies involved had to pay tax to 

the Czech state. The subsequent 

repatriation of shares, exploiting the 

differences in rates between the 

Czechoslovak, Austrian and German 

currencies, was brought to an end by 

enormous shifts of property rights in 

industry and banking. 

The implementation of the land 

reform also displayed a marked 

national bias. Not only were the great 

landed estates of the nobility 

dramatically undermined, but the 

Czech and Slovak populations were 

advantaged at the expense of the 

Germans and Hungarians. A decisive 

role in the redistribution of land was 

played by the State Land Office, 

which exercised a total monopoly. 

There is plenty of evidence to prove 

that the land reform brought about a 



88 

major shift in favour of the Czechs 

and Slovaks. Indeed that was its 

ideological justification; it was to 

compensate for “White Mountain”. 

However, although the land reform 

reduced considerably the landholdings 

of the German population it did have 

the effect of restricting agricultural 

output or – importantly – nor did it 

lead to the de-nationalisation of the 

German-speaking areas. It is also 

worth noting in respect criticism of 

the land reform, someone pointed out 

on the German side in the second half 

of the 1930s that if the Czechoslovak 

Germans had adopted a more positive 

approach to the reform, it could have 

turned out better for them, 

economically speaking. Practical 

considerations and their own 

particular needs and the needs of the 

Czechoslovak state, led the Czechs 

and Germans to co-operate, for a 

certain period at least, and it was only 

the outcome of pragmatism, but also 

of clashes and rivalry. The marked 

economic nationalism of the first years 

gave way to the principle of cooperation 

with domestic German 

business. Such changes were first felt 

in the banking sector. By the 

beginning of 1919 a joint condition



cartel was formed by the Czech and 

German banks and in 1920 the major 

banks with Czech, German or mixed 

Czech-German management formed 

the Union of Czechoslovak Banks. 

That cartel functioned up to the end 

of the First Republic. 

Industry followed suit, albeit much 

more slowly. A recommendation to that 

effect was made by President Masaryk 

among others. By May 1919, the 

members of the Central Union of 

Czechoslovak Industrialists (ÚSČP) 

included many distinguished German 

industrialists, including Adolf 

Sonnenschein of the Vítkovice 

steelworks, Theodor Liebig of Liberec 

and Emanuel Spiro of Český Krumlov. 

ÚSČP affiliates included local German 

groupings such as the North- 

Moravian-Silesian Industrial 

Association in Moravská Ostrava, the 

Industrialists’ Club in Klatovy and the 

former section of the Viennese Union 

of Industrialists in Znojmo. The ÚSČP 

also started to publish a Germanlanguage 

newsletter, the Observer, and 

89 

Chapter III 

the ÚSČP-sponsored book series 

Průmyslová knihovna (The Industrial 

Library )was joined by a Germanlanguage 

alternative called the 

Industrie-Bibliotek. Nonetheless, 

particularly in North Bohemia, Brno 

and Northern Moravia, German 

industry by and large stood aloof and 

refused to be drawn into a joint body. 

The firms in those areas founded their 

own Deutscher Hauptverband der 

The industrial downturn and alarming unemployment levels were the main reasons for 

the rapid rise of Henlein’s party which held Prague and the Czechs 

responsible for the effects of the global crisis. 

Industrie with headquarters at Teplice- 

Šanov. In 1922, negotiations were 

initiated with a view to co-ordination of 

their activities and a merger of both 

organisations. These resulted in the 

establishment of a provisional joint 

body, namely the Central Committee of 

Industry in the Czechoslovak Republic, 

which comprised representatives of 

each of the main specialist groups and 

local organisations. When the activist 

parties joined the government in 1926, 

talks between the industrialists were 

resumed and in September 1928, the 

Hauptverband joined the ÚSČP 

in a united organisation.

Chapter III 

At the beginning of the 1920s, 

national polarity within the business 

community and the close co-operation 

of Czech business with the state gave 

way to a new polarisation – above all the 

dramatically sharpening social conflict 

that developed into a polarity between 

employers and employees and a polarity 

between the state and the employers. 

The creation of the latter polarity were 

less dynamic than in the previous case. 

Besides in social conflicts the 

considerable co-operation between the 

employers and the state was a major 

factor . The classic triangle of interests 

and power emerged – the tripartite 

situation of employees and trade unions, 

the employers and their associations, 

and the state. 

The polarities in question were 

accompanied by a whole series of 

additional polarities, disputes and 

conflicts within political and economic 

groupings, professional associations, 

different trade union groupings, etc. 

Many of them, which were frequently of 

a political character, are notorious, such 

as the campaign waged by the export 



90 

industries in favour of customs 

protection of the domestic market (the 

agricultural duty campaign) against the 

agriculture and the food industry 

supported by the Agrarian Party, or its 

campaign against the stringent 

deflationary policy of the Minister of 

Finance, Alois Rašín. 

The German historian Christoph 

Boyer aptly writes, “In social conflicts 

the front did not run between 

Cheb was hit by a wave of Hitlerite agitation as early as 1923. 

The Nazi leader Hans Krebs addresses the crowd. 

nationalities but classes, whether in 

respect of economic order or taxation, 

financial, trade or currency policies, the 

differences existed more between the 

different branches than between the 

German economy on the one hand and 

the Czech economy on the other. This 

is because national divisions would have 

weakened the fighting capacity of the 

industrial lobby.” 

The quarrel between the business 

world and the state did not hot up on 

principle because the state strove fairly 

successfully to overcome the wartime 

and immediate post-war stranglehold of 

dirigisme and came out in favour of 

economic liberalism. Direct state



regulation of production and trade was 

abandoned. Even though at the period 

of economic boom the planned 

economy was not abandoned entirely, 

nonetheless government interference in 

private enterprise was greatly 

attenuated. The market economy 

basically started to operate from the 

summer of 1921, with the system of 

credits acting as a regulatory 

mechanism. The activity of 

governments took a new direction. It 

now concentrated on exerting an 

indirect influence on the economic 

milieu and stimulating it, such as by 

easing the tax burden to a certain extent 

in the first four years prior to the tax 

reform of 1927, by creating a good 

stable currency, through electrification, 

by providing better and cheaper 

transport and communication, through 

an effective foreign trade policy, by 

supporting investment activity, research, 

rationalisation, standardisation, etc. 

The outbreak of the economic crisis 

greatly complicated the situation, 

however. As the crisis deepened 

proportionally, the state was forced to 

intervene more and more, although it 

did not go as far as direct control. In 

accordance with the global trend, the 

state simply enforced syndication or a 

numerus clausus in certain branches, or 

it adjusted interest rates. The worsening 

situation led all those states affected to 

resort to interventions in the economy. 

In the USA, Roosevelt’s New Deal, 

involving major state intervention, 

proved successful. Germany, which was 

politically unstable and also had to 

contend with the economic difficulties 

caused by its international situation, was 

among the first to be affected by the 

crisis due its direct links with American 

banks. Neighbouring Czechoslovakia, 

Unemployment levels 

Germany 

60,2 

739 000 / 5,01% 

60,7 

677 000 / 4,6% 

91 

Chapter III 

which was politically stable and 

economically successful so far, was not 

affected completely until 1930. That 

difference in timing was also a 

paramount political factor. Suffice it to 

compare the indices of industrial 

production and unemployment figures 

as well as the percentage of unemployed 

people in the population for both 

countries during the crisis years (see 

following table). 

In Czechoslovakia, the crisis 

proceeded more slowly than in 

Germany. When it was peaking in 

Czechoslovakia, an economic upswing 

was already evident in neighbouring 

Germany where, a year later, industrial 

production was actually surpassing its 

pre-crisis levels. Czechoslovakia’s 

Germans therefore regarded Germany 

as a model of how to overcome 

economic problems speedily and 

effectively. It displayed one of the 

advantages of dictatorships that could, 

for instance, risk radical interventions in 

the economy. It seemed to be an 

example of how to deal with the kind of 

pressing everyday problems that were 

affecting the German population in the 

border areas more seriously than their 

Czech fellow-citizens inland. It must 

not be forgotten, however, that the 

“German miracle” of those days was due 

to the immense armaments programme 

which included not only direct 

investments but also indirect 

investments in the public sector for 

infrastructure projects such as autobahn 

construction, etc. But someone had to 

foot the bill for both. 

The reason why the crisis affected the 

German population in the border areas 

more acutely was due to the differences 

between the Czech and German areas 

in terms of the structure of industry and 

Year 1933 1934 1935 1936 

Czechoslovakia 

66,8 

4804 000 / 7,26% 

78 

2718 000 / 4,11% 

70,1 

686 000 / 4,66% 

94 

2151 000 / 3,25% 

80,2 

632 000 / 4,23% 

106,3 

1593 000 / 2,41%

Chapter III 

of society. In the border areas the 

predominant industries were textiles, 

glass, porcelain and toy manufacture, in 

other words industries that immediately 

suffered drops in sales at times of 

economic crisis, and also ones that were 

fatally dependent on exports at a time 

when the customs barriers erected 

because of the crisis affected them 

sooner and more markedly. An 

inevitable result of that phenomenon 

was higher unemployment in the border 

areas. In districts that were entirely 

German or had a maximum of 20% 

Czech inhabitants, unemployment 

reached 19.2% at the end of 1931, 

whilst in the districts inhabited by up to 

20% Germans the unemployment rate 

was a “mere” 9.16%. It would be a 

mistake to underestimate the social and 

psychological implications of that grim 

situation. It undoubtedly affected 

political sympathies, contributing 

significantly towards a radicalisation of 

political opinions and attitudes, which 

also started to reflect the old national 

stereotypes and prejudices. Negativism 

received a fresh impetus. Moreover, 

economy difficulties radicalised political 

opinions and attitudes in the other 

parts of the country too. In the light of 

discussion about whether it would have 

been possible to evade that development 

by targeted policy of state intervention, 

it should be recalled that there were no 

more than five years of normal 

economic development during the First 

Republic, and none of the governments 

managed to establish any long-term 

political goals or frame a concept of 

nation-wide economic integration. It 

did not correspond either to the 

theoretical preparedness and experience 

of the top economists or the liberal 

practice that copied the atmosphere of 

the former monarchy. The 

Czechoslovak economy was also 

affected by political radicalisation, and 

that particularly applied to German 

business and finance. At the beginning 

of 1938, Konrad Henlein and the 

Sudeten-German Party’s financial 

expert Karl Janowski declared 

unequivocally that “at the behest of our 



92 

opponents (!) the economy has become 

the national political battlefield par 

excellence. It is therefore imperative for 

us to reconcile our economic 

development with the dominant 

political and spiritual will of our 

national group.” The economy therefore 

represented one of the crucial areas in 

the conflict between the nations and the 

Sudeten Germans must on no account 

retreat from their “political direction 

and the new order.” 

A well-known instance is that of the 

Kreditanstalt der Deutschen, already 

referred to. That institution, which had 

nearly half a million members, was set 

up “in opposition to the Czech and 

Jewish banks”, as stated by the German 

envoy Walter Koch in a communication 

to the German foreign ministry in 

1927. It was also linked to the 

nationalist wing of Bohemian German 

politics after 1918 although Bohemian 

German activists also collaborated 

openly with it. The organisation was 

intended to offer its services solely to 

Germans and it was run by people with 

direct links to nationalist circles. Its 

Director, Anton Kiesewetter was a 

foundation member of the German 

National Party (DNP) and also stood in 

the general election as a candidate for 

the party. His deputy, Paul Hach, as a 

citizen of Germany, was an active 

member of the actual National Socialist 

(Nazi) Party (NSDAP). They were both 

arrested in 1933 on well-founded 

suspicion of collaboration with German 

intelligence. The investigation dragged 

on for two years, but it in the end their 

cases did not come to court. The 

institution’s collaboration with the 

nationalist wing of German politics, 

particularly the Sudetendeutsche Partei, 

was crucial; it was the channel through 

which Hitler’s Germany funded that 

party’s activity. 

FROM NEGATIVISM TO NAZISM 

(1933-1939) 

If we compare the results of the 

elections to the Czechoslovak 

parliament in 1929 and 1935 (see table 

in the appendix), we can see a total



reversal of political preferences. In the 

elections of 1935, the authoritarian 

Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP), which 

already had a strong Nazi wing, was not 

only by far and away the strongest 

German political party, it was the 

strongest party in the Czechoslovak 

Republic in terms of votes polled. There 

were clearly reasons for that radical 

shift. There were above all three 

profoundly-related causes that 

undoubtedly played a fundamental role. 

The first cause was the outbreak of the 

Great Depression and the fact that it 

was felt later in Czechoslovakia than in 

Germany and had different social 

effects and consequences; the second 

was the rise of Hitler’s Third Reich, first 

in a political sense and soon afterwards 

in military terms too; the third cause 

was the creation of a militant political 

party, namely the SdP, which was to 

achieve virtual monopoly status among 

the Sudeten Germans. A major role was 

also played by various and very 

numerous clubs and associations as 

hotbeds of authoritarianism. And last 

but not least was the direct funding 

from Germany after 1935. 

However, the relationship of neonegativist 

Sudeten-German politics to 

National Socialism underwent a 

definite evolution. There were certainly 

promising conditions in the area for 

accepting the sort of ideas that Hitler’s 

party purveyed. Their roots stretch back 

to very beginning of the 20 th century 

when a party was created with a 

programme and a name very similar to 

the future Nazi party – the Deutsche 

nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei 

(DNSAP). It too defended pan- 

German ideals. All Germans were to be 

united in a single state, along with the 

territory they inhabited. It also 

maintained that Germans were a nation 

with a superior culture. Its ideas were 

also distinctly anti-Semitic on 

occasions. Similar ideas were shared by 

the Deutsche Nationalpartei.Not 

surprisingly, both parties were 

eventually banned in the Czechoslovak 

Republic in 1933. They were succeeded 

for a period by the Sudetendeutsche 

93 

Chapter III 

Heimatfront (SHM – the Front of the 

Sudeten-German Homeland). 

However, these ideas were not linked 

solely with political party manifestos. 

Their breeding ground was essentially 

the various clubs and associations and it 

was only around the time of elections 

that they were monopolised by the 

Sudetendeutsche Partei (Sudeten- 

German Party), the name the 

Heimatfront was forced to adopt to 

comply with election regulations. 

Nazi ideology arrived with a similar 

set of ideas. As we shall see, the Greater 

German Reich was to unite all Germans 

and their “steel core” was to consist of the 

actual territory of the Reich, together 

with Austria, western Poland and the 

Czech lands in the east, Alsace-Lorraine 

in the west and Schleswig-Holstein in 

the north. That territory was to be 

entirely Germanised, i.e. the territory as 

well as the population was to be 

Germanised. This was because Adolf 

Hitler considered that true national 

identity derived not from language but 

from blood and land. The new German 

state was to be not simply a national 

community built on the principle of 

“land and blood”, but also a newly 

organised national entity headed by a 

supreme Führer or leader. The strictly 

hierarchical nature of that construct – the 

“leader principle” – was intended to 

achieve unity of opinion and the 

maximum effectiveness of the social 

entity, designated in German the 

Volksgemeinschaft (National Community) 

However, a section of the Sudeten- 

German nationalists did not accept Nazi 

ideology at the outset. Their ideological 

starting point was the theory of the “true 

state” of the Viennese sociologist 

Othmar Spann, which also developed 

the concept of the authoritarian state. 

This advocated the supplanting of 

democratic principles by a corporatist 

arrangement based on the Stand or 

Estate, which were to harmonise the 

social interests of individual groups and 

strata of the population. The state was to 

be run by a so-called “Estate of the wise”, 

consisting of intellectuals, entrepreneurs 

and politicians. At the pinnacle of state

Chapter III 

power would be the Sprecher or 

Spokesman, essentially “the Leader”. 

Many of the ideas of Spannism were 

close to Nazi doctrines. They were not 

identical, however, which is why they 

were unacceptable to the Nazis. The 

central Nazi security body the RSHA 

actually drew up a very acerbic study on 

the topic of the potential threats to the 

Nazi movements inherent in the 

“Spann circle”. 

Spannism was professed in the 

Czechoslovak Republic by the leaders 

of one of the most influential 

organisations of Bohemian Germans, 

the Kameradschaftsbund; its 

representatives made up the majority of 

the leadership of the Sudetendeutsche 

Heimatfront when it was set up in 

1933. The political leaders tried to 

assert basic Spannist principles in their 

proposals for solving the Czech- 

German problem, known as the “nation 

protection bill” (Volksschutzgesetze) of 

April 1936. Its adoption would have 

meant an amendment of the 

Czechoslovak constitution, denial of 

the principle of democracy in the 

German parts of the republic and the 

introduction of totalitarian elements, 



94 

including the leader principle and racial 

ideology. The aim of the bill was to 

achieve a degree of autonomy, which 

would eventually lead to forced 

annexation by the German Reich, 

because the political principles 

obtaining would be different from 

those in other parts of the state. In 

other words, it was a an attack on the 

constitutional organisation of the 

republic, as well as on the country’s 

The German Social-Democrat Wenzel Jaksch (left) first campaigned against Hitler and 

Henlein and later, in British exile, against the transfer plans. 

SdP leader Konrad Henlein (right) addressing a rally. 

democrats and its territorial integrity. 

Therefore those demands were totally 

unacceptable, and it is not surprising 

that Czechs perceived them as being 

virtually identical with Nazi attitudes. 

However, they were equally 

unacceptable to the Nazi leadership, 

because they constituted a rival political 

programme which was all the more 

dangerous in that it paralleled the 

Nazis’ own. It is certainly no 

coincidence that in 1948, Spannists and 

Nazis, as representatives of so-called 

völkisch doctrines, were both 

represented in the most radical 

association of Sudeten Germans in 

Germany, the Witikobund. 

The Chairman of the 

Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront,Konrad



Henlein, was also originally a 

supporter and propagator of Spannist 

ideas. On the other hand, the rank and 

file of that party, renamed before the 

1935 elections the Sudetendeutsche 

Partei, was already strongly infiltrated 

by Nazism. For tactical reasons, 

however, there was no ideological 

show-down between Spannists and 

Nazis prior to the elections. The 

conflict flared up only in the 

aftermath. The election result was an 

enormous success for the SdP, but a 

disappointment for Henlein when it 

was not invited to join the government 

coalition. 

The natural predominance of 

Nazism also meant that the SdP soon 

abandoned Spannism and its 

representatives were ousted from the 

leadership or, headed by Henlein, 

defected to Nazism and eventually 

apologised in writing to Hitler for their 

former Spannist ideas. As Henlein 

informed the Führer in a letter from 

the end of 1937, they were only a cover 

that he was obliged to adopt because of 

democratic conditions in 

Czechoslovakia. Henlein went on to 

assert that in reality the Sudeten 

Germans had adopted National 

95 

Chapter III 

Socialism. Already in that letter he 

voiced the idea of the break-up of 

Czechoslovakia and the annexation of 

Sudetenland, indeed the whole of 

Bohemia and Moravia, by the Reich. 

From the sharpening of the conflict 

in the mid-1930s, the attitude of the 

Czech political scene to the Sudeten- 

German problem was based on two 

quite understandable principles: firstly, 

that any solution must accept the main 

Konrad Henlein on the platform beneath the symbol of the Sudeten-German Party is 

rapturously applauded by crowds at Kraslice in 1936. 

principles of the Czechoslovak 

democratic political system, and 

secondly, the territorial integrity of the 

state must not be violated. The 

problem was that the proposals of the 

Sudeten-German leadership – both 

Spannist and Nazi – openly 

jeopardised those two principles. 

However, the Czechoslovak political 

leadership was not insufficiently 

prepared for solving the problem that 

increasingly assumed ever more 

threatening proportions. No 

unanimous view regarding a possible 

solution prevailed among the various 

political currents. The main hindrance 

were the right-wing National 

Democrats whose outlook remained 

doggedly nationalist. Meanwhile other 

sections of the Right, such as the

Chapter III 

Agrarians’ leader Rudolf Beran or the 

banker Jaroslav Preiss strove in vain to 

reach agreement with the SdP and 

Germany. A memorandum from the 

Czechoslovak Communist Party to the 

government in November 1936, calling 

for an urgent solution to the problems 

of the German people, was rejected, as 

there was a prevailing distrust of that 

party, which prior to the 7 th Congress 

of the Comintern in 1934 had 

championed the principle of national 

self-determination even when it would 

mean secession. And last but not least, 

a major obstacle was the sluggishness 

and inflexibility of the Czechoslovak 

party and coalition system – albeit 

typical of European democratic 

systems of the day – which made it 

difficult to react effectively to the 

quickly evolving situation. 

Contrary to the currently widespread 

– and widely propagated – view, it was 

the President of the Republic, Edvard 

Beneš and politicians close to him who 

adopted a realistic approach and put 

forward acceptable solutions. Beneš 

believed the administrative reform of 



96 

1927 had been a mistake. In its place he 

proposed the decentralisation of the 

country’s administration and the 

introduction of genuine regional selfgovernment. 

A proposal even emerged 

from Beneš’s circle for the recognition 

of the Germans as a second Staatnation. 

The same idea was expressed in the 

1934 manifesto “What do the Socialists 

want?”, which inspired the “We Will 

Remain Loyal” petition group prior to 

A march by the “Republikanische Wehr” with Czechoslovak flags after swearing allegiance 

to the Czechoslovak Republic in Ústí nad Labem in 1937. 

Munich. What Beneš did resist at all 

costs was the idea of granting territorial 

autonomy for the German and 

Hungarian territories. In the light of his 

experience in the early days of the 

republic, he saw two kinds of danger in 

such a move. From the territorial point 

of view, the danger was that those 

entities could not be effectively 

administered because of their 

geographical location, nor could they be 

precisely defined. In national terms, the 

risk was that “The Czechs and Slovaks 

could never have the certainty that such 

a unit would not break away at the first 

possible opportunity and that that 

breakaway would be always being



planned. Instead of establishing and 

reinforcing mutual trust between the 

nations of the Republic it would 

actually be the main obstacle to it,” as 

Beneš subsequently wrote in his “Days 

of Munich”. While in the second half of 

the 1920s a consistent policy of selfgovernment 

was a possible solution, at 

the end of the 1930s, with the SdP in 

the ascendant, the survival of the state 

was at stake. 

This was also fully realised by those 

Sudeten-German activists in the ranks 

of the Social Democrats who had 

remained out and out opponents of 

Hitlerism and Henleinism. They 

organised demonstrations tens of 

thousands strong in defence of the 

Czechoslovak Republic and established 

the paramilitary organisation 

“Republikanische Wehr”. In January 

1937, they submitted a memorandum 

to the government in which they 

requested chiefly economic assistance 

to the crisis-afflicted border areas. First 

of all they asked that local blue- and 

white-collar workers should be given 

97 

Chapter III 

priority when filling vacancies and for 

newly created jobs. Secondly, they 

asked that national proportionality be 

guaranteed within the civil service and 

that language tests should be simplified 

for German-speaking candidates. 

Another demand was for a revision of 

the use of national languages in 

Czechoslovak public life, schools and 

education in general. The 

memorandum made no mention of 

German Nazis actively took part in political agitation in the Czechoslovak Republic 

before their rise to power. Josef Goebbels visited Prague in 1930 to address the 

National-Socialist Students’Association at the German House. 

autonomy, however, not even cultural 

autonomy. It represented a major 

concession on that part of the German 

political scene. However, the 

government did not react to it by 

legislative action, but merely in the 

form of a – belated – government 

statement put out by the state press 

agency ČTK. Even though some of the 

requests were actually accepted, this 

was a tactical error. 

“SUDETENLAND” AND 

“SUDETEN” 

This is an appropriate point to briefly 

consider the words “Sudetenland” and

Chapter III 

“Sudeten”, which cannot be avoided 

when explaining Czech-German 

relations. The description “Sudeten 

Germans” was invented as an overall 

term for the German population in 

Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. It is 

analogous with such terms as 

Carpathian or Alpine Germans. It 

started to be used at the beginning of 

the 20 th century and it is commonly 

supposed to have been coined by the 

German politician Franz Jesser. As he 

himself said, he proposed it as an 

expression of the national 

distinctiveness of the German 

population of the Czech lands. As in 

the case of the other similar 

appellations, it is one based on 

geographical criteria. 

The term Sudeten mountains was 

used by the Alexandrian 

mathematician, physicist and 

geographer Ptolemy in the second 

century AD in his description of central 

Europe, probably to designate the Ore 

Mountains. The identification of 

Ptolemy’s “mountains of wild boar” with 

that specific mountain range is not 

absolutely certain, however, so the 

designation became used for other areas 

too. In his “History of the Czech 

Nation”, František Palacký states that 

“Sudetenland” protects the Bohemian 

provinces “from Silesia”, and that it is 

“an extension of the Giant Mountains”. 

Eventually Sudetenland was identified 

with the entire northern border area of 

the Czechoslovak Republic inhabited by 

Germans. According to Hemmerle’s 

Lexicon, Sudetenland is a territory 

some 380 km. long and 60 km. wide, 

stretching from the area of Dečín to the 

Moravian Gap. 

The expressions “Sudetenland” or 

“Sudeten” promoted by Jesser took quite 

a long time to catch on. Their meaning 

was not enhanced until after 1918, 

when, in the words of Josef Pfitzner “a 

new historical era opened for the 

Sudeten Germans” by the incarceration 

of the Bohemian and Moravian 

Germans in the newly-created 

Czechoslovak Republic “which rocked 

their existence”. Those designations 



98 

were increasingly drawn into the 

political vocabulary and became 

ideological terms. It was Pfitzner, albeit 

originally a gifted professor of history at 

Prague’s German university, whose 

works of the 1930s, particularly his book 

“Sudetendeutsche Einheitsbewegung” of 

1937 who helped effect that ideological 

shift. It is because those terms were so 

closely linked with Nazi ideology that 

the words still have such strongly 

negative overtones in the consciousness 

of the Czech general public. 

EUROPE AND 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA 

IN THE 1930s 

The dramatic events at the end of the 

1930s cannot be understood without 

taking into account the international 

changes the occurred during the first 

half of that fatal decade. 

The tension between the countries 

having an interest in preserving the 

Europe that emerged from World War I 

and the peace treaties on the one hand, 

and their various opponents, on the 

other, entered a new phase with the 

economic and social crisis of the early 

1930s. That gigantic crisis actually 

broke Europe and the world in two. The 

post-war world once more resembled 

the pre-war one. It spelled profound 

social devastation and therefore 

encouraged those movements that were 

geared to the destruction of the values 

of a democratic civil society, particularly 

fascism in various guises. The defeat of 

democracy by Nazism in Germany had 

a fundamental influence on 

international relations. 

The global effect of the fateful 

replacement of the Weimar Republic by 

a Nazi dictatorship was only gradually 

felt, however. Hitler’s regime first had to 

devote itself to shoring up its position at 

home and creating external conditions 

for the building of a powerful army. 

After it left the League of Nations and 

the disarmament conference in October 

1933, Germany was actually at serious 

risk of international isolation. It was 

therefore not in its interest to exacerbate 

its foreign relations, even though its



relations with Czechoslovakia soon 

deteriorated markedly. 

Where is one to seek the causes of 

the growing tension between Germany 

and Czechoslovakia which was to be 

turned into a German hostility that was 

to force Czechoslovakia, from the mid- 

1930s to regard Germany as its 

enemy No. 1? 

They lay in the Czechoslovak state’s 

key location in the middle of Europe 

and in the Nazis’ racial concept of the 

Czech provinces at “pars Germaniae” – 

as part of a future Greater German 

Reich. It would seem that by the middle 

of 1932 Hitler was already considering 

the complete Germanisation of the 

Czech provinces and the resettlement of 

their Slav population. The Nazi regime’s 

hostile attitude to Czechoslovakia also 

had contemporary causes. 

Germany regarded Czechoslovakia as 

a firm ally of France, always ready to 

intervene at the side of the French army. 

The German high command was 

therefore very wary of Czechoslovakia’s 

hostility in the event of a Franco- 

German conflict. Therefore by 1935 it 

was already considering a pre-emptive 

strike against Czechoslovakia and to 

that end prepared a draft invasion study 

known as the Schulung. Within two 

years it had transformed it into an 

invasion plan in which Czechoslovakia 

99 

Chapter III 

became the “Green case” (Fall Grün). 

Another area of friction between Berlin 

and Prague was the fact that in October 

1933 the Nazi Deutsche 

nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei 

(DNSAP) was banned in 

Czechoslovakia. It was a fraternal 

organisation of Hitler’s party and in its 

origins in 1904 was actually the 

forerunner of the entire German 

National Socialist movement. Hitler’s 

Hitler’s government of “national concentration” from the beginning of 1933 (left). 

Intellectuals left Germany en masse.The writer Thomas Mann found asylum in 

Czechoslovakia and adopted its citizenship. 

hatred for Czechoslovakia was also 

fuelled by the fact that as a democratic 

state it offered asylum to many German 

anti-fascist émigrés and assured them 

basic conditions for their political and 

cultural activity. Germany’s leading 

writers Heinrich and Thomas Mann 

were accorded Czechoslovak 

citizenship. 

Germany was also irritated by 

Czechoslovakia’s endeavours to achieve 

collective security. Czechoslovakia 

displayed lively interest in ensuring the 

viability of the League of Nations and in 

1934 took part in talks about an eastern 

pact that was to achieve regional 

collective security for eastern and 

central Europe. The pact was the 

brainchild of France and the Soviet 

Union, but it never assumed the form of 

a treaty because of the opposition of 

Germany and Poland. Only a fragment 

of it remained in May 1935 in the form

Chapter III 

of the two treaties between France and 

the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia 

and the Soviet Union. Meanwhile the 

Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty was bound 

by French commitments to both states. 

It also helped put the finishing touches 

to Czechoslovakia’s relations with the 

Soviet Union. In the 1920s, 

Czechoslovakia had been expecting the 

fall of the Bolshevik regime or at least 

its attenuation in the sense of greater 

democracy. It did not recognise it 

diplomatically until 1934. Even then it 

looked forward to the democratisation 

of the Soviet state, which it associated 

with Russia’s closer ties with France, its 

entry into the League of Nations and its 

support for collective security. It 

considered its own treaty with the 

Soviet Union to be means of putting 

political pressure on Germany. It made 

its practical implementation dependent 

on the policy of France. That was 

Czechoslovakia’s main ally. However, its 

confidence in that alliance received a 

body blow with Germany’s re- 



100 

occupation of the demilitarised 

Rhineland on March 7, 1936. 

The Versailles and Locarno treaties 

had defined a 50-km.-long zone along 

the left bank of the Rhine within 

which Germany was not allowed to 

build any military installations or 

maintain troops. Among the motives 

behind it was France’s post-war plan 

to make it easier to intervene on behalf 

of its eastern allies in the event of their 

After signing a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union, 

Edvard Bene‰ paid a friendly visit to Moscow in 1935. 

being invaded by Germany. The reoccupation 

of the Rhineland was a 

very risky venture on the part of 

Hitler. Therefore, in the event of a 

military intervention by France or any 

other signatories to the Locarno pact, 

the German troops were to quickly 

leave the area. France did not decide to 

counter-attack, however, and simply 

tabled a complaint at the League of 

Nations. The French High Command 

was very much behind that 

indecisiveness. It maintained that an 

invasion of the Rhineland by French 

troops would mean war and it would



demand a general mobilisation. It was 

a misassessment of the situation, 

however. Britain also had a major 

influence on France’s defeatist position 

and the merely Platonic condemnation 

of Germany’s destruction of 

international treaties because of its 

efforts to prevent at all costs a military 

conflict over the demilitarised zone. 

Its aim was to replace the Locarno 

Treaty with some new international 

pact with Germany. 

Hitler’s triumph of March 7, 1936 

had far-reaching consequences for 

Czechoslovakia’s international 

position. Above all it undermined the 

main prop for its security in an 

unstable Europe – the effective help of 

France. Czechoslovakia based some 

hopes for a renaissance of French 

foreign policy on the arrival to power 

of Leon Blum’s Front populaire 

government in June 1936. On that 

occasion Blum sent a message to 

Beneš reassuring him that “such a 

decline as happened in the 

government of his predecessor at the 

time of the occupation of the left bank 

of the Rhine will not occur again and 

that his government will be strong and 

firm vis-à-vis Germany” and that 

Czechoslovakia was to rely on that. It 

remained mere wishful thinking. 

Blum’s government was to fail at the 

very next trial, which was its attitude 

to the Spanish Civil War and the 

intervention of Italy and Germany in 

favour of the insurgents. It opted for a 

policy of “non-intervention” which, in 

its repercussions, displayed the 

indecisiveness and even weakness of 

democracy and anti-fascism at 

international level. France was also 

affected by the “non-interventionist” 

approach of Great Britain, which was 

not in favour of a popular front victory 

in Spain or that country’s 

transformation into a wider battle 

zone. Britain turned out to have views 

on the more explosive situations in 

various parts of Europe which were 

not particularly favourable to the 

existing international order that was 

under threat from Nazi Berlin and 

101 

Chapter III 

Fascist Rome. That applied to central 

Europe, among others. Czechoslovakia 

also sensed that Britain’s active 

political interest stopped at “the Rhine 

border”. Czechoslovak envoy to 

Britain, Jan Masaryk, vainly drew 

attention in London to the fact that 

“time was running terribly short” 

in Europe. 

In the West, and particularly in 

Britain, Czechoslovakia’s situation was 

The closer ties between Prague and 

Moscow as seen by a German 

cartoonist. 

already complicated by the consistent 

propaganda campaign waged against it 

by the Nazis. It included the claim that 

the Czechoslovak state was being 

transformed into “a flagship of 

Bolshevism”. It also tried to discredit 

Czechoslovakia by alleging the brutal 

oppression of its minorities. Henlein’s 

Sudeten-German Party also joined in 

that campaign. Officially it proclaimed 

a programme of autonomy with the 

intention of making it into an 

international issue. It also garnered a 

positive response in London.

Chapter III 

This was because of British policy 

towards Germany, which sought to 

eliminate all areas of friction that might 

complicate the search for agreement 

with it, which in London’s view was 

essential in the interests of the Empire 

and which it also promoted out of fear 

of a greater military conflict in Europe 

that would almost inevitably involve 

Britain. Henlein’s supporters in Britain 

admittedly had no knowledge of the 

situation of nationalities in the 

Czechoslovak Republic, but they had a 

major influence on it by their patronage 

of the Sudeten-German Party. They 

helped to bring the situation there to a 

head while complicating the 

achievement of an internal political 

settlement. They also paved the way for 

the situation to be exploited by Hitler as 

an “international issue”. British 

diplomats started to refer to 

Czechoslovakia as the “soft underbelly” 

of Europe”. This was only a short step 

away from declaring it to be the “sick 

man of Europe”. It was paradoxical and 

profoundly tragic that the last 

democratic state in central Europe 

should be classified in that fashion. 

Moreover, the maintenance of 

parliamentary democracy in 

Czechoslovakia served to multiply the 

numbers of its fascist and fascistleaning 

opponents, adversaries and 

enemies. They also wanted to see its 

destroyed because of its style of 

government. 

After March 7, 1936, Czechoslovakia 

tended to find itself in the situation of a 

manipulated object in respect of its 

relations with the western European 

powers and virtually isolated in its 

central-European policies. This was 

obvious from internal developments 

within the Little Entente. When its 

Organisational Pact was signed in 1933, 

Foreign Minister Beneš ventured the 

opinion that this fresh attempt to shore 

up the Little Entente might “lay the 

foundations for a permanent 

organisation of central Europe and give 

the Little Entente a permanent place in 

European politics alongside the other 

states, particularly the world powers.” 



102 

However, those plans were virtually 

forgotten by the mid-thirties when a 

struggle began for the very survival of 

the Little Entente. One expression of it 

was Czechoslovakia’s proposal for a 

single Little Entente treaty (the treaty 

basis of the Little Entente still being 

three bilateral agreements), that could 

be used against any aggressor. It was 

also intended as the basis for an 

agreement between the Little Entente 

and France. It was Czechoslovakia that 

showed the greatest initiative, 

particularly when it started to find itself 

hemmed in on all sides. However, 

Prague’s partners in the Little Entente, 

represented in Yugoslavia by the 

government of Milan Stojadinovič and 

the Prince-Regent Paul, and in 

Rumania chiefly by King Carol, had no 

intention of sharing the risk of 

German-Czechoslovak tension. That 

increased tension was one more reason 

for them to stand aside from central- 

European politics and emphasise their 

own concerns, particularly in the 

Balkans, while showing preference for a 

policy of “neutrality”. The reasons why 

the Little Entente fell apart were not 

only international (particularly the 

policy of the West) but were also to do 

with the political profile of key figures 

in the Yugoslav leadership, and also of 

some of the Rumanian leaders, who 

were attracted by the “dynamic” of 

fascism for the solution of their own 

internal problems. 

The re-occupation of the Rhineland 

ushered in a new phase of 

Czechoslovak-German relations. News 

of German preparations for an invasion 

of Czechoslovakia started to proliferate 

even more than before. The news was 

not without foundation. It is now 

known that Blomberg’s Ministry of War 

was preparing a “pre-emptive” strike 

against Czechoslovakia as the German 

army’s first offensive operation. That 

army was not yet prepared for a wider 

conflict, however, and Berlin stepped up 

its efforts to exploit all the possibilities 

opened up in central Europe by the 

alienation of the West after March 

1936. That was the atmosphere that



spawned the idea for secret talks 

between German emissaries and 

President Beneš. 

They were initiated by Ribbentrop’s 

bureau of the Nazi Party. In mid-April 

1936, Albrecht Haushofer, an official of 

the bureau, drew up a memorandum 

about Germany’s “political 

opportunities in the South-East”. In it 

he came to the conclusion that 

Czechoslovakia and Austria both feared 

a German military onslaught which 

they would not be able to repel without 

the assistance of France. Moreover, 

Prague had changed its position – in 

Haushofer’s view, at least– on possible 

assistance from the Soviet Union. He 

proposed that the Czechoslovak 

government’s present fears be exploited 

in order to sign a ten-year nonaggression 

pact with Czechoslovakia. 

The pact would be a reaffirmation and 

extension of the arbitration treaty of 

1925. Haushofer also contemplated the 

preparation of a German-Czechoslovak 

settlement based on Germany’s 

renunciation of boundary claims for as 

long as the Germans in Czechoslovakia 

enjoyed cultural and economic equality, 

and various other political and 

economic treaties. He concluded the 

memorandum with a reminder that the 

main aim of the talks with 

Czechoslovakia should be to minimise 

the effect of Czechoslovakia’s treaties of 

alliance with France and the Soviet 

Union. In addition and above all – as 

specific research was to document – it 

would be necessary to achieve a wideranging 

transformation of 

Czechoslovak state from within, 

particularly as regards the status of the 

German minority. Soon Haushofer 

received permission to negotiate directly 

with President Beneš. Two secret 

meetings took place at Prague Castle on 

November 13, and December 18, 1936 

(possible only in the difficult situation 

faced by Czechoslovakia in the wake of 

March 7, 1936) also attended by Count 

Trauttmansdorff. Both German 

negotiators acted as Hitler’s emissaries. 

The outcome of the talks was a decision 

to prepare a draft German- 

103 

Chapter III 

Czechoslovak non-aggression treaty. It 

was drafted by both Beneš and 

Haushofer. 

At the beginning of 1937, however, 

Hitler halted the negotiations. He had 

cancelled the idea of a non-aggression 

pact. All they could do in Prague was 

speculate on the reasons for that 

conclusion. What seemed to be decisive 

was that Hitler already started to be 

“obsessed with the issue of 

Czechoslovakia” and did not want to be 

bound to it by treaty. His reflections on 

the acquisition of “living space for the 

German nation” focused above all on 

central Europe, where Czechoslovakia 

and Austria were to be annexed. At a 

meeting with military top brass on 

November 5, 1937 recorded in the socalled 

“Hossbach Memorandum”, 

Hitler tried to find a way to eliminate 

Czechoslovakia in all eventualities of 

international developments. He hoped 

that the attack on Czechoslovakia could 

be carried out “at the speed of 

lightning”, as his assumption was that 

“in all probability England and perhaps 

also France, have already silently written 

off Czechoslovakia, and that they have 

got used to the idea that this question 

would one day be cleaned up by 

Germany.” 

This marked the end of the so-called 

“revisionist period” of German foreign 

policy, during which Germany rid itself 

of all restrictive military commitments. 

It was the time to start territorial 

conquests. The first were to affect 

Central Europe. Germany managed to 

wrest Austria from Central Europe in 

March 1938 without a shot being fired. 

However, the destruction of 

Czechoslovakia looked as if it would 

need more than a simple military thrust. 

Hitler therefore made serious plans for a 

struggle on condition that it would be 

brief and that the victim would remain 

internationally isolated. This was to be 

achieved politically, while the military 

were to assist by appropriately making 

much of their fire power and 

determination to attack. The politicians 

should also exploit the ethnic divisions 

within the Czechoslovak state and

Chapter III 

particularly the situation among the 

German minority controlled by the 

Sudeten-German Party, which was 

already sympathetic to the Reich and to 

Nazism. The party had placed the fate 

of that minority in Hitler’s hands in the 

hope that a solution based on political 

might, even if it involved violence, 

would be all to the good. 

After 1918, the world had fostered 

the idea that peace should be 

Poster advertising the 30 th German 

gymnastics festival at Chrastava (North 

Bohemia) in1936. 

maintained above all by means of 

political and diplomatic guarantees. 

That attitude suited Czechoslovakia 

and it fostered it. It could not defend its 

entire 2000-metre long frontier by its 

own military power. That fact enhanced 

the importance of foreign policy and 

diplomacy. They were either to protect 

the state from outside danger, or – if all 

else failed – to ensure the army alliances 

that would enable it to put up effective 

resistance. The chief alliance reposed in 

the treaties with France of January 1924 

and October 1925. 

However, compared to the period 

when those treaties were signed, France 



104 

had been weakened in the 1930s. 

It proved incapable of preventing the 

weakening of its international position, 

particularly since developments at home 

were racked by discord, sharp conflicts 

and dashed hopes of a turn for the 

better. It was all the more willing, 

therefore, to accept the offers and advice 

of Britain, which since the mid-thirties 

seemed to have suddenly recalled to 

mind the wartime “Entente cordiale” that 

had somewhat faded since. Its revival 

was not a patch on the original, 

however. The reason was the basis on 

which Britain revived it – appeasement. 

Peace was to be protected from its 

destroyer and actually superseded by 

“appeasement” of the strangest kind. 

The political and territorial changes 

aimed at by the Rome-Berlin fascist axis 

should, in the view of the “appeasers” be 

kept under political control and not give 

rise to the sort of tension or conflicts 

that might usher in a new war. British 

ruling circles assumed that it could 

thereby be postponed in the long term 

and a regulation could be achieved that 

could even be advantageous to the 

West. They were supported in this by 

members of the British Commonwealth 

of Nations. 

The British leadership did not regard 

Germany’s foreign-policy objectives in 

central Europe as in any way unnatural. 

Besides, it was an area in which their 

Empire had no immediate interest. 

Those aims were not to be achieved by 

armed force, however. An invasion of 

Czechoslovakia could trigger the 

mechanism of its treaties of alliance and 

thus draw France into a war and then, 

through the League of Nations, Britain 

and other states too. 

From the spring of 1938, by which 

time it was clear that Germany had 

launched its single-minded political and 

diplomatic offensive against 

Czechoslovakia – which could have 

sounded like the prelude to war drums – 

Britain concentrated its efforts on 

achieving political “conciliation”. But it 

in no way ruled out gains for the 

powerful and losses for the potential 

victims. This was because the essence of



such “conciliation” was geared above all 

to Germany’s official demands, which 

Britain enthusiastically sought to foist 

on Czechoslovakia. Another part of its 

diplomatic activity consisted in trying to 

persuade the French to adopt a similar 

position, even if it meant France’s 

abandoning its treaties of alliance with 

Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain’s 

government actually encouraged the 

French to do just that. Czechoslovakia 

did what it could internationally in 

order not to be left alone to face the 

military threat from Germany. 

Czechoslovakia regarded the 

involvement of its ally France in its 

defence – although not necessarily on 

the same battlefield – as the sine qua 

non of its own resistance. France’s 

reluctance was plain to see, however. 

Czechoslovakia even sensed it in its 

relations with France’s ally Poland. The 

Czechoslovak-Polish relationship had 

been fraught with specific 

contradictions ever since the 1920s, 

however, and Polish foreign policy, with 

105 

Chapter III 

its world-power ambitions and a sense 

of security based on the Poland’s nonaggression 

pacts with Germany and the 

Soviet Union, now helped aggravate 

Czechoslovakia’s international isolation. 

Past international losses provided 

French governments with a motive to 

heed Britain’s appeasement proposals 

for dealing with German-Czechoslovak 

tension. The experience of World War, 

during which the fighting on the 

In response to the outside threat the Czechoslovak government banked on the 

construction of a static line of fortifications on the French model, while the German 

strategists were hatching dynamic forms of combat. After “Munich” most of the Czech 

fortifications fell to Hitler without a struggle. 

Western Front had been played out 

essentially in France, causing that 

country heavy human and material 

losses that had not yet been made good, 

was still present in the minds of the 

French public. The public was terrified 

of a new war and the politicians were 

incapable of convincing it that it would 

not be avoided by concessions. 

The Czechoslovak government and 

above all President Beneš himself made 

all possible efforts in the course of 1938 

to urge France not to stand back from 

central Europe, both for its own sake 

and for the sake of European

Chapter III 

democracy. Their political efforts were 

focused above all on ensuring the West’s 

effective interest in the fate of 

Czechoslovakia. It was reflected in the 

way they reacted to British and French 

pressure aimed initially at the creation 

of a closed Sudeten-German territory. 

Pressure from London and Paris 

restricted still more Czechoslovakia 

political scope that had already been 

curtailed anyway by the previous demise 

or enfeeblement of its various 

international guarantees, i.e. the 

disqualification of the League of 

Nations during Italy’s war on Ethiopia 

and the remilitarisation the Rhineland, 

which facilitated Germany’s eventual 

military operations in central Europe. 

By making a show of goodwill 

concerning the Sudeten-German issue, 

Prague tried to convince itself that it 

would not only improve its standing in 

the eyes of the West but would also 

demonstrate that it was merely being 

exploited by the Third Reich as a 

pretext for expansion. The 

Czechoslovak state certainly failed to do 

all that was demanded by the pressing 

Sudeten-German question. Its ethnic 

composition caused all sorts of 

problems, but its democratic system 

gave the different nationalities 

reasonable scope for their lives and 

development. But Hitler was not 

concerned with the Sudeten-German 

issue at all, and significantly there was 

no mention of it in his initial war plans. 

In Prague, they hoped that the 

governments of France and Britain 

would realise this too. And there was 

feverish clutching at straws during 

September 1938. Yet the Czechoslovak 

politicians did not risk taking a decision 

that would place the West and, above 

all, its ally France in a situation that 

would have compromised or even 

brought to an end its “appeasement” 

policies. They either expected the West 

to do it of its own accord, once it had 

been convinced of the real essence of 

German-Czechoslovak tension, or they 

feared, on the contrary, that there was 

no way of achieving such a volte face 

even if Czechoslovakia resisted 



106 

Germany by force of arms. Nonetheless 

the latter possibility was closer to the 

hearts of Czechoslovakia’s chiefs of 

staff: in their opinion, once it was 

mobilised, the army could manage to 

resist Germany for long enough to force 

the allies to help. Czech society was in a 

similar frame of mind and it formed the 

backbone of the movement for the 

defence of the republic, which brought 

together all sorts of political and 

ideological currents. That movement 

varied greatly in intensity from one part 

of the republic to another, and that 

applied not just to the Czech border 

areas but also Slovakia, to a certain 

extent. 

The Czechoslovak government’s 

considerations about its possible allies 

focused above all on France. Soviet 

assistance was regarded as ancillary to 

France’s and that was how it was viewed 

politically too, i.e. there was no 

anticipation that it would be separate. 

That was essentially Moscow’s 

interpretation too. Besides, it would be 

hard to implement because of the 

distances involved and the lack of a 

common frontier, as well as in terms of 

international law, not to mention the 

unsatisfactory conditions inside the 

Soviet army, purged of the officers’ 

corps. The theory that the 

Czechoslovak government was 

preparing for effective rapid assistance 

from the Soviet Union was never more 

than propagandist rhetoric. The Soviet 

Union preferred the protection of 

Czechoslovakia by means of political 

collective security; it required military 

measures on the part of France in the 

first instance. It clearly was intending to 

fall in with the latter, as its preparations 

indicated. However, the Soviet envoy, 

Alexandrovsky, was unable to give 

Beneš any definite information when he 

requested it on September 25. At that 

time the Soviet diplomat had the 

impression that Beneš was close to 

halting the unfavourable political 

developments by armed conflict which 

would give rise to a wider pro- 

Czechoslovak coalition as a result of 

Soviet intervention. Even so Beneš at



first only expected a political and 

morale-boosting effect from him. But 

he did not expand further on the matter 

and Alexandrovsky was unable to offer 

him any reassurance either in this or in 

respect of anything that might exceed 

the narrow scope of the Czechoslovak- 

Soviet treaty. 

Hitler’s war preparations were in 

earnest and yet during September 1938 

they also served increasingly as an 

instrument of political pressure and 

blackmail. Czechoslovak mobilisation 

and the increasingly complex diplomatic 

negotiations dulled the hopes of 

achieving the main precondition for a 

military strike – the isolation of 

Czechoslovakia. In Berlin they were not 

entirely sure whether the war would be 

bilateral and a Blitzkrieg. Prague’s 

uncertainty stemmed from the fear that 

Czechoslovakia might remain on its 

own after all and vulnerable to other 

greedy neighbours to boot. 

Munich proved to be a vindication of 

those uncertainties. The only way to test 

it, however, was by action, by rejecting 

the diktat that amputated the state. 

Such a “no” could possibly have had 

more hope of an international impact 

107 

Chapter III 

prior to September 30. And in the first 

days after September 23, the day that 

mobilisation was declared, 

Czechoslovakia’s leaders made 

preparations for the risk of a military 

defence, because for a short while they 

hoped that their state would not remain 

without allied, and above all French, 

support. However, not even then did the 

West stop beavering away at 

appeasement and, with Hitler’s assent, 

Sudeten-German congresses differed from each other only in terms of date, venue and 

the rising level of demands.The rituals were unchanging. 

they achieved it. On September 30, the 

momentary hope and renewed 

uncertainty gave way, in Czechoslovak 

government circles, to a depressing and 

mortifying certainty. France truly 

reneged and that proved the deciding 

factor in the President’s consultations 

during September at Prague Castle with 

the government, other politicians and 

the military. 

However, the fall of the first 

Czechoslovak state was to be deeper and 

more lasting than it then appeared. 

THE PATH TO MUNICH 

In the course of 1937, the SdP stepped 

up its demands as a way of pointing the 

finger at the Prague government’s 

reluctance to reach agreement. The

Chapter III 

turning point was to be November of 

that year. At the beginning of that 

critical month, Hitler informed the 

inner circle of Reich leaders of his 

future plans; one of those plans, as is 

evidenced by the “Hossbach 

Memorandum” about Hitler’s 

consultations with the top leadership of 

the Reich, was the military destruction 

of Czechoslovakia. In a memorandum 

to Hitler on November 19, Henlein 

pointed out that “understanding 

between the Czechs and Germans is 

practically impossible” and that the SdP 

was bringing its policies fully in line 

with the political orientation of the 

Reich. The SdP wanted nothing less 

than “the integration of the Sudeten 

territory, indeed the entire Bohemian- 

Moravian-Silesian area into the 

Reich”. This aim could only be 

achieved by the destruction of 

Czechoslovakia and the annexation of 

Czech provinces. And that is what 

Henlein finally decided on in the 

autumn of 1937. On November 19, the 

British politician, Lord Halifax, a major 

proponent of appeasement, visited the 



108 

Führer and informed him that Britain 

did not reject German claims on central 

Europe, but told him that it was in 

Germany’s own interest to solve the 

problems in that area by peaceful 

means. That marked the beginning of 

the ten-month crisis that ended with 

the de facto destruction of the 

democratic Czechoslovak Republic. 

The crucial phase of the tragedy was 

launched by Hitler’s speech at the 

A detachment of the Sudeten-German Freikorps parading 

in the Czechoslovak border area. 

Berlin Parliament (at the Kroll Opera 

House) on February 20, 1938. In it 

Hitler declared the reconstruction of 

Germany and the re-education of the 

German nation according to National- 

Socialist principles to have been 

completed. He had made up his mind 

that the time had come for the Reich to 

assume responsibility for “the ten 

million Germans in the two 

neighbouring states”. The British prime 

minister Neville Chamberlain 

immediately played into his hands by 

distinctly declaring that small nations 

ought not rely on the protection of the 

League of Nations, thereby denying the 

principle of collective security. Austria



was the first in line; on March 13, it was 

annexed by Germany. 

In the case of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, Hitler decided to use quite a 

different tack. Following Henlein’s 

letter, he started to count on exploiting 

the Sudeten-German factor. On 

March 28, 1938, he received Henlein 

and declared him his governor in the 

Czechoslovak Republic, while also 

informing him that it was 

Heavily artillery was ready to be used in 

the country’s defence. 

“Czechoslovakia’s turn next”. 

According to Hitler’s directives, the 

task of the Sudeten-German 

leadership was to submit increasingly 

unacceptable demands to the 

Czechoslovak government. This would 

allow Henlein to go onto the offensive. 

The SdP reacted to the Austrian 

Anschluss with a call for “national 

unity”. It was not without success. On 

March 22, the German Agrarians 

resigned from the Czechoslovak 

government, to be followed soon after 

by the Christian-Social Party 

representatives. And that meant de 

facto the end of German activism in 

the Czechoslovak Republic, although 

109 

Chapter III 

the Social Democrats and Sudeten- 

German communists continued to 

carry its banner aloft. 

A congress of the Sudeten-German 

Party was held in Karlovy Vary 

(Karlsbad) in April 1938. The struggle 

for “German rights” was formulated 

there in the eight well-known “Karlsbad 

demands” which were put forward as a 

minimum political programme. In them 

the SdP demanded: 

1. Restoration of complete equality of 

the German national group with the 

Czech people; 

2. Recognition of the Sudeten-German 

national group as a legal entity for the 

safeguarding of this position of 

equality within the State; 

3. Confirmation and recognition of the 

Sudeten-German settlement area; 

4. Building up of Sudeten-German selfgovernment 

in the Sudeten-German 

settlement area in all branches of 

public life insofar as questions 

affecting the interests and the affairs 

of the German national group are 

involved; 

5. Introduction of legal provisions for 

the protection of those Sudeten- 

German citizens living outside the 

defined settlement area of their 

national group; 

6. Removal of wrongs done to Sudeten- 

German element since the year 1918, 

and compensation for damage 

thereby suffered; 

7. Recognition and enforcement of the 

principle: German public servants in 

the German area; 

8. Complete freedom to profess 

adherence to the German element 

and the German philosophy of life. 

It is obvious that these demands were 

by their very nature unacceptable to the 

Czechoslovak government. The 

“Karlsbad Programme” was anyway no 

more than a “ace” pulled out of the 

SdP’s sleeve on Hitler’s advice in order 

that the Sudeten Germans should step 

up their pressure to unacceptable levels. 

It was barefaced hypocrisy to boot, 

because acceptance of the demands 

would have meant the establishment of 

Nazi rule in a part of the state.

Chapter III 

The Czechoslovak government and 

the President himself reacted to the 

situation created during March by 

proposing the transformation of the 

Republic from a nation state to a 

multiethnic state. The so-called 

Nationality Statute met most of the 

national demands of the Sudeten- 

German politicians and of the other 

national minorities, including the 

demands of the Slovaks. It naturally 

did not comprise the principle of 

collective minority rights, however, 

because it would have undermined the 

democratic principles and defence of 

the Czechoslovak state in the face of 

aggressive Hitlerism; the adoption of 

that decision would have undoubtedly 

represented a victory for the SdP. On 

the other hand, Beneš realised that 

such a move could win the support of 

his allies, particularly Great Britain. 

And for a while it might not have 

appeared to be a mere ruse. The 

outcome of the April talks between the 

French and English governments was a 

promise of military help to 



110 

Czechoslovakia if the need arise. And 

the German Foreign Minister 

Ribbentrop was to be informed of this 

by the British Ambassador to Berlin at 

an appropriate time. In Prague, the 

President was actually informed that 

such help would be forthcoming 

should the SdP insist on the Karlsbad 

Demands. The Czechoslovak 

government therefore expedited work 

on the Nationality Statute which 

Evidence of the Czechs’ will to fight is provided by many 

photographs and documents. 

Parliament was due to adopt on May 

31. This was the so-called “Second 

Plan” for solving the Czech-German 

issue. (The “First Plan” was the name 

given to Beneš’s dispatch about his 

preliminary version). 

These were steps that did not appeal 

to Hitler or Henlein, however. The 

proposal perturbed the leadership of the 

SdP, leading them to conclude that it 

“must be rejected by the Sudeten- 

German element, because we cannot 

accept a peaceful settlement of the 

Sudeten issue within the framework of 

the Czechoslovak state”, as the party’s 

response was set out SdP’s situation



report. It is worth noting the date it was 

adopted – May 18, 1938! 

Two days later, the Czechoslovak 

government called up one year of 

reservists and some specialists. Whether 

the “May Crisis” was the result of 

Hitler’s clever tactics or whether 

military intelligence reports about 

Germany’s military preparations for 

invading the Republic were 

overestimated, although they were the 

result of justified fears, the partial 

mobilisation served to hasten 

developments. In terms of the 

international political scene – although 

in the course of it both England and 

France voiced their support – their 

impact was negative. On May 24, 

Britain warned Prague that 

Czechoslovakia must never again drag 

them to the brink of war! The domestic 

political crisis helped bolster the antifascist 

front. 

The SdP exploited the situation to 

step up its demands still further. They 

were contained in an “Outline New 

Order” for the domestic conditions in 

Czechoslovakia based on the eight 

points put forward in the speech of SdP 

Chairman Konrad Henlein at Karlsbad 

on April 24, 1938. Berlin had been 

consulted about the Outline, of course, 

but so had some British leaders. It went 

beyond the Karlsbad Demands and 

represented the de facto disabling of the 

state. Had it been adopted, the Republic 

would have become a very loose 

federation of territorially delimited 

national groups (Volksgruppen) with 

extensive powers of self-government, 

while the power of central government 

would be reduced to the absolute 

minimum. Moreover the powers of the 

national entities’ authorities were 

precisely defined, whereas the 

description of the powers of central 

government was vague in the extreme. 

In view of the combination of 

territorially defined state administration 

and the ethnic principle meant that the 

relationship of the self-governing 

entities to the state would constitute 

non-functional administrative chaos. 

The Outline was not aimed to be 

111 

Chapter III 

implemented, however. It was simply 

another card in the game aimed at the 

destruction of Czechoslovakia. For 

political reasons, though, the 

Czechoslovak government was obliged 

to negotiate about them. Britain 

intervened in those negotiations, 

sending a message that the 

government’s Nationalities Statute was 

not to be tabled in Parliament until an 

agreement had been reached with 

Henlein. That was the death knell of 

that “Second Plan” and it was never to 

be debated by the Prague Parliament. 

In August 1938, a Third Plan 

emerged. The basis for it had 

apparently been laid during talks that 

President Beneš had between August 

16 and 21 with a Professor Sander of 

Prague’s German University. 

According to that plan, three purely 

German self-governing cantons (župy) 

were to be established on Czechoslovak 

territory. The idea was borrowed by 

Lord Runciman and included in his 

seven-point programme for settling the 

crisis, that he communicated to Beneš 

on August 23, 1938. Runciman’s 

initiative was based on the strategy of 

the British government that sought a 

peaceful solution within the framework 

of Czechoslovakia. The British policy 

was based on the principle of dividing 

the territory up into administrative 

areas. But even that plan shared the 

fate of its predecessors. In view of the 

domestic political situation, Beneš 

tried to manoeuvre with the Sudeten- 

German deputies. However, 

Chamberlain reacted to it just as Hitler 

had secretly wished, championing in 

the British government the view that it 

was necessary to negotiate about the 

ceding of the Sudeten-German y 

territory. 

Nevertheless, the “third plan” was not 

the last of the vain endeavours to 

preserve the integrity of the Republic. 

The SdP leadership drew up yet another 

version of its demands, that in the 

literature is generally known as the 

Draft. Admittedly it was not formulated 

as radically as the previous Outline, but 

it was as unacceptable as any of the

Chapter III 

previous demands of the Sudeten- 

German leadership. Nonetheless the 

President was to use it as a basis for a 

“fourth plan”, in which he accepted 

most of the Karlsbad demands. In the 

matter of self-government, however, he 

sought to preserve at least a minimum 

of the central administrative powers of 

the state, so that it should continue to 

function after a fashion. Beneš was well 

aware, though, that his proposal was not 

In his drawing “The Dictator’s Boots”, 

Josef âapek accurately prophesied the 

character of the days to come. 

He was to die in concentration 

camp at the end of the war. 

viable. The significance of the fourth 

plan was political and tactical; “The 

Czechs” were ready to go to the limits 

of endurance in their concessions; 

maybe this tactic would cause the 

leading democratic powers in Europe to 

realise the true state of affairs. Indeed 

the leadership of the SdP reacted in 

consternation: “For heaven’s sake, he’s 

given us the lot!” one of the leaders is 

said to have exclaimed. The plan truly 

stripped bare Hitler’s and Henlein’s 

plans. One of the leading Sudeten- 

German politicians, the deputy Kundt, 

was of the view that the SdP had better 

accept the fourth plan. In Berlin they 

decided otherwise, however. 

The time had now come to make use 

of pressure tactics on the part of the 

Bohemian Germans themselves, in the 

form of disturbances, demonstrations 

and street brawls. The shock troops of 

the provocations and subversive 

activities were to be the paramilitary 



112 

units of the Sudeten-German Freikorps. 

The pretext for those operations was an 

incident in Ostrava when a Sudeten- 

German politician was struck by a 

policeman during a demonstration and 

eleven of the demonstrators were 

arrested. The Czechs also suffered 

their first casualties. The escalation of 

tension was the prelude to the dramatic 

climax – Hitler’s speech at the 

Nuremberg congress of the NSDAP 

on September 12. This was already a 

frontal assault on the existence of the 

Czechoslovak Republic and the main 

motivation was the right to selfdetermination 

of the Sudetendeutsche 

Volksgruppe (Sudeten-German national 

groups). In reaction to that speech there 

were fresh provocations and terror in the 

Czech border areas (Lieber Führer, mach’ 

uns frei von der Tschechoslowakei! – Dear 

Leader, free us from Czechoslovakia!) 

and further killings. This was by now an 

attempted putsch. The government 

reacted by declaring martial law in the 

North Bohemian districts. The Sudeten 

Germans refused to accept responsibility 

“for further developments” and on 

September 15, Henlein issued a 

proclamation that “we want to go home 

to the Reich” and proposed to Hitler the 

following solution to the Sudeten- 

German problem: immediate cession of 

all Czechoslovak territory having over 

50% German inhabitants and their 

occupation by German units within 

48 hours. 

Even now the anti-fascists (mostly 

Social-Democrats) remained loyal to 

the Czechoslovak Republic and their 

Republikanische Wehr (Republican 

Defence) combated the putschists and 

defended the borders as part of SOS 

units. A national council initiated by 

them proposed an extensive ethnic 

realignment that would take the wind 

out of the Henleinites’ sails. 

The British prime minister reacted to 

the deepening crisis with a fresh 

initiative, known as “Plan Z”, the 

objective of which was – yet again – 

a peaceful settlement of the 

Czechoslovak-German crisis. On 

September 15, Chamberlain flew to see



Hitler for the first time. The road to 

Munich was open. 

All was to be decided in the course of 

the next fifteen days. The twists and 

turns of the events of that fateful 

fortnight are sufficiently familiar not to 

need recounting step by step. They 

culminated in the signing of the 

Munich Agreement on September 29, 

1938. “Munich” was one of the most 

pernicious acts of modern political 

history. It was engineered by the heads 

of government of Germany, Italy, Great 

Britain and France, who chiefly ordered 

Czechoslovakia, which was not 

admitted to the talks, to cede the 

Bohemian and Moravian border areas 

to Germany. They thereby brought 

about the destruction of Czechoslovak 

democracy, the moral crisis of the 

Czech nation, the de facto 

fragmentation of the state into Czecho- 

Slovakia and then its demise in March 

1939. Worse still, “Munich” brought 

about the thorough destruction first of 

Central Europe and then of Europe as a 

whole by providing Hitler with the 

113 

Chapter III 

means to unleash World War II – the 

greatest catastrophe in the history of 

mankind. This also had post-war 

repercussions, including the compulsory 

transfer of the Germans from the 

Czechoslovak Republic for having had, 

for the most part, a share in “Munich” 

and for remaining faithful to Hitler “to 

the bitter end”. 

“Munich” was not even prevented by 

Beneš’s desperate “Fifth Plan” which was 

sent secretly to Paris. This “lesser of two 

evils” consisted of the Czechoslovak 

Republic’s renunciation of its historic 

frontiers by voluntarily ceding part of the 

border area outside the main line of 

fortifications and the transfer of the 

remaining Sudeten Germans, followed by 

the shifting of the German enclaves from 

the Bohemian and Moravian hinterland 

to the remaining border areas on the basis 

of a so-called “internal transfer”. 

That plan was never used by the great 

powers. However it was to be the basis 

for Beneš’s transfer plans during World 

War II (apart from a short interval in 

late 1940, early 1941).

THE BREAK UP OF 

CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND 

THE GENESIS OF THE 

TRANSFER 

114

Chapter IV 

THE “SECOND REPUBLIC” 

The success at Munich of Hitler’s 

Germany vis-à-vis the Czechs and the 

Czechoslovak Republic meant the defeat 

and utter destruction of the entire idea of 

a Czechoslovak state, particularly as 

conceived by Masaryk. The outward sign 

of this was the occupation of a large 

portion, namely, about one third of the 

national territory, specifically in the 

Czech provinces, where the Germans 

The fate of Czechoslovakia was decided by the leaders of the European powers in 

Munich at the end of September 1938 without inviting that country to send 

representatives.The governments of France, Britain and Italy 

accepted all of Hitler’s demands. 

“annexed” (in contemporary parlance) 

about 28,000 square kilometres with a 

total of 600-700 thousand Czechs. 

Along with that went the loss of 

fortifications, the cutting of the main rail 

and road links to Slovakia, and even 

from Bohemia to Moravia, the forced 

exodus or actual expulsion of some 160- 

170 thousand Czechs, Jews and also 

Sudeten German democrats from their 

homes into the hinterland with only 

their hastily assembled, essential 

belongings. 

But that was not the sole issue. Under 

strong German pressure, the 

Czechoslovak state started to collapse. 

On October 5, 1938, Edvard Beneš 

informed the Prime Minister, General 

The Break up of Czechoslovakia and the Genesis 


116 

Syrový, that he was resigning from the 

office of President, to which he had been 

elected on December 18, 1935. (On that 

occasion, he had received 340 of the 

votes cast; Bohumil Němec had received 

24, 76 were blank and one was spoilt.) 

On October 27, 1938, the Permanent 

Committee of the National Assembly 

adopted a measure cancelling the 

mandate of certain members of the 

National Assembly (No. 253/1938 Coll.). 

In accordance with that measure, 

members of the National Assembly 

claiming nationality other than Czech, 

Slovak or Russian (Ruthenian) and on 

September 18, 1938 were not domiciled 

on territory of the Czechoslovak 

Republic that was not under foreign 

occupation, or who left that territory 

after September 18, lost their mandate. 

As was stated in the subsequent clauses, 

deputies representing territories under 

foreign occupation were also deprived of 

their mandate. This represented 69 

deputies and 33 senators. There was no 

legal basis for it, however! It is true that 

when the parliament was not in session, 

the Permanent Committee could take 

emergency measures in cases stipulated



by the Constitution regarding 

government proposals endorsed by the 

President, such as would otherwise 

require legislation (Article 54 of the 

Constitution). But changing the 

numbers of deputies of the National 

Assembly established by the 

Constitution, or depriving some of the 

deputies of their mandates was not 

allowed by law, let alone by measure of 

the Permanent Committee. 

Between 160 and 170 thousand Czechs, Sudeten anti-fascists and Jews were forced to 

flee or were expelled from the territory occupied by the Third Reich. 

On November 22, 1938, constitutional 

laws were adopted granting autonomy to 

the Slovak Region and to Carpathian 

Ruthenia. 

The principle of the widest possible 

autonomy of Carpathian Ruthenia 

compatible with the unity of the 

Czechoslovak Republic was embodied in 

Article 3, Paras. 3-9 of the Constitution, 

but during the entire existence of the 

First Republic that self-government was 

never implemented, so the adoption of 

the constitutional law could be 

interpreted as fulfilment of that provision 

of the Constitution, although it went 

beyond the stipulated limits. However, it 

was adopted in connection with the 

constitutional law on “autonomy of the 

117 

Chapter IV 

Slovak Region”. Its concept contradicted 

the idea of the status of Slovakia and the 

Slovak nation enshrined in the 

Constitution. 

In the preamble to this law, the reason 

given for bringing out the legislation was 

an endeavour to reconcile the Slovak and 

Czech nation in the spirit of the “Žilina 

Agreement”. The degree of Slovakia’s 

independence in the law, which 

envisaged its own constitution, went 

considerably beyond the meaning of 

autonomy. Czechoslovakia was 

transformed from a homogeneous state 

to a compound one. 

The constitutional law was tabled by 

representatives of Hlinka’s Slovak 

People’s Party who stated that, “this 

constitutional law will be the central 

pillar of the state, so its adoption and 

endorsement are in the eminent interest 

of that state.” As was soon demonstrated, 

it was on the contrary a further step 

towards demolishing the pillars on which 

the Czechoslovak state was built. 

These fundamental constitutional 

changes occurred at a time when the 

Czechoslovak state was without a head, 

in the sense of a President. It was not

Chapter IV 

until November 30, 1938, that the 

National Assembly elected as President 

of the Czecho-Slovak Republic (the socalled 

“Second Republic”), the then 

President of the Supreme Administrative 

Court Emil Hácha. He received 272 of 

the 312 valid votes cast, while forty 

ballots were left blank. Of the 64 

members of the National Assembly from 

Slovakia, 58 voted for Hácha. 

During the summer of 1938, Hácha 

and his staff examined the legal aspects 

of the government proposals put forward 

by the Sudeten Germans. 

Hácha was not to hold the post of 

President of the Second Republic for 

long. The Constitutional Law No. 330 of 

December 15, 1938, empowered him to 

publish a Constitution by decree. This 

was never to happen. Equally 

unsuccessful was the attempt by the new 

government establishment to maintain 

the state on completely different 

ideological and political foundations, 



118 

geared to the policies of Germany. 

However, the legal disintegration of 

Czecho-Slovakia was not enough. 

Further destruction of statehood was the 

denial of political democracy and the 

switch of foreign policy orientation to 

the de facto complete submission of 

Prague to Berlin. Hand in hand with this 

went the transformation of the internal 

regime. First it took the form of the 

creation of an authoritarian state. Even 

“Munich” put an end to all of President Bene‰’s plans and proposals. On October 5, he 

resigned from office and went into exile in London on October 22 (left). Shortly 

afterwards, the National Assembly elected the 66-year-old Emil Hácha, the Chairman of 

the Supreme Administrative Court, President of the Republic. 

though this assumed a form far less 

terrifying than in Germany – it was 

attenuated by “the gentlemen in morning 

coats and top hats” i.e. the leaders of the 

traditional Czech Right, particularly the 

Agrarian Party – it was a negation of the 

democratic spirit of Masaryk’s original 

concept of the state. As we said, in its 

foreign policy, the “Second Republic” 

was utterly subordinate to Hitler’s 

Germany. Its programme may be 

summed up in the words of Jaroslav 

Stránský writing in Lidové noviny on



October 4, 1938: “…if we can’t sing with 

the angels, we’ll howl with the wolves… 

If the world is not to be ruled by law but 

force, let our place be where there is 

greater force and determination. There is 

nothing for it but for us to seek an 

agreement with Germany. Let us 

become its great supplier and customer 

and reject all combinations that might 

align us with any anti-German front 

whatsoever.” Logically that meant 

thoroughgoing accommodation with 

Nazism, which had no intention of 

pursuing any half measures with the 

Czechs. The cowering nationalism of the 

Czech right recognised this in 

subsequent developments, and although 

it included plenty of people who had no 

particular love for the Germans, it was by 

and large willing to bow to their 

demands and coexist with the Germans. 

So it was impossible for the idea of a 

determined struggle with the occupier or 

for the resettlement of the Sudeten 

Germans to emerge from there. 

When historians put forward the thesis 

that the Czechs’ resettlements derived 

from Munich (and not from the Nazi 

German occupation policy) it is only 

partly true. It is true in the sense that after 

Munich, Czech hatred created fertile soil 

for the emergence of resettlement plans. 

It is not the entire truth, however. As we 

shall show, those plans essentially date 

from after March 15, 1939. In other 

words, they were a reaction to the 

occupation and the establishment of the 

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. 

Besides, Munich itself constituted 

occupation; although it was only partial, 

it involved a third of Czech territory! 

Beneš’s reaction to Munich was 

contained in comments he made in 

London on January 31, 1939, to Drábek, 

an envoy from the homeland, when he 

did not envisage resettlement of the 

Sudeten Germans along the lines that 

were to develop as a reaction to the 

crimes of the Nazi occupation, and what 

is usually meant by the terms “transfer”, 

“resettlement”, “expulsion”. His 

comments were actually a version of his 

desperate attempt at an emergency “fifth 

plan” of September 15, 1938. 

119 

Chapter IV 

On March 14, 1939, the Slovak 

Parliament accepted under pressure the 

declaration of a separate, independent 

Slovak State following talks between 

Jozef Tiso and Adolf Hitler. The next 

day, March 15, 1939, Emil Hácha and 

his Foreign Minister, Chvalkovský, on 

the one hand and Adolf Hitler and his 

Foreign Minister, von Ribbentrop, on the 

other signed a memorandum in Berlin 

declaring that the aim of all efforts must 

be the safeguarding of calm, order and 

peace in this part of central Europe, and 

in order to serve this object and to 

achieve ultimate pacification the 

Czechoslovak President confidently 

placed the fate of the Czech people and 

country in the hands of the Führer of the 

German Reich. The Führer accepted this 

declaration and expressed his intention 

of taking the Czech people under the 

protection of the German Reich and of 

guaranteeing them an autonomous 

development of their ethnic life as suited 

to their character. 

Neither President Hácha nor Foreign 

Minister Chvalkovský had any 

constitutional right to undertake such an 

act proclaiming the end of the Republic. 

THE REALITY OF THE 

PROTECTORATE 

The break-up of Czecho-Slovakia on 

March 14-15, 1939, gave the lie to all 

Hitler’s declarations about protecting 

“the Sudeten Germans’ right to selfdetermination” 

and that he had “no 

interest in Czechs” who did not wish to 

be in his Reich. The Czech-German 

relationship was once more transformed 

by the 48-hour invasion of Bohemian 

and Moravian territory by German 

troops, along with police and SS units. 

This was true not only in constitutional 

terms but also in respect of everyday life 

and also as regards the prospects of its 

future development. 

That same day, Adolf Hitler issued a 

proclamation to the Germans in which 

he repeated his assertion about “the 

unbearable regime of terrorism” 

conducted by Czecho-Slovakia on 

territory that had been “part of the 

German Reich for over a thousand

Chapter IV 

years”. He announced that he had 

ordered German units to march into 

Bohemia and Moravia in order to disarm 

the gangs of terrorists and the Czech 

armed forced that protected them, and 

thus ensure the basis for the introduction 

of fundamental changes that would do 

justice to the thousand years of history. 

The following day, March 16, 1939, 

Adolf Hitler issued a decree establishing 

the Protectorate of Bohemia and 

Moravia. The preamble stated: “For a 

thousand years the provinces of Bohemia 

and Moravia were part of the 

Lebensraum of the German nation”. 

About the Czechoslovak state it declared 

that it had “ceased to be internally viable 

and has therefore now fallen apart in 

reality”. The German Reich had 

therefore intervened “out of motives of 

self-protection… because it has proved 

throughout its thousand-year history 

that, thanks to its size and the specific 

character of the German nation, it alone 

is qualified to fulfil these tasks”. It was an 

expression of the conviction repeated 

over and again by representatives of the 

German inhabitants of the Czech 

provinces that the Czech nation was 



120 

incapable of creating and maintaining its 

own state. The denial of the Czech 

nation’s ability to create a state and the 

assertion of its subordination to the 

German nation was one of the principal 

German theories of constitutional law. In 

1941, in connection with a legal 

assessment of that particular decree of 

Hitler’s, Karl Herman Frank declared 

that that act was “no international treaty 

between two parties but an act of 

In the night of September 14, 1938, Hitler summoned President Hácha to Berlin and 

used brutal threats to force him to agree to the occupation of “Rest-Tschechei”. 

constitutional law deriving from the 

sovereignty of the Reich.” He went on 

address the following sentence to the 

Czechs: “Since in the future Europe can 

live without the Czechs but the Czechs 

cannot live without a strong German 

Reich, the seven million Czechs must 

now acknowledge unconditionally the 

preferential status of the eighty-five 

million Germans and subordinate their 

interests to the interests of the Reich.” 

The establishment of the Protectorate 

of Bohemia and Moravia, which, in 

according to this decree, came into 

existence with the occupation of those 

territories by German units, accorded a 

special status to the Protectorate 

Germans, as had already accorded to the



Sudeten Germans, who became citizens 

of the German Reich. They too were 

now covered by the regulation protecting 

“German blood” and “German honour” 

and were subject to German courts. This 

regulation was further defined by the 

ruling of the Reich’s Minister of the 

Interior of April 20, 1939 (p. 815 of the 

legal code of the Code). Specifically, the 

rights of Germans in the Protectorate 

were widened. This related to the 

provisions of the Reich citizenship 

decree, based on Law I of the Reich 

p. 1146 of September 15, 1939. Article 2 

of this law states: “A citizen of the Reich 

is that subject only who is of German or 

kindred blood and who, through his 

conduct, shows that he is both desirous 

and fit to serve the German people and 

Reich faithfully.” Paragraph 3 stipulated 

that: “Only the citizen of the Reich 

enjoys full political rights in accordance 

with the provision of the Laws.” Not 

every German had the right to be a 

citizen of the Reich. 

By virtue of the decree, the other 

inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia 

became subjects of the Protectorate of 

Bohemia and Moravia, although they 

too could be judged by German courts 

under the terms of a ruling 

of April 14, 1939. 

Hitler’s decree establishing the 

“Protectorate” of Bohemia and Moravia 

defined the status of the occupied Czech 

provinces from the very next day. The 

reason for the inverted commas is that not 

only was the entire ruling more 

improvised than conceptually framed, it 

was deliberately framed in very vague 

legal terms so that the letter of the law 

was virtually meaningless. During the 

Berlin talks, Hitler had promised the 

Czecho-Slovak President that the Czechs 

would enjoy “the fullest autonomy and 

their own existence”, such as they had 

never enjoyed even in former Austria. The 

“Führer’s” decree of March 16 also stated 

that “the Protectorate … is autonomous 

and self-administrating”. However 

autonomy essentially never amounted to 

any more than this statement. The first 

problem was the fact that any decision by 

the leaders and officials of the 

121 

Chapter IV 

Protectorate could be altered by the 

Reichsprotektor. By virtue of Hitler’s later 

rulings the Reichsprotektor enjoyed total 

independence from the Protectorate 

bodies in matters of legislation. He could 

issue, cancel or change legal regulations in 

all spheres. He could decide the issues 

about which the Reich and Protectorate 

authorities were to report to him and 

could specify the range of measures 

requiring his personal approval. The 

principle of the de facto supremacy of 

German occupation administration was 

gradually implemented in areas of 

administration and the economy in the 

Protectorate. The rate of the Reichsmark 

to the Protectorate crown was fixed at the 

discriminatory level of 1:10 (in reality it 

was 1:8, the rate that applied in the 

Sudeten canton), whereby the economic 

and monetary strength of the crown was 

undermined. In addition, the Protectorate 

had to pay a “war tax” that in 1940 

amounted to some 3,000 million crowns 

and by 1944 had risen to as much as 

12,000 million crowns. Administrators 

(Treuhänder) were placed in charge of 

enterprises, property was “Aryanised”, 

German officials were appointed to the 

ministries of the Protectorate. Germans 

started to appear as local bosses in even 

purely Czech towns, particularly the cities 

such as Prague, Plzeň, Brno, etc., and 

subsequently in smaller towns and 

villages. Thus on the territory of the 

Protectorate there was a dual 

administration – one for the Germans, as 

citizens of the Reich, and another for the 

subjects of the Protectorate who were 

subordinate to the former. A visible sign 

of that situation were the powers 

conferred on the German secret police 

(Gestapo) and the German police in 

general. Those powers were so extensive 

that they had de facto oversight over the 

very decisions of the Protectorate bodies. 

More and more activities regarded as 

criminal were now came under German 

jurisdiction so that even investigation and 

the courts were increasingly taken out of 

the hands of the Protectorate 

administration. 

A fundamental legal problem was 

created by the fact that the text of the

Chapter IV 

decree failed to specify what a 

protectorate was. That “autonomous 

administrative unit” was not defined 

anywhere in terms of territory – the 

location of its borders was once again a 

matter for Hitler’s decision. Nor was it 

defined in terms of the Czechs and the 

Czech nation, although Hitler had 

promised Hácha that it would. Indeed 

the term “Czech nation” does not occur 

anywhere in text of its articles! Hitler’s 

decree simply referred to the “other 

(non-German) inhabitants of Bohemia 

and Moravia”, the Protectorate simply 

consisted of “the territory of the former 

Czechoslovak Republic occupied by 

German units in March 1939”. This was 

not an omission but deliberate policy. 

The Protectorate was to be a temporary 

affair. Its territory was going to belong to 

the “steel core of the Third Reich”, and 

only international political 

considerations and economic concerns 

prevented it happening straight away, 

with all its international repercussions. 

There was a certain national aspect to 

the Protectorate system in the matter of 

“Protectorate citizenship”. Inhabitants of 

German nationality living on the 

territory of the Protectorate were 

automatically “subjects of the Reich” or 

“citizens of the Reich” and were subject 

to German legal regulations, i.e. they 

lived completely outside the jurisdiction 

of the Protectorate authorities. The 

“other inhabitants of Bohemia and 

Moravia”, on the other hand, were 

“subjects of the Protectorate” in the 

terms of the decree, in other words, 

second-class citizens of a kind. This 

distinction had all sorts of practical 

implications; the most important ones 

were outlined in the previous paragraphs. 

To sum up: the autonomy of the 

Protectorate was formulated extremely 

vaguely and could be abolished at any 

moment. Aand it was increasingly 

restricted so that as the war continued it 

practically ceased to exist. The assertion 

in Hitler’s decree of March 16, 1939, 

that the Protectorate of Bohemia and 

Moravia was “self-administering” was a 

lie based on the maxim of “promising 

much, to avoid giving little”. 



122 

The occupation of the territory of 

Bohemia and Moravia not included in 

the Munich annexation (“Rest-Tschechei” 

in Hitler’s parlance), represented a 

fundamental milestone in the post- 

Munich evolution of the idea of 

resettling the Sudeten Germans. The 

enemy was now revealed clearly and this 

idea gradually spread to broad sections of 

the Czech nation in the immediate wake 

of March 15, 1939. The first resistance 

organisations came out in favour of it, as 

well as a significant part of public 

opinion. This development first peaked 

after the brutal German retaliation for 

the enormous Czech demonstration on 

October 28, to mark the twenty-first 

anniversary of the foundation of the 

Czechoslovak Republic. On that 

occasion the Germans closed down the 

universities (ostensibly for three years – 

but they never respected that, nor had 

any intention of doing so), brutally 

arrested students, deporting them to 

Sachsenhausen concentrate camp and 

executing some of their leaders. 

THE PROTECTORATE 

AND THE JEWS 

Meanwhile the occupiers started to make 

preparations for the liquidation of the 

Jews. This took the form of creating a 

“ghetto without walls” and involved 

confiscating Jewish property by so-called 

“Aryanization”, the concentration of 

several families into one sub-standard 

apartment and various other measures 

intended to humiliate and demoralise 

the Jews and create a barrier between 

them and Czech society. Thus from 

September 1939, Jews were successively 

banned from hotels, pubs, spas, cinemas 

and theatres. They were also banned 

from receiving unemployment relief and 

were gradually assigned to menial jobs. 

They were banned from various streets, 

parks and embankments. They were not 

allowed to marry non-Jewish members 

of the population. They were not allowed 

to leave their homes after eight in the 

evening, they were not allowed to fish, 

attend sports events or own a telephone. 

When travelling by train or tram they 

were only allowed into the last coach,



and eventually they were banned from 

using trams altogether. The proportion 

of Jewish children in Czech schools was 

not allowed to exceed 4 percent. Jews 

were also banned from shopping outside 

certain hours; they received no rations of 

fruit, jam, cheese, sweets, fish, poultry or 

garlic. It was even forbidden to sell them 

hats. This was all because they 

supposedly had “bad blood” and were a 

bad race. 

The occupation authorities did not 

have too much success in creating a 

“wall-less ghetto”, however, and did not 

manage to separate the Czech nation 

from their Jewish fellow-citizens, in spite 

of the fact that the government of the 

Second Republic and afterwards the 

Protectorate government had already 

adopted a number of anti-Semitic 

measures on their own initiative. For the 

Czech resistance, however, that fate of 

the Jews was bound up with the fate of 

the Czech nation. Not even the Nazis 

concealed that fact. When introducing 

the regulation forcing Jews to wear Stars 

of David, K.H.Frank stated that a 

significant section of the Czech 

population continued to be friendly to 

the Jews. When some of the “Aryan” 

employees of a certain factory 

demonstratively came to work wearing 

Stars of David, thereby provoking a 

violent reaction on part of the German 

authorities, it was no isolated incident. 

In spite of terror tactics the occupiers did 

not manage to destroy the Czechs’ 

solidarity towards the Jews. This has 

been very convincingly demonstrated in 

the works of K. Polák, J. Lagus and 

M. Kárný. 

The Czech population was concerned 

with the fate of the Jewish inhabitants 

who were deported to Terezín and 

interned there. Terezín played a special 

role in the Nazis’ plan for the “Final 

Solution of the Jewish Question” 

adopted at the notorious Wannsee 

Conference. It was to play a number of 

roles over the years in the 

implementation of that plan. 

On the orders of one of the SS 

commanders, Seidel, on November 24, 

1941, a special Jewish work brigade was 

123 

Chapter IV 

dispatched to Terezín to build a 

concentration camp there as a special 

sort of ghetto. The previous inhabitants 

of Terezín, made up of 3,498 Czechs and 

347 Germans, were resettled and in 

September 1942, 58,491 Jewish 

inhabitants were deported there, mostly 

from the Protectorate. A total of 3,941 of 

them died in the course of the first 

month alone. Terezín was also intended 

to become a transit camp for the 

extermination programme subsequently 

carried out in Minsk, Chelmno, Sobibor, 

Treblinka, Majdanek, Auschwitz and 

other extermination camps. The Terezín 

Memorial Book documents the scope of 

the extermination plan and the methods 

used to implement it. According to 

German propaganda the Jews were 

leaving to work in eastern Europe and in 

the German plans for the eventual fate of 

the Czech population it stated that part 

of the Czechs were to follow them later. 

The Jews in Terezín were also promised 

self-government and the autonomous 

administration of their own affairs. This 

discrimination, along with the first cases 

of brutality by the Gestapo and the 

German courts, caused the Czechs to 

fear for their future as a nation (the anti- 

Jewish measures being perceived as 

foreshadowing the destiny of the 

Czechs) and fostered the hatred that 

gave rise to the plans for retribution that 

included the resettlement of the 

Germans from Czech territory. 

GERMANISATION AND THE 

EXPLOITATION OF THE CZECH 

ECONOMY AND JEWISH 

PROPERTY DURING THE 

OCCUPATION 

The aim of the German Reich was the 

Germanisation of the Czech lands, 

initially through the Germanisation of 

the “Czech economic space”. That 

objective was pursued by the German 

occupation policies on two basic levels. 

The first of these involved laying the 

institutional and systemic bases for 

constructing mechanisms to manage and 

control the economy of the Czech lands. 

The second was a process that ran in 

parallel with the first and merged with it,

Chapter IV 

whereby ownership relations were altered 

to the benefit of German population, 

achieved chiefly, although not solely, by 

the “Aryanisation” of Jewish property. 

The first German military 

detachments to reach Prague were 

accompanied by representatives of the 

two most important banks in the Reich, 

the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner 

Bank, whose task was to establish a 

starting position to penetrate the 

financial and industrial structures of the 

Czech provinces. These banks had 

started to build themselves up 

immediately after the Munich 

Conference by concentrating on the 

acquisition of branches of Prague banks 

operating on the territories ceded to the 

German Reich. The Dresdner Bank 

concentrated on the branches of the 

Böhmische Escompte-Bank, which was 

operated with Czech, German and 

Jewish capital, although it shared this 

with the Viennese Länderbank. The 

Deutsche Bank then took over the 

branches of the Böhmische Union-Bank, 

which had been under German 

management ever since it was set up in 

the 1870s. When taking over its 

branches, the Deutsche Bank made use 

of the Reich statute issued in the 

summer of 1938 on the disposing of 

Jewish property, which became 

applicable in the Czech border areas 

after their incorporation into the 

German Reich. In accordance with that 



124 

statute it declared doubtful or invalid the 

majority of Jewish debts in branches of 

the Böhmische Union-Bank as well as 

the Jewish stakes in them. In this way the 

Deutsche Bank rendered the Böhmische 

Union-Bank in debt to it, as it had to 

assume liability for those “bad” debts 

amounting to 187,200,000 crowns. Even 

prior to March 15, 1939, the two Reich 

banking giants had agreed to demarcate 

their relative areas of interest in the 

The occupation also involved drastic interference in the Czech economy. 

The Protectorate crown was seriously undervalued in relation to the Reichsmark. 

economy of the Czech provinces, under 

the supervision of Hans Kehrl, a leading 

official at the Ministry of the Economy, 

who had close ties with the Office for 

the Four-Year Plan run by Hermann 

Göring. 

The interests of the Dresdner Bank 

were represented in Prague by one of its 

directors, Reinhold von Lüdinghausen, 

whose task was to take over the 

Böhmische Escompte-Bank, a bank with 

multinational capital. It now became a 

purely German bank and was 

transformed into a subsidiary company 

of Dresdner Bank, which had obtained a 

75% share of its share capital. From the 

very day of the occupation, the interests 

of the Deutsche Bank were represented 

in Prague by one of its directors, Walter 

Pohle, who became a director of 

Böhmische Union-Bank. At both banks, 

leading officials or statutory 

representatives of Jewish origin were 

immediately dismissed. The board of 

management of the Böhmische



Escompte-Bank was reorganised under 

the chairmanship of Karl Rasche, a 

representative of the Dresdner Bank, and 

at the end of 1939, Oswald Rösler of the 

Deutsche Bank became chairman of the 

board at Böhmische Union-Bank. Both 

banks played a key role in the process of 

Germanisation of the Czech economy, 

particularly through their active 

involvement in the “Aryanization” of 

Jewish businesses. 

The economy of the Czech provinces 

was extremely valuable for the wartime 

economy of Nazi Germany. Berlin was 

attracted by the productive potential not 

only of the armaments industry, but also 

of heavy engineering and the iron and 

steel industry in general, which the head 

of the Office of the Four-Year Plan, 

Hermann Göring, saw as a way of 

easing the burden on the Reich’s overstretched 

facilities, such as in iron and 

steel. Göring therefore took a personal 

interest in Czech industry. As early as 

1939, he appointed Hans Kehrl his 

authorised representative. Kehrl was 

then sent to Prague by the Reich’s 

Minister of the Economy, Walter Funk. 

Göring reserved the right to take 

decisions on all basic economic matters 

in the Protectorate. He requested that 

its economic life should not be 

125 

Chapter IV 

disrupted in any way as he wanted to 

maintain its export capacity, so that 

Czech industry should continue to 

bring in foreign exchange that could be 

used throughout the German economy. 

At the same time, he was determined to 

prevent any “uncontrolled 

Aryanisation”, whereby officials of the 

Nazi party, in particular, had been lining 

their own pockets since the Anschluss, 

since, in his view, this property should 

One of the best known photographs of the occupation of Prague and of the entire 

Second World War was taken by Karel Hájek. 

be used “for the benefit of the Reich”. 

Kehrl came to Prague to oversee the 

implementation of Göring’s directives 

and orders, as well as to look after his 

specific interests. Chief among the 

latter was his decision to acquire for the 

Reichswerke Hermann Göring, a 

majority shareholding in the Škoda 

works, Zbrojovka, Brno, and the 

Vítkovice steelworks. 

The economy of the protectorate was 

formally in the hands of the Protectorate 

government, but in reality it was fully 

under the control of the authorities and 

institutions of the Reich. That meant 

above all the Deutsche Reichsbank, 

which at the very beginning of the 

occupation sent its special commissioner, 

Friedrich Müller, to the Czech National 

Bank in Prague (renamed during the 

occupation the National Bank for

Chapter IV 

Bohemia and Moravia). When the 

Office of the Reichsprotektor assumed 

its functions in mid-April 1939, Müller 

was made head of the banking group in 

its department of finance and economy. 

He was joined at the National Bank by 

another exponent of the interests of the 

German occupation administration, 

Herbert Winkler, a commissioner of the 

Office of the Reichsprotektor. The 

Office of the Reichsprotektor likewise 

secured for itself key positions in the 

Protectorate finance ministry, whose 

auditing division was run and overseen 

by Walter Utermöhle, head of the 

foreign exchange section of the finance 

and economy department of the Office 

of the Reichsprotektor. This branch of 

the German occupation administration 

was located directly in the Ministry of 

Finance of the Protectorate. The already 

powerful German influence on the 

institutions of the Protectorate 

government increased still further in 

January 1942, when a Reich German, 

Walter Bertsch was appointed Minister 

of the Economy and Labour of the 

Protectorate. 

The independence of the National 

Bank was purely formal; in practice it 

was subordinate to and managed from 

two centres – the Deutsche Reichsbank 

in Berlin and the Office of the 

Reichsprotektor. The two special 

commissioners – the representatives of 

the Reichsbank and the 

Reichsprotektor’s office – interfered in 

all areas of the National Bank’s activity, 

including personnel matters. Their 

overriding concern was “the interest of 

the German Reich” i.e. the 

subordination of the Protectorate to its 

economic needs. One of the first 

measures whereby the German Reich’s 

economy siphoned off funds from the 

Czech provinces was the mandatory 

surrender of the National Bank’s account 

surpluses to the Deutsche Reichsbank in 

Berlin. 

Armament dangerously depleted gold 

and foreign-exchange reserves in the 

Deutsche Reichsbank, and Hermann 

Göring, who was also in charge of the 

Reich’s foreign-exchange economy, saw 



126 

in the Protectorate a welcome source of 

funds, particularly for the import of 

strategic raw materials. During the final 

months of the Second Republic’s 

existence, Göring had already 

demanded uncompromisingly the 

surrender of a portion of the monetary 

gold that was supposed to be 

surrendered to the Third Reich along 

with foreign exchange in exchange for 

the Czechoslovak withdrawn from the 

ceded territories. Even though no 

account was taken of the other 

Czechoslovak property that remained 

on that territory, at the beginning of 

1939, Czecho-Slovakia transferred to 

the Deutsche Reichsbank foreign 

exchange to the value of 15 million 

crowns and almost 14 tons of gold as 

requested. After the Protectorate was 

proclaimed, the occupying authorities 

drew up a list of the gold and foreign 

exchange in all banking institutions, 

above all in the National Bank. One of 

the first tasks of the Reichsbank’s 

special commissioner in the National 

Bank, Friedrich Müller, was to secure 

this gold. On March 18, 1939, he issued 

an order to the management of the 

National Bank that the Czechoslovak 

gold lodged by the Bank of 

International Payments in Basle with 

the Bank of England in London should 

be transferred to the account of the 

Deutsche Reichsbank. That order was 

carried out just a few days later, on 

March 24, and the German Reich 

thereby acquired 23.087 tons of gold. 

Although the decision was taken in 

Berlin in 1940 to transfer all gold 

reserves to the Deutsche Reichsbank it 

was not fully carried out. Nevertheless 

on the basis of that decision, in June 

1940, 6.376 tons of gold were 

surrendered by the National Bank, 

along with a valuable numismatic 

collection of gold coins, and in the 

autumn of the same year a further 1.009 

tons of gold from the reserves of Škoda 

and Zbrojovka, that had autonomous 

foreign-exchange accounts. The 

National Bank was obliged to “sell” gold 

in order to “pay its debts to the German 

Reich”, and in the first year of the



occupation this amounted to 12.58 

tons. During the six years of the 

occupation, the Third Reich took 

control of a total of 42.899 tons of pure 

monetary gold from the National Bank 

for Bohemia and Moravia. 

The German Reich had a 

programme of incorporating the Czech 

provinces into the “German economic 

area”. It directed the Protectorate’s 

foreign trade towards the countries of 

central and south-eastern Europe. In 

April 1940, Slovakia, Hungary, 

Rumania and Yugoslavia accounted for 

70% of the exports from the 

Protectorate, although by the end of the 

year the German Reich assumed a 

dominant position. Its share in exports 

from the Protectorate amounted to 71% 

and of importance to the Protectorate 

as much as 80%. This meant, of course, 

increased trade ties with clearing 

agreement countries, which, while it 

did not gain it hard currency, did help 

to strengthen the German Reich’s 

economic and political ties with 

countries regarded as its “greater 

economic area”. Berlin expected to gain 

127 

Chapter IV 

hard currency from the export 

programme drawn up at the beginning 

of April 1939 with the managements of 

the Škoda factories and Zbrojovka, 

Brno. Its projected value was almost 

500 million crowns, with 37% of the 

manufactures going to the German 

Reich and the remainder being 

exported for hard currency to countries 

where Czech industry had a good 

standing. In 1939, the trade balance of 

The most important arms company in the Protectorate was ·koda in Pilsen, which was 

incorporated into the “Reichswerke Hermann Göring”. 

the Protectorate with countries having 

convertible currencies showed a surplus 

in excess of 500 million crowns, the 

hard currency profit of which was taken 

by the German Reich. 

The efficiency of Czech industry and 

the country’s intensive agricultural 

production, which also helped feed the 

population in the Reich motivated the 

rapid introduction of a war economy in 

the Protectorate. This was characterised 

by state control of industrial production 

and the circulation of merchandise, as 

well as by membership of centralised 

unions and employers’ organisations. 

Agricultural production was also subject 

to centralised regulation, while the

Chapter IV 

farmers were forbidden to sell their 

production on the open market and were 

obliged to deliver it to the state for 

official prices. Prices and wages were 

fixed by law and the mobilisation of 

manpower was ensured by the labour 

exchanges. By October 1939, rationing 

had been introduced on a sliding scale 

depending on the importance of a 

particular job for the war economy. The 

reality of war and the needs of the war 



128 

In view of the economic importance 

of the Protectorate for the German war 

economy and the impossibility of 

replacing Czech labour, plans for the 

solution of the “Czech question” were 

deferred “until a later time”. Hence the 

importance in Berlin’s eyes of the 

programme for “enhancing Germanness” 

in the Czech economy, a task undertaken 

by the leader of the Germans living in 

post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia, the SdP 

The step towards the systematic extermination of the Czech Jews was the decree on 

the “Aryanisation” of Jewish property of June 1939. In October 1941 transports started 

to leave Terezín for the extermination camps. 

economy led the German Reich on 

October 1, 1940 to abolish customs 

barriers between the German Reich and 

the Protectorate. The Protectorate’s trade 

was conducted via the Deutsche 

Verrechnungskasse in Berlin, which 

operated as a clearing centre. During the 

occupation 24,400 million crowns were 

credited to the Protectorate’s account, 

11,600 million crowns were used to cover 

the Protectorate’s imports from third 

countries. The difference of 12,800 

million crowns was “frozen” in Berlin 

and was never transferred to the 

Protectorate. 

deputy Ernst Kundt and the managing 

director of the German nationalist 

Kreditanstalt der Deutsche Anton 

Kiesewetter. This programme, which was 

discussed at length from the end of 1938, 

was based on so-called Economic 

Assistance to the Reich 

(Reichswirtschaftshilfe). This was to be 

the means whereby favourable credits 

were to be accorded to those German 

companies which could not obtain them 

in Czecho-Slovakia. Ten days after the 

establishment of the Protectorate, a 

Reich law was promulgated to support 

craft manufacture, whereby German



entrepreneurs in the Protectorate could 

obtain loans guaranteed in the German 

Reich of up to a level of 10 million 

crowns; soon afterwards that ceiling was 

removed altogether. Credit applications 

were dealt with by the so-called Main 

Credit Committee 

(Hauptkreditausschuss), on which were 

chiefly represented the Nazi Party, the 

regional leadership, economic groups and 

the German banks, plus the two 

representatives of the Reich Ministry of 

the Economy seconded to the Office of 

the Reichsprotektor. Unlike in the Reich, 

where those credits were accorded to 

companies playing a key role in the war 

economy, in the Protectorate, they were 

targeted at the medium-sized or smaller 

enterprises of a trading nature, with the 

aim of bolstering the German share in 

them at the expense of the Czech. By the 

end of 1944, German banks in the 

Protectorate had accorded Reichguaranteed 

credits worth over 32 million 

marks, part of which was intended for 

buying up “Jewish” companies. Those 

credits were destined chiefly for lesswell-endowed 

German applicants 

provided that they “enhanced the 

German business element” in a particular 

context. The “Aryanisation” of Jewish 

medium-sized property was essentially 

the business of the Kreditanstalt der 

Deutschen, the savings bank of the 

Sudeten Germans. The subsidiaries of 

the two German banking giants, the 

Böhmische Union-Bank and the 

Böhmische Escompte-Bank 

concentrated mostly on the 

“Aryanisation” of the larger Jewish 

companies, although they also kept an 

eye on the “Aryanisation” of mediumsized 

companies. 

In April 1941, the Office of the 

Reichsprotektor repeated its oftexpressed 

theory that the goal of “dejudaification” 

was the transfer of all 

suitable enterprises, trading companies, 

etc., to German hands. It also stated 

explicitly that German banks were to be 

associated with the process, so that the 

“Aryanised” firms should receive the 

credits and loans needed for their 

viability. In selecting suitable applicants, 

129 

Chapter IV 

“the concern should be that a German 

from the territory of the Protectorate 

should have a secure existence and that 

as many German compatriots as possible 

from the old Reich or abroad should 

move to the territory of the Protectorate. 

This will achieve the positive spread of 

the German element in the area of the 

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.” 

After the occupation of the Czech 

provinces in March 1939, the nascent 

German power centres formulated an 

“Aryanisation” strategy for another 

reason – the Protectorate regime had 

already attempted on its own to start the 

“Aryanisation” of Jewish companies. At 

the end of March, a consultation of the 

representatives of German banks with 

Hans Kehrl halted their plans and 

declared that “Aryanisation” was a matter 

for the Germans alone. 

“Aryanisation” was essentially set in 

train by the Gestapo when it confiscated 

the property of persons, and not only 

Jews, who had contravened the “legal 

norms” in the view of the occupation 

authorities. “Criminal” activities 

included illegal emigration, and the 

confiscation of fugitives’ property was 

placed in the hands of the receiver. In an 

initial phase, confiscated property, 

particularly fixed assets and land, was 

placed in the hands of the Böhmische 

Escompte-Bank. It did not deal with it 

directly, however, but through the 

intermediary of its subsidiary 

Allgemeine Treuhänd AG in Prague, 

which had obtained records of much of 

the Jewish-owned property, both 

buildings and land, and would draw the 

attention of the Gestapo to its existence; 

up to the autumn of 1940 it virtually had 

a monopoly over the administration of 

confiscated Jewish property. It lost that 

monopoly when it was obliged to accept 

an agreement with the other German 

banks – the Böhmische Union-Bank and 

the Kreditanstalt der Deutschen – 

whereby they divided up their spheres of 

influence. In March 1941, the Jewish 

property confiscated by the Gestapo and 

administered by Treuhänd was estimated 

at 10,000 million crowns. The head of 

the Gestapo, Heinrich Himmler,

Chapter IV 

demanded that the property, which 

included many Jewish industrial and 

commercial companies, be sold off. He 

came up against the objections of the 

other Reich institutions. They 

emphasised the need to obtain acceptable 

price levels as well as to leave it open for 

members of the Reich’s armed forces to 

acquire confiscated Jewish, Czech and 

even German property after the 

termination of hostilities. For that reason, 

a special office, the Vermögensamt beim 

Reichsprotektor für Böhmen und 

Mähren was eventually established at the 

beginning of September 1941. It started 

its operations a month before the mass 

transports of the Jewish population 

began. By June 1942, when the wave of 

“Aryanisation” connected with the 

transports was at its height, the 

Vermögensamt was running 234 large 

industrial concerns worth a total of 1.489 

billion crowns, including the Kosmos fats 

factory in Čáslav, the weaving and 

spinning mills at Náchod, Hronov, Úpice 

and Dvůr Králové, the Weinmann coal 

company, etc., plus 190 small concerns to 

a total value of 114 million crowns. The 

value of the agricultural land confiscated 



130 

exceeded 413 million crowns and that of 

building land, 830 million crowns. On 

the date in question, the Vermögensamt 

was holding confiscated Jewish and 

other property to a value of 6.028 billion 

crowns, originating, by all the evidence, 

solely from Bohemia. 

A further group of “Aryanised” 

property belonged to those Jewish 

persons who had received permission to 

move abroad, but only on condition that 

Harvest celebrations in Northern Moravia in 1943. Farmers were forced 

to supply the Reich. 

they leave their property in trust with the 

German banks. This was done on the 

basis of an agreement between the 

Gestapo, the Sicherheitsdienst and the 

German banks. By June 1939, that 

operation had brought in 440 million 

crowns in cash, securities, savings books, 

shares, fixed assets, land and exchange 

assets. As part of that operation, Hans 

Kehrl, charged the director of the 

Dresdner Bank, Karl Rasche and the 

director of the National Bank Jaroslav 

Preiss to negotiate with Rothschilds’ the 

sale of the Vítkovice steelworks. In the 

eventual contract that was to come into 

force in September 1939, Rothschilds 

agreed with the sum of 3,600,000 marks, 

which was a third of the price originally



requested. From July 1939, the property 

of Jews allowed to emigrate was 

concentrated in the Zentralstelle für 

Jüdische Auswanderung (renamed in 1942 

the Zentralamt für Regelung der 

Judenfrage). In March 1940, the 

Auswanderungsfond für Böhmen und 

Mähren was set up to administer that 

property. As its name indicated it was 

intended to serve the Jewish emigration, 

but the funds that flowed into it were 

used first and foremost to support the 

Germanisation of the Czech provinces. 

Mass “Aryanisation” was ushered in by 

the directive issued by Reichsprotektor 

Konstantin von Neurath on June 21, 

1939, that essentially defined Jews in 

terms of the Nuremberg Laws, which 

entered into force in the Protectorate on 

July 4, 1939. As far as property relations 

were concerned, the most important 

provision of von Neurath’s measure was 

the definition of a “Jewish firm”. In the 

case of public commercial companies or 

limited partnerships, it was sufficient for 

one of the partners to be Jewish in order 

for the company to be classified as 

Jewish. Likewise in the case of limited 

companies, it was enough for one 

member of the board of management or 

trustees to be Jewish. Also classified as 

Jewish companies were those in which 

there was over 25% Jewish capital. In 

fact, a firm could be declared Jewish if it 

was denounced as being “under decisive 

Jewish influence”. Neurath’s measure 

deprived the Jews of the right to dispose 

freely of their own companies; they were 

not allowed to sell or mortgage them, 

and the same applied to shares and real 

estate. The Reichsprotektor reserved the 

right to impose administrators 

(Treuhänder) on Jewish (or non-Jewish) 

companies. Articles of value, such as 

precious metals, art objects and art 

collections exceeding 10,000 crowns in 

value had to be reported to the offices of 

provincial counsellors. 

Treuhänder were imposed on all 

Jewish companies by the end of 1939 or 

the beginning of 1940. The German 

occupation authorities gradually 

increased pressure for them to be sold. 

On January 26, 1940, 

131 

Chapter IV 

the Reichsprotektor issued a decree 

excluding all Jews from the economic life 

of the Protectorate. From the following 

February ordinance were published 

which prohibited Jews from heading 

companies in certain field of economic 

activity and stating that such companies 

would be wound up and in exceptional 

cases “Aryanised”. Meanwhile measures 

were quickly taken to identify the various 

kinds of property still remaining in 

During the war the Nazis saw to it that 

the Czechs could “peacefully” get on with 

working for the Reich.The question of 

their extermination was to be 

dealt with after the victory. 

Jewish hands. On February 12, 1940, the 

Reichsprotektor ordered Jewish 

companies to make a declaration of the 

level of their operating capital at home 

and abroad and Jews were required 

within one month to provide inventories 

of land and shares and they owned and 

details of any business participation. By 

September 1940, shares to a value of 

three-quarters of a million crowns had 

been registered, not counting the shares 

confiscated by the Gestapo. In February

Chapter IV 

of that year, Jews had been ordered to 

deposit all securities, shares and items 

from precious metals at one of the hardcurrency 

banks. In addition, all savings 

books owned by Jews had to be 

transferred to blocked accounts. In July 

1941, Jewish deposits on blocked 

accounts totalled just over 2,100 million 

crowns. The Jewish population was 

under administrative pressure to 



The town of Îatec with festive decoration. 

132 

“voluntary and of their own account” 

give signed authority permitting the 

German banks to convert their property 

into cash. Essentially there was little 

difference between the procedure for 

selling a factory, shares or valuables 

compulsorily deposited in the vaults of 

selected banks. They all required formal 

written assent from their owners, after 

which the bank sent the valuables “with



their client’s consent” to the Hadega 

monopoly partnership belonging to the 

Kreditansalt der Deutschen, for 

conversion. 

The Jewish client was then credited 

on his blocked account with an amount 

equivalent to about a quarter of the price 

for which the items of precious metals or 

stones had been sold. The balance, after 

deduction of five percent commission 

was transferred by Hadega to the 

Reichsprotektor’s account. In line with 

directives, jewellery and similar 

valuables, including liturgical items, were 

dismantled and separated into precious 

metals and stones. Precious metals were 

melted down into anonymous ingots and 

the precious stones sold off separately. 

The gold and platinum ingots were later 

bought up from Hadega and later from 

the Auswanderungsfond (emigrants’ fund) 

by the National Bank for Bohemia and 

Moravia on the orders of the occupation 

authorities, although only the German 

Supervisory Office at the Protectorate’s 

Ministry of the Economy and Labour 

(Überwachungstelle beim Ministerium für 

Wirtschaft und Arbeit), headed by Walter 

Bertsch, had the right to dispose of 

them. By April 1945, the German 

occupation authorities had acquired 

482.35 kilos of pure gold, 5.25 kilos of 

platinum and 16,700 kilos of pure silver 

(15,800 kilos of which was sold to the 

German company Degusso in Frankfurt 

am Main) derived from the valuables of 

Jewish individuals and associations. That 

was the same “source” of diamonds sold 

by Hadega. By the end of 1942, 5128.80 

carats of brilliants and 582.04 carats of 

cut diamonds. Some of the artistically 

worked jewellery was not “dismantled” 

but instead sold off or hoarded. Items 

from precious metals and stones 

represented 0.1 percent of the 

“Aryanised” Jewish property, estimated at 

16-20,000 million crowns. 

The “Aryanisation” process and the 

process of confiscation of so-called 

“enemy property” in general considerably 

increased the capital interest of the 

German Reich in the Protectorate 

economy. In 1938, the capital interest of 

the German Reich in the Czech 

133 

Chapter IV 

provinces without the border areas 

amounted to 208,500,000 crowns and 

including the Austrian capital interest – 

415,600,000 crowns. At the end of the 

war, in 1945, the capital interest of the 

German Reich in the Protectorate 

amounted to 2.093 billion crowns, and 

with the Austrian share 2.375 billion 

crowns altogether. The growth of the 

German capital share in the Czech 

economy was also due to a large extent to 

the German banks – the Böhmische 

Escompte-Bank and the Böhmische 

Union-Bank. Those banks were required 

by their head offices to seek out Jewish 

companies in the Protectorate according 

to their clients’ specifications and to 

mediate their “sale”. Such a sale was 

disadvantageous for the Jewish owner. 

The purchase price was far less than the 

estimated value and far below the market 

price. The factory or other fixed asset 

was sold for the agreed price and the 

monetary equivalent would be credited 

to the blocked account of the former 

Jewish owner. However, the purchaser 

had to pay in addition to that purchase 

price a so-called equalisation fee, which 

was paid onto the account of the 

Reichsprotektor. If the “deal” was 

successfully concluded, the bank would 

profit from the “Aryanisation” intentions 

of its client. The new owner would be 

charged 2 percent of the purchase price 

as an agent’s commission. It had no 

intention of pushing the price too high; 

on the contrary. It would often indicate 

to its client that it would push it down as 

low as possible. What was crucial for the 

bank was not so much the profit from 

the sale as the new owner’s commitment 

that the “Aryanised” company would 

bank with them. Such a relationship was 

a fairly certain source of lucrative profit. 

When a sale fell through, it made no 

charge. The traditional Bohemian-based 

German bank, the Kredistanstalt der 

Deutschen, with offices in Liberec and 

Prague, also played a major role in the 

“sale” of middle-sized and smaller Jewish 

enterprises and real estate to German 

buyers. 

The expansion of Reich German 

capital was effected particularly by means

Chapter IV 

of the banking giants in the Reich, the 

Deutsche Bank and the Dresdner Bank, 

or such major concerns as IG 

Farbenindustrie, AG Reichswerke 

Hermann Göring or the Mannesmann 

concern. The purchase of shares in 

Czech companies was formally “above 

board” but the share prices were 

artificially depressed (so that it 

amounted to de facto confiscation). A 

minority holding was enough to allow 

Reich German capital to dominate a 

Czech company; Germans would take 

over the board of management and 

directorships and the Czech owners 

would become subordinate to them. 

Göring’s company swallowed up over 80 

firms in the Protectorate that had nearly 

150 thousand employees before the war 

(e.g. the Škoda Works in Plzeň, the 

Poldi Steelworks at Kladno, Zbrojovka 

in Brno, Avia in Prague and the 

Vítkovice Steelworks). 

The Germans also considerably 

strengthened their position in the sphere 

of agricultural production. Special SS 

units, the Settlement Bureau 

(Siedlungsamt) and the German 

settlement society drew up plans for 

establishing enclaves of German 

settlement in rural areas of Bohemia and 

Moravia, working on the assumption 

that Germans would be repatriated from 

eastern European, as well as on a wave of 

immigration from the Reich. During the 

war almost 16,000 farmsteads were 

confiscated with a total area of around 

550,000 hectares with a view to settling 

German immigrants on them. In 

addition closed military facilities for the 

German army were built in the 

countryside to undermine the Czech 

element there (Benešov and Vyškov 

districts) in the course of which 245 

communities were evicted and a total 

area of 80,000 hectares taken over. After 

the expected victory in the war, these 

areas were to be settled by Germans. 

Just prior to the German occupation, 

the Third Reich did not yet have a fullydeveloped 

strategy for “solving the 

Czech question” and Germanising the 

Czech economy. It took shape gradually, 

particularly as regards the capital 



134 

domination of the Czech economy as a 

precondition for its future 

Germanisation. The German occupation 

policies always took that aim into 

account, but refrained from imposing it 

radically and by force. During the war 

“calm” was to reign in the Protectorate, 

so that its economic potential should be 

most efficiently exploited for the war 

effort. Exploitation of the Protectorate’s 

economy by the occupying authorities 

The grateful Konrad Henlein welcomes 

Hitler back from Munich at the station in 

Berlin. At his side is Hermann Göring. 

assumed many and different forms. 

Among them was the special system for 

the circulation of Reichsmarks on the 

territory of the Protectorate. The 

National Bank for Bohemia and Moravia 

was allowed to accept them but was not 

allowed to release them back into 

circulation but had to surrender them to 

the Reichsbank in Berlin, thereby 

gaining a credit in marks in the German 

Reich. Most of it was “frozen” in 

Germany, i.e. a large proportion of the 

goods bought in the Protectorate for 

marks were acquired without an 

equivalent. In 1945 the National Bank’s 

claims on the German Reich amounted 

to 105,000 million crowns. 

We now know that the Reichsmark



was overvalued in relation to the 

Protectorate crown. Its official rate was 

fixed at one mark to ten crowns, although 

its real purchasing power was lower, in the 

range of 6-7 crowns. That meant that, at 

the beginning of the occupation, at least, 

German buyers received about a third of 

their purchases for free. Those currency 

developments encouraged inflationary 

trends, however, undermining the savings 

of a population already overburdened 

The Nazi soldiers were welcomed as liberators by the German population 

as they occupied the “Sudetenland”. 

with taxes and other dues towards the 

German Reich. The Czech provinces had 

to pay the Reich a so-called “matricular 

contribution” (Matrikularbeiträge) for its 

“protection”, for instance, which in the 

period 1940-1945 amounted to as much 

as 42,000 million crowns. 

Economic exploitation of the Czech 

provinces also took the form of 

Totaleinsatz, the mobilisation of Czech 

civilians to work in Germany as 

indentured labour, first men only and 

from the end of 1943 women also, when 

the 1924 generation was sent to work in 

the German aircraft industry. Some half 

a million Czech were sent to work in 

Germany (not counting concentrationcamp 

and other prisoners). 

135 

Chapter IV 

The significance of the Protectorate of 

Bohemia and Moravia for the war 

economy of Nazi Germany was due to 

the fact that as much as 70% of the 

industrial production of the former 

Czechoslovakia was located on its 

territory, above all iron and steel and 

engineering. During the 1941-1944 

period, part of Germany’s armaments 

industry was transferred to the 

Protectorate which was relatively safe 

compared to the territory of the Reich 

which was prey to air raids, and which 

had a sufficiently qualified labour force. It 

thus assured part of German industry 

favourable conditions for production. 

One may deduce from employment data 

of the period that the Protectorate 

accounted for 9-12% of the total 

industrial production of the “Greater 

German Reich”. Although productivity 

fell in the Protectorate during the war, it 

share in the industrial production of the 

“Greater German Reich” increased. It is 

estimated that industrial production in 

1944 was 20% higher than in 1939. This 

was the result of the occupation 

authorities’ determination to develop 

heavy industry which, in the spring of

Chapter IV 

1945, employed 65.3% of the active 

population of the Protectorate. From the 

beginning of the Protectorate, arms 

orders from the German Reich often 

exceeded the production capacity of the 

Czech arms factories, so many 

engineering plants were expanded, 

particularly after 1941. This did not 

involve only the large firms such as Škoda, 

ČKD, Poldi Kladno and Ringhoffer, but 

also smaller factories amounting to a total 

of 527. Three hundred and thirty new 

manufacturing facilities were brought on 

stream, many of them transferred from 

Germany or from other occupied 

countries. The Protectorate’s industries 

manufactured a wide range of materials 

for the German army, such as munitions, 

tanks, combat vehicles, aircraft engines, 

rocket launchers, or components for the 

V-1 and V-2 rockets, and the chemical 

industry commenced production of 

lignite-based synthetic fuels. 

The Czech provinces made a large 

contribution towards financing that arms 

boom both through exports whose hardcurrency 

profits were appropriated by the 

Reich or through the financial 



136 

operations described early that fuelled 

inflation trends in the Protectorate. 

Losses caused by the German 

occupation and military events on the 

territory of the Protectorate or the Czech 

provinces was not inconsiderable, even 

though, compared to other countries, 

Czech industry, infrastructure, etc., was 

not particularly damaged. Losses resulted 

from the confiscation of gold and foreignexchange 

reserves, from the foreign trade 

Since time immemorial, victors have enjoyed belittling their enemies.This was how busts 

of Czechoslovak leaders from confiscated schools and offices 

were treated in the “Sudetenland”. 

of the Protectorate, from trade with the 

Reich and from the monetary policies of 

the German occupation authorities. The 

occupation authorities also exerted 

pressure on the financial institutions to 

purchase non-interest-bearing German 

treasury bonds and promissory notes for 

their financial surpluses, which resulted 

from the increased savings of the 

population, who had little to spend their 

earnings on because of rationing. After 

the war those bonds were worthless and 

in some banks they absorbed over 40% of 

entrusted deposits. After the war, the 

government shouldered the burden of 

them to prevent the collapse of the 

monetary system. Those treasury bonds



were the main cause of the losses in 

Czech banks (in the Protectorate and the 

so-called Sudetenland) amounting to 

64,900 million crowns. Some kinds of 

property confiscated by the Gestapo or 

“Aryanised” was irrevocably lost. By 

confiscating the property of the 

Czechoslovak Army on the territory of 

the Protectorate, the German Reich 

obtained weaponry and equipment worth 

over 33,000 million crowns. Much of the 

rolling stock of Czechoslovak Railways 

was transferred to the Reich, along with 

river craft and aircraft, as well as raw 

materials important for the war economy, 

including timber resulting from 

unscrupulous felling. According to the 

reports of Czechoslovak experts prepared 

for the filing of reparation claims against 

Germany in view of the anticipated peace 

conference, the total damage and losses 

caused to the Czech provinces by German 

occupation in the 1939-45 period was 

estimated at 233,000 million crowns. 

A serious, though insufficiently 

investigated phenomenon is Czech 

economic collaboration during the 

German occupation. To a large extent is 

hard to qualify in legal and material terms 

as it is not easy to distinguish between 

entrepreneurs and employees who worked 

for the German war machine under 

pressure of possible reprisals from the 

occupation regime and those whose 

business activity and work was undertaken 

in order to survive. However there can be 

no denying that certain Czech companies 

willingly supplied the German war effort, 

and the Baťa company undoubtedly 

constitutes a chapter all to itself. 

THE SUDETENLAND 

AS A REICHSGAU 

(Text compiled by Zdenûk Radvanovsk˘ 

using material by Stanislav Biman, Jan 

Gebhart, Jaroslav Hoffman, Ludomír 

Kocourek, Kvûtoslava Kocourková, Jan 

Kuklík, sr.,Václav Kural and Jaroslav Tomsa.) 

The occupation of the border areas of 

the Czech provinces and their 

incorporation into the German Reich. 

Under the terms of the Munich 

Agreement, the military occupation of 

137 

Chapter IV 

the border areas took place from October 

1 to 10. From October 1 to 7, the 

uncontested territory was occupied 

(Zones 1 - 4) an then the so-called Zone 

5 was occupied even before its final 

frontiers had been fixed. The operation 

was carried out by five groups of infantry 

troops. 

The occupying troops were supposed 

to ensure calm and order on the annexed 

territory for the Czech population as 

Satirical also were the many posters 

announcing the “death” of the 

Czechoslovak Republic posted up in the 

border areas. 

well, and also to suppress any active or 

passive resistance, thus paving the way 

for the transfer of the territory’s 

administration to the Reich. 

It still remained to reach a final 

definition of the 5 th Zone of Occupation 

– the largest in area. The extent of the 

annexation was to be decided by an 

international committee based in Berlin, 

comprising envoys of the states signatory 

to the Munich Agreements and 

Czechoslovak representatives. The 

committee also had to determine the 

territory on which, by the end of 

November 1938 at the latest, the 

population was to decide by referendum 

whether to remain in the Czechoslovak 

Republic or be “incorporated” into the 

Reich. 

At first it looked as if the committee 

would respect normal diplomatic usages. 

However, after two days, the German 

delegates started to table only categorical 

demands and orders, in line with Hitler’s 

directives. Hitler demanded the

Chapter IV 

unconditional establishment of “strategic 

borders” between the Reich and 

Czechoslovakia. The international 

committee was simply supposed to 

rubber-stamp this demand. 

The representatives of Henlein’s SdP 

tabled their own often more radical and 

absurd territorial claims on 

Czechoslovakia. Its leaders as well as 

some of the German nobility vehemently 

requested the shifting of the borders so 

that all their lands should be 

incorporated into the Reich. A Sudeten- 

German bureau was actually hastily set 

up in Berlin to provide justifications for 

the most extensive annexation possible 

to the detriment of the Czechoslovak 

Republic. 

By the beginning of November 1938, 

Germany had succeeded in obtaining the 

annexation of over one hundred Czech 

villages in the districts of Jilemnice, 

Český Dub, and Chodsko. By this time 

it was no longer a matter of a 5 th Zone 

but a de facto 6 th Annexation Zone that 

had not been previously agreed on. 



138 

Various prominent Czechs and entire 

local councils protested in vain to the 

representatives of the western countries. 

After the Czechoslovak delegation in 

Berlin had failed to prevent the 

annexation of the 6 th Zone, a 

Czechoslovak-German memorandum 

about the new frontiers was signed on 

November 20, 1938. The next day, it 

was ratified by the international 

committee in Berlin. Further to that 

The NSDAP, represented by Rudolf Hess ceremoniously receives from Konrad Henlein 

the gift of the Sudeten-German Party, which naturally merged 

with the Nazi Party in the Reich. 

document a “law on the reunification of 

the Sudeten territory with the German 

Reich” was issued, which in the eyes of 

German law culminated the “return of 

the Sudeten Germans to the Reich”. In 

spite of that settlement, efforts 

continued to achieve still further 

frontier revisions in the areas of 

Litoměřice, Znojmo, Louny and 

Ratiboř, and there were even arbitrary 

annexations in various areas (e.g. 

Chrastava in southern Moravia, Stádlo 

near Šternberk, Trnávka, Lázy near 

Jevíčko, or the so-called “tip of 

Bohemia” near Turnov).



Czechoslovakia’s weak position was 

exploited by Poland and Hungary, 

which also helped themselves to 

territory they had long claimed. 

Whereas the preceding events 

represented an incalculable national 

tragedy for the Czechoslovak Republic 

and the Czech population, on the 

Sudeten-German side, the relief over 

the resolution of the crisis, the tension 

of the previous weeks and months and 

the great expectations from the Reich 

all gave rise to unbounded enthusiasm. 

Almost all sections of the Sudeten- 

German population celebrated the 

occupation. The euphoria of those days 

is testified to by letters of thanks to the 

Führer, speeches by the clergy and 

leaders of local authorities, and 

memoirs. Only a outright opponent of 

National Socialism could fail to share 

the rapturous enthusiasm. Even though 

contemporary descriptions were 

doctored for propaganda purposes, the 

accounts of the Sudeten-German 

eyewitnesses indicate that even decades 

139 

Chapter IV 

later people recalled those days with 

intense feelings of “redemption” or 

“liberation” .Almost all the testimonies 

reflect a deep sense of Sudeten-German 

unity, reinforced chiefly by three 

phenomena: the displays of the German 

Freikorps, the activity of the National 

Socialist welfare service 

(Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt – 

NSV) and the Winter Aid Campaigns 

(Winter-Hilfe-Werk – WHW), and, last 

During “Kristalnacht “ on November 9, 1938, the Nazis pillaged Jewish property 

throughout the Reich, egged on by Goebbels. Forty-four synagogues in northern 

Bohemia were also set on fire. 

but not least, the visit of Adolf Hitler to 

the Sudeten-German areas. 

Once the outcome of the Munich 

Agreements was known, many Czechs, 

Jews and German opponents of the Nazi 

regime fled inland from those areas out 

of fear of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, 

Freikorps or radical Sudeten Germans. 

After the border areas were occupied, 

Czech citizens found themselves in a 

very tricky situation and had to decide 

quickly what steps to take. In many cases 

they virtually became overnight 

inhabitants of a foreign country. 

The army and police were German and

Chapter IV 

they were followed later by the entire 

bureaucratic machinery of the German 

Reich. Czechs more or less became 

figures of hate and targets of 

victimisation. However, they still had the 

choice. One possibility was to stay and 

hope that they would not be evicted 

from their own flats or cottages or lose 

their jobs, and that they would manage 

to survive somehow. The other option 

was to flee to the remainder of the 

Czechoslovak (a few weeks later 

Czecho-Slovak) Republic. Not everyone 

left straight away when the occupation 

took place. Many hesitated or were 

forced for various reasons to depart (or 

flee) several weeks or months later. 

However, that gave them an opportunity 

to form an idea of how the Czech and 

Germans would coexist on that territory. 

One of them described his experience as 

follows: “The Czechs were discriminated 

against as a whole in every sphere of life. 

Those civil servants who remained were 

fired, many tradespeople were forced to 

go into liquidation while others faced a 

vicious boycott. Skilled craftsmen lost 

their jobs and the German mayors forced 

the farmers to sell fertile land for 

derisory sums or move away into the 

interior. Czech schools, cultural 

institutions, newspapers, sports centres 

and clubs remained closed. In pubs and 

public premises signs went up saying 

“No Czech to be spoken here!” It is hard 

to estimate the numbers of those who 

fled, because at least twenty-five 

thousand had already escaped from the 

rampages of Henlein’s radical supporters 

before Munich. A survey issued by the 

Ministry of the Interior in Prague about 

the situation of fugitives as of December 

3, 1938, speaks of a total of 151,997 

persons. That total comprised 125,425 

Czechs (85.7%), 14,925 Jews (11.23%) 

and 11,647 German anti-fascists 

(8.75%). 

In the end, the area of Czech territory 

occupied amounted to 28,942 square 

kilometres. The size of the population in 

the annexed territory has yet to be 

estimated with any real certainty. Most 

frequently quoted are the 3,400,000 

Sudeten Germans who “returned to the 



140 

Reich”. According to those figures, the 

area occupied amounted to 38% of the 

total area of the Czechoslovak Republic 

with 36% of the population living in 

Bohemia and Moravia. After the defeat 

of Poland in 1939, the Third Reich, as 

represented by German Silesia also took 

over the Těšín area previously annexed by 

Poland, so that Germany now held all 

the occupied territory of Bohemia, 

Moravia and Silesia. This amounted to a 

total of about 30,000 square kilometres 

with a population of 356,700. In 

geographical terms, the land surrendered 

to Germany was quite heterogeneous, 

but it had one common feature. It was 

hilly and rocky terrain, which had 

formerly constituted the borders of 

Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia and was of 

fundamental strategic and military 

importance for the Czechoslovak 

Republic. The frontier between the 

Sudeten district of the Reich and 

Czecho-Slovakia ran for a total of 435 

kilometres, but the territory was only 51 

kilometres wide at its narrowest point. 

Its overall geographical situation was 

reflected in its poor soil and climatic 

conditions, which naturally had 

economic repercussions. 

One must add to these factors that 

the territorial changes totally disrupted 

the political, economic and social 

development of the border areas up till 

then and dislocated historical links in 

terms of transport, economics, trade 

and the entire tertiary sector. The 

traditional division of labour, as well as 

customer-supplier relations were 

impaired. All in all it represented a 

watershed as far as the machinery of the 

national economy was concerned. Part 

of what used to be normal domestic 

trade was now international and a 

customs-free system was introduced on 

the borders with the Sudeten districts of 

the Reich. The introduction of a 

customs union remained one of the 

strategic aims of German economic 

expansion into central Europe. The lost 

economic output of the entire annexed 

territory greatly hampered the 

economic scope of what remained of 

Czechoslovakia.



From the Nazis’ point of view, the 

process of incorporating the economy of 

the Sudeten district of the Reich and 

other annexed territories into the wider 

economic sphere of Nazi Germany was 

particularly crucial both in terms both of 

the existing economic structure of the 

territory and of the state it found itself at 

the time of Munich. With the 

annexation, Hitler’s Germany acquired 

an essentially industrial area, in which 

the territory of northern and northwestern 

Bohemia was among the most 

heavily industrialised of central Europe. 

For years the natural conditions had been 

exploited for the development of mining 

and heavy industry (chemicals), but 

above all for many different branches of 

light industry whose production had 

been characteristic of the northern part 

of the border areas of the Czech 

provinces for decades. The capacity of 

that consumer industry was traditionally 

geared towards export and as a 

consequence the area was characterised 

as not only heavily industrialised but also 

as an export-oriented zone. The 

predominant position of export-based 

141 

Chapter IV 

consumer goods industries soon proved 

to be a problem and have its negative 

side. It depended on imported raw 

materials. In addition the overall 

structure of industrial production soon 

turned out to be not particularly 

unsuitable and became a fundamental 

obstacle to the economic development of 

the region within the framework of the 

Greater German Reich as a whole. 

Similar effects were felt as a result of the 

The German border areas of the Czech lands used to frame the Führer’s photograph. 

tremendous disparities between the 

industrial agglomerations and the areas 

with unproductive and relatively 

backward agriculture. And the highly 

differentiated demographic and social 

structures, resulting from the historical 

development of the various annexed 

territories had a direct bearing on this. 

The creation of the Reichsgau 

Sudetenland 

In view of the fact that the annexed 

occupied territory was not self-contained 

geographically speaking and that 

historically no such region had ever 

existed, the authorities of the German 

Reich were obliged to seek novel ways of

Chapter IV 

ensuring its efficient administration. 

First of all the Germany military took 

over the administration. There followed 

a brief period of so-called military 

government from October 1-20. During 

this period the supreme representative of 

the Reich government was the 

commander of the occupying army, 

Lieutenant-General Walter von 

Brauchitsch. In addition, at the level of 

the individual military headquarters 

“heads of civilian administration” also 

operated. In accordance with the 

Führer’s decree about the administration 

of the Sudeten territory issued on 

October 1, 1938, the key role was to be 

played by the Sudeten-German leader 

Konrad Henlein, who was appointed 

“Gauleiter for the Sudeten territory” 

(he was later appointed Reichsstatthalter 

according to the Sudetensgaugesetz). 

However, he was not to assume his 

functions until Hitler had relieved the 

army commander of his temporary 

mission. Von Brauchitsch proclaimed the 

end of military government by a special 

directive on October 20, 1938. He 

announced that he had fulfilled the tasks 

received from the Commander in Chief 

of the Wehrmacht and that the army had 

completed its mission. He sent an open 

letter to Henlein placing the 

administration of the territory in his 

hands. Henlein responded also in an 

open letter and “on behalf of the Sudeten 

people” he thanked him for their 

“liberation”. 

One of Henlein’s first decisions as 

Gauleiter was to dissolve all political 

parties and ban all the existing 

newspapers and journals. On the basis of 

his order of October 10, the right of 

assembly was also abolished, although 

the time being it did not apply to the 

SdP and its affiliates, which were alone 

allowed to continue in operation. The 

last party congress of the SdP was held 

in Ustí nad Labem on October 16, 1938. 

Two weeks later Hitler declared the 

creation of a Sudeten section of the 

NSDAP, whose leadership was 

answerable to the Reich leadership in 

Munich. In line with the principles of 

the Nazi totalitarian regime, the 



142 

NSDAP had a decisive say in virtually all 

areas of life in the Sudetengau. A party 

structure was therefore set up without 

delay, based on 40 (and later 45) district 

NSDAP organisations. The lowest level 

of the party structure were the local 

branches, 1824 of which were created in 

the Sudetengau. The SdP formally 

disbanded as of November 5, 1938 and 

in the course of the following months 

only trusted members of the SdP who 

had rendered services to the cause 

transferred their membership to the 

NSDAP. The number of Sudeten- 

German members of the NSDAP is 

estimated at roughly 520,000 in spite of 

all the restrictions placed on the 

“transfer”; that represented 16% of the 

total population of the Sudetengau and 

ranked it in first place in the Reich in 

terms of membership rates. The 

membership transfer was entrusted to 

Henlein’s deputy, Karl Hermann Frank. 

That advancement paved the way for his 

appointment as deputy Reichsstatthalter 

by Hitler, his promotion to the rank of 

SS-Obergruppenführer and Gauleiter of 

the Sudeten section of the NSDAP in 

the party hierarchy. On December 4, a 

by-election to the Reichsrat was held. 

A number of Henlein’s closest henchmen 

were thus given an opportunity to 

“integrate themselves” into the upper 

echelons of the region’s power structures. 

That marked the end of the basic 

political transformations and the 

Sudetenland was transformed into a 

“new component of the German Reich”. 

Within this new political entity Nazi 

measures were based on four 

fundamental principles: the 

identification of state administration and 

local government; the Führer principle; 

the personal union of the NSDAP and 

the state; and the total manipulation of 

the life of society, ensured by the 

consistent application of the principle of 

gears and levers, in which the Sudeten 

Germans occupied an important 

position, so that they were not mere 

subjects of Berlin’s policies, but were also 

had responsibility. 

At the highest level, that personal 

union of the territorial organisation of



the internal administration and the party 

structure of the NSDAP was assured by 

Konrad Henlein. At the level of the 

individual districts, the work of the 

NSDAP was directed by district leaders 

directly responsible to Konrad Henlein. 

Each local organisation was run by a 

local leader who was in charge of the cell 

leaders and block leaders. In that manner 

the totalitarian party had access to over 

house and every family. Its orders, which 

were unquestioned, were fulfilled not 

only by party members but virtually by 

all members of affiliated organisations 

(the SA, the German Labour Front - 

Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the German Girls’ 

Union – Bund der deutschen Mädchen, the 

NSV, etc.). It became a social duty and a 

condition of their livelihood for all 

members of the population to belong to 

one of them. To achieve still more 

effective “control of the masses and of 

individuals”, each of the “leaders” was 

personally responsible for their allotted 

area or department and was duty bound 

to give regular reports on activity therein. 

The aim of all those organisational and 

systemic measures was the total 

manipulation of society as a whole. That, 

indeed, was the essential role of the 

NSDAP. The NSDAP was also 

intricately linked to the network of the 

security service (Sicherheitsdienst - SD) 

and other organs of the security and 

oppressive apparatus of the regime, 

particularly the political police, the 

Gestapo. The entire system was also 

intended to minimise expressions of 

dissatisfaction or resistance movements. 

The Sudeten Germans gained their 

national victory but lost their democracy. 

During the period up to March 15, 

1939, forty district NSDAP leaderships 

were answerable to the Liberec-based 

Sudetengau leadership of the NSDAP. 

After the occupation of Bohemia and 

Moravia they were joined by a further 

five district leaderships on the territory 

of the Protectorate, based at Hradec 

Králové, Moravská Ostrava, Olomouc, 

Plzeň and Prague. 

The process of establishing a Reich- 

German administration in the annexed 

Czech border areas represented above all 

143 

Chapter IV 

an endeavour to liquidate without delay 

all democratic traces of the previous 

Czechoslovak local government and civil 

service. They were replaced completely by 

the totalitarian leader principle, enshrined 

in the law of March 25, 1939 on the 

reconstruction of the Sudeten Reichsgau 

that came into force on April 15, 1939, 

after minor amendments to take into 

account the occupation of the remaining 

Czech provinces. The entire territory of 

the Reichsgau Sudetenland was divided 

into three government districts 

(Regierungsbezirke) each run by a 

Regierungspresident. The president of the 

Cheb Regierungsbezirk with 

headquarters at Karlovy Vary, was 

Wilhelm Sebekovsky, of the Ústí nad 

Labem district, Hans Krebs, and of the 

Opava district, Friedrich Zippelius. The 

organisation of the newly-created 

Reichgau was, among other things, was 

an experimental model for the planned 

reform of the Reich’s entire 

administration. 

Not all the territories hived off were 

incorporated in the Reichsgau 

Sudetenland. The south-Bohemian and 

south-Moravian territories became part 

of the neighbouring Reichsgauen. The 

areas adjoining the former Austria 

henceforth came under the Reichsgauen 

of Oberdonau and Niederdonau and the 

territory on the Bavarian border was 

assigned to the Niederbayern Reichsgau 

based at Regensburg. In addition, some 

smaller areas of the territory annexed in 

northern Moravia were not incorporated 

in the Opava Regierungsbezirk, but were 

administered from Opole in Poland (this 

particularly concerned the Silesian 

district of Hlučín). The activity of the 

NSDAP in those areas was run by the 

relevant Gau leadership of the party. 

That was probably due to the fears of the 

NSDAP leadership (voiced in particular 

by Martin Bormann), that the creation of 

a single administrative unit for all the 

annexed territories might overemphasise 

the specific character of the Sudeten 

Germans. The latter were not to claim 

“their own territory in the German 

Reich” but were destined to be fully 

integrated into the Reich as a whole.

Chapter IV 

The establishment of the Reichsgau 

Sudetenland was finalised in the law of 

March 25, 1939 that came into force on 

April 15, 1939, in which its official title 

appeared for the first time. The internal 

divisions were settled by the 

Sudetengaugesetz of April 14, 1939, that 

applied from May 1 of that year. 

The population of the Sudetengau 

Along with the Nazi German troops, 

operational units of the security police 

also arrived in border areas. Their first 

task was to carry out a “clean-up” 

operation, i.e. the preventive arrest of the 

new regime’s opponents. It was then up 

to the operational divisions of the 

Ordnungspolizei to cover the rear of the 

advancing army and prevent any 

destruction of or damage to important 

buildings and installations. The 

preventive arrests of anti-Nazis and 

democrats took place during the period 

of military government, roughly October 

1-20, 1938, and it was even more 

extensive than anticipated. 

Approximately ten thousand persons 

were rounded up, about a third of whom 

were sent to concentration 

camps by the Nazis. 

Apart from the continuing arrests of 

regime opponents, the Gestapo started 

to focus its attention on persons of 

Jewish origin. From the very first day of 

the take-over, the Nazis had enforced the 

Nuremberg Laws on the territory of the 

Reichsgau Sudetenland. The police and 

particularly the Gestapo used the tested 

methods of racial persecution with the 

aim of forcing the Jews to leave the 

territory of the Reich. 

Persecution of the Jews had not only 

racial but also economic motives. The 

Nazi regime focused its attention on 

factories, shops, finance capital and other 

property in Jewish ownership. The 

Gestapo quickly confiscated 

“abandoned” Jewish property and in 

agreement with the provincial 

parliaments imposed politically 

experienced “Aryan” bosses with on 

Jewish businesses and shops. The process 

of “Aryanisation” which had been under 

way in the “old” Reich since the end of 



144 

1937 was rapidly introduced in the 

Reichsgau Sudetenland too. 

The total expulsion of the Jews from 

the border areas was yet to happen, 

however. A suitable pretext was sought 

and soon found. When, on November 7, 

1938, a young Jewish emigrant shot dead 

the German diplomatic von Rath in 

Paris it sparked off anti-Jewish pogroms 

as part of the so-called Kristalnacht riots, 

November 9-10, 1938. In Most, Teplice, 

Mariánské Lázně, Litoměřice and 

elsewhere synagogues were set on fire. In 

other places Jewish shops were looted, 

and the windows and furnishings of 

Jewish dwellings were smashed. The 

anti-Jewish campaigns persisted into 

1939. A summary of those events makes 

telling reading: forty-four synagogues 

and three prayer rooms burnt down and 

demolished and the ravages of race 

hatred did not even spare the cemeteries, 

sixty-three of which were devastated. In 

the course of November and December 

1938, more Jews were arrested and sent 

to internment camps. 

During the subsequent onslaught, the 

Nazis managed to drive most of the 

Jewish population out of the border area. 

The flats, shops, consulting rooms, 

lawyers’ chambers they left behind were 

then occupied by “Aryan” members of 

the population, which totally contradicts 

the argument advanced by certain 

Sudeten-German historians and 

journalists that the local population 

knew nothing about the persecution of 

the Jews and were not 

involved in any way. 

The Nazi authorities also devoted a 

lot of attention to the Czech minority 

remaining on Sudeten territory, who 

were generally regarded as unreliable and 

hostile to the Reich. A proportion of the 

Czechs mentioned had fled inland even 

before the arrival of the Wehrmacht and 

the police units for fear of victimisation 

and persecution. But a section of the 

Czech population, particularly the oldestablished 

inhabitants, linked with the 

area by ties of tradition, ownership and 

family, stayed on. By now less than half 

of the original Czech population lived on 

the occupied territory. They represented



roughly 12-13% of the total number of 

all inhabitants living on the annexed 

lands in the autumn of 1938. According 

to the – clearly fraudulent – census of 

May 17, 1939, 291 thousand Czechs 

were living on the territory. After the 

outbreak of war and the conscription of 

the German menfolk, the number of 

Czechs in the annexed territories rose 

relatively and de facto, as Czech labour 

took the place of the dwindling German 

labour force in the Nazi economy. It is 

estimated that the number of Czechs 

exceeded 400 thousand. The Czech 

145 

Chapter IV 

Unalloyed enthusiasm for annexation to the Reich was shortlived in the “Sudetentland”. 

ethnic minority constituted compact 

ethnic groups in the districts of Most, 

Podještědí and Pojizeří and particularly 

in the Opava Regierungsbezirk where the 

Czechs numbered over 160 thousand 

and were in the majority in two districts, 

Bílovec and Zábřeh. 

From the outset, the Nazi 

administration had pondered on how to 

get rid of the Czech population. In the 

end the planned expulsion of the Czechs 

never happened. Instead forced 

Germanisation was pursued with 

increasing intensity, in the political,

Chapter IV 

economic, social and cultural fields. 

Immediately after the occupation Czech 

political parties were banned, and soon 

afterwards so also were Czech 

associations and clubs with the sole 

exception of the Czech voluntary fire 

corps, which was placed under German 

leadership. All Czech middle, secondary 

and vocational schools were abolished 

and most of the primary schools; in the 

surviving Czech-language primary 

schools the curriculum was Nazioriented 

and geared to Germanisation. 

There was no opportunity for young 

Czechs to attend Czech secondary 

school or university. There was no longer 

any Czech press, theatre, radio or cinema 

and no publicly guaranteed scope for 

Czech national cultural activities. 

The Czechs were no longer 

represented in any way in the 

administration, politics, the economy or 

culture, which meant that the German 

administration had less chance to involve 

them actively. Pro-German or pro-Nazi 

sympathies tended to be expressed only 

in ethnically mixed or ambivalent 

families. On the other hand, the 

isolation of the Czech populace – the 

absence of social contacts and the lack of 

information – contributed to their 

increasing disorientation, sense of 

friendlessness, anxiety, constant fear and 

worry. And so whereas the German 

ethnic minority prior to Munich enjoyed 

national rights and autonomy, the Nazis 

in the Reichsgau Sudetenland adopted 

quite the opposite approach to the 

Czechs and condemned them to be a de 

facto workforce with no rights. 

An extremely tricky and sensitive issue 

for the Czech population was the 

possibility of opting for Czechoslovak 

citizenship under the agreement signed 

between Germany and the Czecho- 

Slovak Republic on November 20, 1938, 

which also allowed Germans living in 

Czecho-Slovakia to opt for German 

citizenship. The snag was that if Czechs 

so opted, as they could according to the 

agreement up until March 31, 1940, they 

would be allowed to emigrate but could 

only take their moveable assets with 

them. Neither of the parties to the 



146 

agreement were very keen on too many 

people opting for different citizenship, 

however. The Germans wanted to retain 

their ethnic minority, and hence their 

political representation, in the rump 

Republic, while the Czecho-Slovak 

government feared that another influx of 

Czechs from the border areas would 

multiply the already serious economic 

and social problems caused by the arrival 

of refugees. There are no available figures 

for the precise number of those who 

opted for Czecho-Slovak citizenship, but 

it may be assumed that they accounted 

for most of those who declared 

themselves to be Czech or Protectorate 

subjects in the census of May 1939. 

There are no precise figures either for 

the population of the “Sudetenland” in 

later years. We simply know that the 

overall natural population increase in the 

occupied border areas amounted to about 

120 thousand up to May 1945, although 

some sources claim figures of 124 

thousand or 133 thousand. That growth 

was pronounced in the case of the 

Germans in the first years of the 

occupation before sharply falling. The 

trend among the Czechs was the 

opposite. 

We only have detailed information 

about the natural demographic growth 

for the Sudetengau for the first years, and 

then for the entire occupied territory for 

the year 1944. In the Sudetengau overall 

growth rose until 1940, when the 

absolute increment was 28,137 which 

represented an annual growth rate of 9.5 

per thousand which exceeded the Reich 

average of 7.4 per thousand and was 

much higher than in the Protectorate 

(3.3 per thousand. In the subsequent 

years, however, the rate rapidly declined 

so that by 1942, the absolute increment 

in the Sudetengau was only 7,822 or 2.5 

per thousand. On the other hand, the 

population drop was also due to the 

almost 200,000 war losses. 

Natural growth therefore had only a 

slight effect on the demographic 

situation in the occupied territories. In 

normal circumstances, by 1945, the 

Sudetengau should have had 3,046,000 

inhabitants, and the occupied border



areas as a whole a population of some 

3,687,000. In reality, however, the 

situation was quite different. If we 

disregard the changes directly related to 

the Munich events that are mentioned 

elsewhere, the first wave of immigration 

happened straight afterwards, and was 

essentially connected with the 

establishment of the occupation 

administration (40,000 immigrants), i.e. 

mostly from Germany. However that 

growth was offset by departures from the 

border areas to Germany, and in 1939 to 

the Protectorate. Meanwhile Sudeten 

Germans continued to leave for the 

Reich. From mid-October 1938 to the 

middle of 1941 alone, some 160 

thousand left from the Sudetengau to 

Germany, mostly in search of work. 

Hence the total population of the 

Sudeten regions tended to stagnate in 

the first years of the occupation, if we do 

not take into account the departure of 

soldiers for the front. According to one 

source, in 1938, the population of all the 

occupied border areas was 33% of the 

total population of the Czech provinces, 

while in 1942 it was 33.1%, although in 

absolute terms the number of inhabitants 

of the annexed territory rose slightly 

from 3,585,000 to 3,662,000. In the 

following years of the war the total 

population of the “Sudetenland” again 

rose, but now it tended to be to the 

detriment of Germans. According to the 

source already quoted, the size of the 

population in the annexed border areas 

reached 3,777,000 in 1944, i.e. 34% of 

the total population of the Czech 

provinces. 

The second wave of immigration was 

chiefly due to the evacuation of bombed 

German cities in the closing years of the 

war. The influx of Germans from 

bombed areas (c. 30,000) and the arrival 

of Germans resettled from the eastern 

occupied zones (Bessarabia, Bukovina, 

Volhynia) and the South Tyrol, were not 

enough to make up for the drain of 

German workers from the border areas 

and ever wider conscription of men to 

fight at the front. Some of the Sudeten 

inhabitants, in this case the Czechs in 

particular, were sent to work in Germany 

147 

Chapter IV 

for varying periods of time (the number 

of them is not known precisely), on the 

other hand Czechs from the Protectorate 

were sent to the border areas and the 

Sudetengau in particular, in spite of the 

objections of the Sudeten Nazis. 

Whereas up to August 1940, just over 10 

thousand Protectorate subjects had been 

sent to the Sudetengau, by April 1944, 

about 85 thousand people from the 

Protectorate were already working there. 

This increased the overall 

population size. 

The growing need for labour and ever 

more frequent drafting of Germans to 

the front had to be compensated for by 

“foreign” workers, particularly from the 

ranks of the prisoners of war and the 

foreign labourers, mostly from the 

eastern Slav countries, Russia, the 

Ukraine and Poland. The number of 

foreign workers in the Sudetengau rose in 

the years 1940 - 1944 from 6,230 to 

100,848 and of prisoners of war from 

1,112 to 38,361, the greatest increases 

being in 1943 and 1944. The total size of 

the workforce in the Sudetengau rose 

from 285,420 in 1939 to 454,058 in 

1944. Only part of it was supplied by 

locally, such as by the introduction of 

universal compulsory employment after 

the proclamation of “total war”, the 

suppression of businesses less essential 

for the war effort, and the employment 

of as many young people and women as 

possible. According to other sources, the 

number of foreign workers in the 

Sudetenland was even higher and in 

mid-1944 amounted to over 300,000. 

However, that figure included 120 

thousand Protectorate subjects, 18 

thousand of whom came across the 

frontier each day to work. A further 130 

thousand were of other nationalities and 

the remaining 70 thousand were 

prisoners of war. Throughout the entire 

occupied territories, the number of 

prisoners of war rose to over 100 

thousand in the course of 1944. 

The prisoners of war were placed in 

the border areas of the Czech provinces 

above all because the Nazis feared to 

station them in the Czech heartland for 

political reasons. To a certain extent that

Chapter IV 

also applied to foreign workers, 

particularly the Slav ones. Another 

reason was that there was not such a 

shortage of labour in the Protectorate as 

in other German areas (because of 

conscription and departures for the 

front); on the contrary, it was an 

important source of labour 

for the Nazi economy. 

The occupation of the border areas 

and the subsequent war had a drastic 

effect on the lives of the population there 

that there was not a single family 

untouched by the changes brought 

about. This was also reflected in the 

demographic situation, the natural 

variation and, in particular, emigration. 

Thousands of inhabitants moved away 

for good, thousands moved temporarily 

and thousands also died, albeit on 

different sides of the barricades. 

The greatest tragic movement of 

populations was caused by the war. The 

Sudeten Germans who had jubilantly 

welcomed their annexation by Nazi 

Germany, many of whom stuck by Hitler 

right to the last moment, truly paid with 

their lives. According to most recent 

estimates, 175-197 thousand Germans 

from Czechoslovakia (and maybe even 

more) died in the war, and 166-170 

thousand of those were from the 

occupied border areas, i.e. one in 

eighteen Sudeten Germans. In addition, 

German publications state that roughly 

90 thousand went missing during the 

war and that there were 25-30 thousand 

civilian deaths. A total of 500 thousand 

Sudeten Germans were conscripted into 

the armed forces. 

An unprecedented population shift 

took place in the Sudetengau and the 

other annexed border areas during the 

closing phase of the war. First of all, tens 

of thousands of prisoners of war and 

other prisoners were driven there on 

“death marches”. Then German families 

started to arrive from the east. Finally 

the German troops retreated through 

there. Many Germans from the border 

areas, both locals and Reich Germans, 

fled westwards. There were also plans for 

an evacuation, but it never happened, 

except on a very small scale (from the 



148 

most easterly areas of the Sudetengau). 

There was no time left for further 

evacuations and nowhere to go. 

Opposition and resistance in the 

Sudetengau 

To properly assess the level of resistance 

to the Hitler regime in the Reichsgau 

Sudetenland one must take into account 

the extremely difficult conditions for 

such activity. The Henleinites already 

had files on all the local anti-Nazis – 

Czechs and Germans alike – whom they 

had known since the time of democracy 

in the Czechoslovak Republic. This 

enabled the Nazi organs of coercion and 

Henlein’s strong-arm gangs to target 

their interventions very purposefully as 

soon as the “Sudetenland” was annexed 

to the Reich, so that potential grassroots 

opposition and, above all, resistance was 

eliminated or at least intimidated and 

“put on file” as a result of arrests and 

terror tactics. 

As a result, the Gestapo was able to 

strike a major pre-emptive blow against 

any potential base of opposition and 

resistance at the very beginning of the 

occupation. It was aimed chiefly against 

the social democrats, communists and 

other enemies of the regime. Of the 13 

thousand pre-Munich members of the 

Communist Party (two thousand of 

whom had moved to the Republic) 1,400 

were immediately taken into custody and 

soon that figure had risen to around 

4,500, i.e. one in three of that party’s 

pre-Munich membership 

in the border areas. 

The social democrats suffered even 

harsher persecution. Prior to the 

occupation, the German social 

democrats had over 80 thousand 

members and some 218 thousand 

employees belonged to their affiliated 

trade unions. It is estimated that seven 

thousand of them were arrested. Despite 

that, many German social democrats 

took leading roles in the resistance 

movement. The total number of social 

democrats arrested during the 

occupation was much higher. The figure 

usually cited is twenty thousand, 

although the actual number of those



detained was more like fifteen thousand, 

the overwhelming majority of whom 

died in prison or concentration camp, or 

were executed, including the former 

president of the social democrats in the 

Czechoslovak Republic, Ludwig Czech. 

A similar fate awaited the Czech social 

democrats there. In Nazi reports they are 

referred to as “Marxists” or mentioned in 

connection with “Marxist plots”. 

The arrests also affected other groups 

of people. The register of new arrivals 

from October to December 1938 at the 

Dachau concentration camp alone 

includes 2,500 Sudeten Germans. So it 

would seem that there were more people 

victimised in the annexed Czech border 

areas in the first months of the 

occupation than in Germany after 

Hitler’s accession to power. It succeeded 

in weakening the bases of resistance. It 

must also be stated that as well as the 

left-wing activists mentioned, some 300 

members of civic associations and the 

catholic church also emigrated from the 

border areas. And in addition to all of 

those, there were the refugees, the 

outcast Jews and those who left for 

economic reasons. 

Apart from the German anti-fascists, 

the Czech minority were also subject to 

close scrutiny by the Nazi authorities. Its 

national orientation, not to mention the 

left-wing tendencies of many members 

of the community, rendered it 

“unreliable” and hostile to the Reich. 

Surveillance was particularly intense in 

the case of officials of the Social- 

Democratic and Communist parties, 

members of patriotic organisations such 

as the Sokol and the Ústřední matice 

školská (Central Educational 

Foundation), former Legionaries, etc. 

The Czechs (in common with the 

German anti-fascists) were encircled by 

a network of police spies, agents 

provocateur and informers. In view of 

their situation, subject to police terror 

and inadequate grassroots organisation, 

there were not many collaborators within 

the Czech minority, but their were not 

many active members of the resistance 

either. Even though most of those 

arrested at the beginning of October had 

149 

Chapter IV 

been gradually released by the end of 

November, the surveillance of Czech and 

German anti-fascists continued. Apart 

from police harassment, the German 

anti-fascists in particular had to contend 

with being transferred to workplaces in 

the Reich (e.g. on their release, German 

anti-fascists from Děčín were transferred 

to Berlin), where the wages were lower, 

or they were without work for some 

time. The Gestapo headquarters in 

Liberec, for instance, ordered extra 

vigilance in searching for illegal 

newspapers, leaflets and contacts. Young 

German communists were soon pressed 

into the army and left for the front as 

soon as war broke out. 

Resistance activity might therefore be 

said to have been “nipped in the bud”. 

The situation in the Sudetengau was 

much more difficult than in the 

Protectorate, because the Czech 

minority and the German anti-fascist 

were hemmed in by a powerful and agile 

party and police machine. Prosecutions 

for resistance activity were dealt with by 

the relevant provincial courts and the 

Higher Provincial Court at Litoměřice, 

while more important cases were brought 

before the special courts which came 

under the People’s Court in Berlin and 

its Dresden branch. 

The organs of repression were the 

police and the gendarmerie, who were 

under the supervision of the relevant 

institutions of the Reich. As of February 

1944, the Sudetengau was totally 

answerable to K.H.Frank, the supreme 

commander of the SS and the police in 

Prague. Units of the Ordnungspolizei were 

stationed throughout the territory, there 

was a gendarmerie post in almost every 

village and the security police covered 

most of the towns. The urban police and 

the gendarmerie in the countryside were 

assisted respectively by the so-called 

Stadtwacht and Landwacht, armed patrols 

made up of local Nazis, who kept closer 

watch on their fellow citizens than the 

actual police. The principal organ of 

repression and most dangerous of all was 

the Gestapo, with its headquarters in 

Liberec and branch offices in all the main 

centres of the Sudetengau.

Chapter IV 

One of the main tasks of the forces of 

repression was to combat all hostile 

movements and the national tendencies 

of the Czech minority. They were 

assisted in this by the party organisations 

of the NSDAP, that permeated the 

whole of society and by means of the 

system of party leaders and party 

education were even able to penetrate 

families. All party members and 

members of organisations affiliated to 

the NSDAP, or at least an absolute 

majority of them, stood by the threat 

already voiced by Henlein on October 7, 

1938, “Wir wollen die politischen Gegner 

einsperren, bis sie schwarz werden” (We 

intend to let our political opponents rot 

in jail). An immediate indication that the 

statement was meant seriously was the 

so-called “Operation Albrecht”, a first 

strike against all known opponents of 

Nazism launched immediately after the 

arrival of the various police units, 

particularly the operational divisions of 

the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst. 

Thus throughout the occupied border 

areas, conditions were created by means 

of the first wave of terror and then the 

entire system established by the regime 

which hampered to the maximum any 

form of opposition or resistance, 

conditions aggravated still further by the 

prevailing enthusiasm for the 

“liberation” among the overwhelming 

majority of the German inhabitants, and 

an almost fanatical devotion to the 

Führer and the Nazi ideology. And the 

fact that the occupation of the border 

areas was carried out unexpectedly and 

at great speed meant that the anti-fascist 

forces did not have time or space to 

create a resistance movement. This all 

served to seriously reduce the extent of 

opposition and resistance in the 

“Sudetenland”. 

Nonetheless there was spontaneous 

opposition and organised resistance 

throughout the war. Although, in 

general, it can be divided along ethnic 

lines, many of the illegal groups were 

international with Czech-German, 

Czech-Polish or, in some cases German- 

Polish membership. In the final months 

of the war they were joined by Russian, 



150 

French and other prisoners of war, forced 

labourers and even paratroops. 

One of the most important illegal 

anti-fascist organisations from the ranks 

of the former German social democrats 

was the group of the former mayor of 

Ústí nad Labem, Leopold Pölzl. Even 

before 1938, the group had carried out 

operations across the border in Saxony 

and in spite of the arrest of some of its 

members in October 1938, its activity 

continued and actually intensified. It also 

engaged in information and 

disinformation activity, as well as 

sabotage and support of the families of 

detainees; it also supported prisoners and 

deported workers, and also continued 

that activity during the following years. 

However its activity flourished 

particularly after June 1941. For a while 

it was in contact with Prague via Václav 

Jandečka and with Dresden via Herta 

Lindner. Part of its activity included 

listening to foreign radio broadcasts and 

acquiring typewriters and duplicating 

machines for printing and distributing 

anti-Nazi leaflets. Its members paid 

regular subscriptions. 

It is likely that there were other, 

smaller groups operating on a smaller 

scale but along similar lines elsewhere in 

the border areas. 

A relatively strong Czech-German 

resistance organisation based in Ustí nad 

Labem and linked to a centre in Prague 

had existed since 1939. Its active radius 

extended as far as Most and it was linked 

to a German resistance group in the 

Teplice area (Herta Lindner) and to Ota 

Král’s group. On the orders of the Czech 

resistance organisation Obrana národa 

(Defence of the Nation) Bohumil 

Bachura took over the leadership of the 

Ústí group and ran it from Prague, where 

he and others (Capt. J. Kňourek, 

J. Vondra, V. Tichý and O. Král) had 

moved to from Ustí when the border 

area was occupied. 

In spite of the powerful blow to the 

resistance caused by the arrests in the 

wake of the occupation and the 

ideological uncertainty caused by the 

Comintern’s theses on the anti-Nazi 

convictions of the German proletariat



and its belief in an early uprising, and in 

spite of the initial confusion caused by 

the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, illegal 

communist groups were formed quite 

early on. Thanks to their long-standing 

experience of semi-underground activity, 

despite the trauma of the first wave of 

arrests and Operation Albrecht, the 

communists were the most organised 

component of the anti-fascist movement 

among the Germans and they cooperated 

closely with the Czechs, who 

often led the groups. 

Apart from the social-democratic and 

communist groups, there were also 

Christian oriented groups and 

individuals among the German antifascists. 

The Roman Catholic church 

logically took a leading role in this, as 

according to the census of May 17, 1939, 

89.6% of the population of the annexed 

territory were members of it. Only in 

Český Těšín was there a greater 

proportion of protestants. Although 

initially the overwhelming majority of 

the Sudeten-German Catholics and 

clergy, influenced by the national 

euphoria and Nazi ideology, welcomed 

the occupation of the border areas, the 

Nazis’ attacks on the church soon drew 

many priests and lay Catholics into the 

ranks of the opposition, including many 

previous admirers of Nazism. The 

Bishop of Litoměřice, A.A.Weber, was 

among those who spoke out 

against the Nazis. 

No less important than the resistance 

of the Germans was the resistance of 

individual Czechs. Although a 

distinction is made between partypolitical 

resistance and civic resistance, as 

time went by the difference between 

them gradually disappeared; as the result 

of arrests, the rebuilding of 

organisations, etc., ideological 

differences were effaced by the single 

idea of resisting the occupation and 

Nazism. The civic resistance movement 

was even more dependent than the 

communist resistance on developments 

in the Protectorate. It came into 

existence chiefly in areas bordering the 

Protectorate inhabited by the Czech 

minority. The establishment of a 

151 

Chapter IV 

totalitarian, police regime that was 

hostile to the Czechs, the introduction of 

tougher laws after the outbreak of war, 

strict surveillance by the police and the 

Nazi party, the presence of fanaticised 

German fellow-citizens and the 

destruction of the pre-Munich police 

structures made it impossible to organise 

an extensive resistance movement. 

Admittedly there were attempts to make 

contact with Obrana naroda in the 

Protectorate, but apart from northern 

Moravia and a number of smaller groups, 

it never achieved major proportions. It 

tended to consist of actions by 

individuals and groups of Czech youth, 

whose political orientation, resistance 

aims or anti-German intentions are 

unknown, and some actions that were 

only thought to be acts of resistance by 

the Nazi authorities. 

The paralysing of organised resistance 

was also assisted by the Nazis’ 

proclaimed policy that people who did 

not do anything against the Reich would 

be safe. Munich was a traumatic 

experience and it was only after the 

occupation of the remainder of 

Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939, that 

an awareness of common cause with the 

Protectorate was strengthened. 

Moreover, resistance in the border areas 

was organised by young, inexperienced 

cadres. Among the Czech population 

hope for liberation, hatred and 

anticipation went hand in hand with the 

spreading of illegal and unsubstantiated 

rumours. The mood of the Czech 

population was also affected by gradual 

Germanisation of cultural and political 

life. Again this meant that passive forms 

of resistance and expression of dissent 

prevailed. 

In the occupied areas with a larger 

proportion of Czechs the initial 

resistance focused mostly on campaigns 

for the return of purely Czech 

communities to the Republic, 

particularly in the form of petitions, 

deputations and sometimes even 

demonstrations. In addition, there were 

protests against the arrests of Czechs and 

further anti-Czech measures. The only 

armed clash between Czech armed units

Chapter IV 

and Nazi gangs took place at Moravská 

Chrastová in the district of Svitavy as the 

result of an attempt to seize a further 

Czech village. 

Open acts of resistance were 

suppressed at a fairly early stage by the 

Nazi terror. Here, too, these had already 

occurred during the rigged elections to 

the Reich parliament in early December 

1938 and by officially opting for the 

Republic. It is worth pointing out here 

that there were isolated cases of Czech 

municipalities voting in the majority 

against Hitler, some of them in the 

Opava Regierungsbezirk. 

Although there are recorded instances 

of various statements by members of the 

German and Czech populations 

comparing the new status quo 

unfavourably to the situation in pre- 

Munich Czechoslovakia, but to judge by 

the surviving reports of Czech 

institutions, it would seem that those 

critical voices were overrated. 

Admittedly Czech and German antifascist 

leaflets and signs did appear and 

even the occasional expression of 

discontent on the part of certain 

Germans, but they were more or less 

negligible in extent and significance. 

The overall situation in the border 

areas of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia 

occupied since October 1938 did not 

change until Nazi Germany’s invasion of 

the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The 

main feature of the new situation was 

that life in the rear was more and more 

affected by the war and events on the 

front, as well as by the increasingly 

significant anti-fascist opposition and 

resistance, particularly in their more 

active and effective forms. The effects of 

the war were felt not only in the 

economy and society, particularly in 

respect of supplies, but also in political 

and ethnic terms and in the sphere of 

policing. 

The initial advances of German troops 

into Soviet territory gave rise to a fresh 

wave of fanatical enthusiasm among the 

Sudeten-German population, 

accompanied by hopes of all sorts of 

employment opportunities in the 

occupied areas. Although that 



152 

enthusiasm gradually waned in the face 

of the setbacks on the eastern Front 

suffered by Germany and its allies, there 

was no marked drop in support for 

Hitler Germany’s war policies and 

aggressive Germanisation. The mood of 

the majority of the German population 

at that period may be summed up as 

tenaciousness, reflected in dogged 

fulfilment of all orders and coping with 

the worsening employment and supply 

situation in the rear. 

The situation among the Czech 

population in the border areas was in 

total contrast. Here too certain mood 

and attitude swings were noted, 

particularly in connection with events 

on the war fronts, but only in respect of 

how near was the defeat of fascism and 

the extent to which it was necessary to be 

cautious and sometimes even to keep 

one’s head down. There was no 

acquiescence, however; even in 1940, 

when people’s fears of a German victory 

were at their height, the Nazis were 

forced to concede that, in spite of a slight 

reticence, the Czechs in the 

“Sudetentland” continued to entertain 

hopes of the USA and USSR entering 

the war against Hitler. 

The Nazi authorities were unanimous 

in their opinion that the Czechs’ loyalty 

to the regime was out of the question 

because they viewed all events solely in 

terms of the future restoration of their 

nationhood and national independence. 

After the victory of the Soviet troops at 

Stalingrad, the Czechs hopes gave way 

to an unswerving conviction, and in that 

respect the situation was the same in the 

Sudetengau and the Protectorate. As far 

as resistance was concerned, the problem 

was chiefly that the end of the war was 

expected by those circles sooner than it 

in fact occurred, and the opening of a 

Second Front in Europe was awaited 

with impatience. 

So when the Soviet Union entered the 

war it meant a further widening and 

intensification of the anti-fascist 

resistance in the border areas of the 

Czech provinces, albeit not on such a 

scale as in the Protectorate of Bohemia 

and Moravia. This is mainly because



among the German inhabitants only a 

few remnants of the potential socialdemocrat 

and communist enemies could 

mobilise themselves, and even then they 

were fairly easy to keep an eye on and 

isolate and moreover they had no 

support among the rising generation. 

Among the remainder of the German 

population there were no expressions of 

opposition, except for individual 

complaints about the supply of goods or 

about various restrictions in social and 

public life. 

The possibility of developing more 

ambitious forms of resistance was limited 

in the Sudetengau not only by the ethnic 

situation but also by the geographic 

conditions, because the mountainous 

and forested areas were populated almost 

exclusively by Germans. The only 

exception was a smaller area in the east 

of the so-called Sudetenland, but even 

there the main part of the Jeseník massif 

was largely impenetrable by the Czechs. 

The situation was different in the 

region’s economic life as the labour force 

included more and more Czechs, which 

provided greater scope for the antifascists 

to engage sabotage that was hard 

to detect although it was fairly restricted 

because of the constant surveillance by 

the Nazis and the great risks involved. 

After June 1941 the main support in 

the occupied border areas for the antifascist 

resistance was undoubtedly in 

areas with a majority Czech population 

or those territorial units that were 

ethnically mixed and Czech patriots 

could join up with German anti-fascists 

and foreign labourers and prisoners 

herded into the border areas. 

Concentration-camp inmates in general 

had no chance of assisting the resistance 

beyond the barbed wire. After the Soviet 

Union’s entry into the war the resistance 

movements in the areas that were 

predominantly or at least partly Czech, 

i.e. the districts of Most, Jilemnice, 

Český Dub and particularly the “eastern 

Sudetenland”, tried to move from more 

or less spontaneous and local forms of 

opposition, to more extensive, organised 

and active levels of resistance activity. 

Significantly, in those areas the 

153 

Chapter IV 

resistance workers from different social 

strata and political and ideological 

persuasions were more closely and 

effectively linked, or more precisely in 

many illegal organisations those currents 

started to crystallise, although the 

common interest of all was the nation’s 

freedom. 

Anti-fascist resistance was most 

extensive in the “eastern Sudetenland”, 

where relatively there were most Czechs 

(over 20%) and several fairly contiguous 

and predominantly Czech zones. It was 

also typical of those zones that if an 

illegal organisation was wound up, 

another would be created fairly soon 

afterwards to continue the resistance 

activity. In the Czech areas it was much 

easier to distinguish between anti-Nazi 

attitudes that were common to the 

absolute majority of the Czech 

population and genuine, active 

resistance. 

A propos political conditions in the 

Reichsgau Sudetenland and the 

development of resistance activity there, 

the impetus provided by the Slovak 

national uprising from August to October 

1944 constitutes an interesting, albeit not 

particularly important chapter. The 

uprising boosted the morale of the Czechs 

in general and of the Czechs in the 

“Sudetenland” in particular, which 

perturbed the Sudeten-German 

population and above all the two chief 

protagonists of the “Czech zone” – the 

Gauleiter Konrad Henlein and 

K.H.Frank, who, from the spring of 1944, 

was the supreme commander of the SS 

and police and Minister of State for 

Bohemia and Moravia. However, the 

fronts were still too remote and the 

resistance movements both in the 

Protectorate and the Sudetengau (here 

both Czech and German) were too weak 

for that impetus to be used to any great 

effect. Nonetheless here and there it did 

help to strengthen the resistance 

movement in political and practical terms, 

particularly in terms of an expansion of 

the partisan movement, which paid off in 

the spring of 1945, in those areas where it 

managed to survive the German counteroffensive 

of the previous winter.

Chapter IV 

The attitudes of the German 

population of the Sudetengau 

In the brief history of the Sudetengau the 

mapping of this aspect is of fundamental 

importance in analysing the extent to 

which the Sudeten Germans were 

capable of reflecting on their own 

history, as well as assessing their role in 

the destruction of Czechoslovakia, the 

unleashing of World War II and their 

contribution towards the German 

debacle that emerged from it, not to 

mention their role as architects of their 

own fate. 

Attitudes among the Sudeten 

Germans can be said to have undergone 

a three-phase evolution. In the first 

phase the basic pattern of their attitudes 

started to take shape and only varied 

slightly in the subsequent phases. That 

phase was characterised by the attitude 

to the Sudeten Germans own part in the 

break up of the Czechoslovak Republic 

and their enormous enthusiasm over 

annexation by the German Reich, which 

they interpret as their great national 

victory, emphasising their own subjective 

contribution to the culmination of the 

ideal of a Greater German Reich. That 

state of mind is proved not only by the 

unbounded enthusiasm of their welcome 

for the invading Wehrmacht and above 

all for the great leader Hitler and his 

local subordinates. 

The initial euphoria is also indicated 

by various important social phenomena, 

above all the interest in membership of 

the Nazi party, which gave rise to 

relatively the largest regional party 

organisation in the entire state, so much 

so that the Reich was obliged to regulate 

it. The same applied to membership of 

the SA divisions; in that case the 

regional group was the largest in the 

entire Greater German Reich. It was 

very much the same with other 

organisations. The motivation for this 

movement towards the NSDAP and its 

affiliated organisations was undoubtedly 

the initial euphoria at “liberation” 

mentioned earlier. Soon other more 

materialistic considerations came into 

play: using membership as a way of 

advancing up the social ladder in the new 



154 

regime and achieving a place among the 

power elite in the highest, or at least the 

lower echelons, an elite which was well 

remunerated and had hopes of avoiding 

service in the front line in the impending 

war that soon broke out. Admittedly 

there some resentment was voiced when 

the careers of Sudeten Germans were 

jeopardised by the arrival of officials 

from the Reich. But those were about 

the only grumbles in the initial phase. 

A significant indication of the 

attitudes of society was provided by the 

aforementioned by-elections of Sudeten- 

German deputies to the Reichstag held 

on December 4, 1938. The question is 

often raised in connection with their 

results as to whether the Sudeten 

Germans really did vote for National 

Socialism. The point is that the (blank) 

ballot papers for the Germans actually 

had printed on them, “Do you support 

our leader Adolf Hitler, the liberator of 

the Sudetenland and give your vote for 

the election platform of the German 

National Socialist Party.” The election 

speeches of Goebbels, Henlein and other 

leaders also presented the issue in those 

terms. And the entire ideological 

election propaganda and the hyperfestive 

and bombastic choreography of 

the elections encouraged the voters to 

view their vote in that manner. At the 

same time Henlein announced a 

conciliatory attitude towards those who 

had previously been “in error”, who were 

ready to perceive and acknowledge their 

error. In addition the positive economic 

and social achievements in the first phase 

of the incorporation of the border areas 

into the Reich helped to win support for 

Hitler’s regime. 

Nevertheless the objection is voiced 

that not everyone voted for national 

socialism, that what was decisive among 

part of the Sudeten-German population 

was the national victory in the form of 

the break away from the Czechoslovak 

Republic and the “return” to the larger 

German family. 

Without acknowledging or 

underestimating that factor in the case of 

a certain, albeit unascertainable, 

percentage of Sudeten-German voters,



we are convinced that the outcome of the 

elections, confirmed by the population’s 

continued support for the regime, also 

indicated an ideological shift towards 

Hitler and his party on the part of the 

overwhelming majority of the electorate. 

Even though it is possible that some of 

the evidence was falsified and restricted, 

“the election results may be interpreted 

as the assent of most of the majority 

German population with the Anschluss 

and with Adolf Hitler.” 

Further evidence of the state of mind 

of the population at that period is the 

fact that they had little problem 

accepting Gleichschaltung (the 

elimination of political opposition by 

coercing or liquidating one’s opponents, 

trans.), which meant the de facto end of 

democracy, or the various war-aid 

campaigns, etc. 

On the other hand, it was a natural 

positive acknowledgement of the various 

measures in favour of the Sudeten 

Germans following their entry into the 

Reich (e.g. the ending of unemployment, 

various social benefits, the advantages 

given to Sudetentgau industry, etc.) 

Positive acceptance of the change was 

the fundamental feature of the attitudes 

of the Sudeten-German population. The 

only exception were those Germans, 

particularly the anti-fascists, who put up 

a certain resistance, the apolitical, 

particularly older people, and those cut 

off from events, living in isolated 

mountain areas. 

Even at that period the situation 

displayed certain disharmonious 

features. They stemmed from the 

discrepancy between the great 

expectations and the more prosaic reality, 

against which even Henlein himself was 

obliged to protest, although he laid the 

blame on the Czechs for the economic 

and social backwardness of the 

Sudetenland. That general discrepancy 

manifested itself, for instance, in the 

resentment at the appointment of 

officials from the Reich to posts in the 

Sudeten-German administration and 

their influence and discontent over 

growing supply problems, lower wages 

than in the “old” Reich, housing 

155 

Chapter IV 

shortages and other features of daily life 

in the “Mustergau” (model county). 

The effect of the war on the Sudeten- 

German population is a chapter to itself. 

On the one hand there was a certain fear 

or apprehension, while on the other there 

was fresh euphoria over the victorious 

war in Poland and particularly in the 

West. After the lightning defeat of 

France that euphoria represented the 

height of pro-Nazi feelings and silenced 

or neutralised the discordant influences 

due to the discrepancy between 

expectations and reality in daily life. The 

only counterweight to this was the fact 

that there were complaints by the 

Sudeten Germans about the lukewarm 

attitude to Nazism displayed by the first 

refugees from the Reich (due to the 

bombing), which testifies to the proregime 

stance of the former. 

In the second phase, from autumn 

1941 to the end of 1943, the discordant 

elements continued to grow in 

importance (due to worsening supply 

problems, care for refugees from the 

Reich, etc.) At the same time uncertainty 

and the tangible effects of the war were 

increasingly felt. This factor had a 

double-edged effect: on the one hand it 

definitely encouraged critical attitudes 

towards a regime that was drawing the 

Germans, including the Sudeten 

Germans into a risky and painful 

adventure, while on the other, growing 

fear about the outcome of the war that 

was gradually transformed into a serious 

vision of defeat, encouraged the German 

population in the “Mustergau” also to 

rally closely round the regime lest that 

vision should turn into a catastrophe. 

Their desperate reasoning was that 

perhaps total commitment might bring 

about a reversal and save not only 

Germany from defeat, but also the 

Sudeten Germans from the threat of 

expulsion, which the regime was 

beginning to use as a bogeyman. 

Attitudes to the regime were also 

naturally conditioned by the firmness 

and drastic measures of the authorities, 

particularly the political police, which 

was still capable of effectively stifling the 

resistance.

Chapter IV 

This contradictory state of affairs – 

disillusionment and even opposition to 

the regime that had brought the Sudeten 

Germans to such a pass and transformed 

the initial victory into a clearly 

impending debacle, on the one hand, 

and on the other, loyalty to that regime 

“to the bitter end” and despair in the face 

of it – came to a head in the last phase of 

the Reichsgau Sudetenland. During that 

phase, the war, whose preconditions 

The first Reichsprotektor appointed to the Czech provinces was Konstantin von 

Neurath (left, in uniform, with President Hácha in civilian clothes). At the war-crimes 

trials in Nuremberg he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. 

emerged from there after Munich, came 

gradually nearer to the Sudetengau and 

eventually reached its territory. One 

undoubted element was natural human 

despair at the expulsions that were now 

clearly on the cards. However that 

cannot alone explain the continued 

support for the regime and no “practical” 

resistance to it. In the same way the 

Germans’ continued support for Hitler 

cannot be explained by fear of 

unconditional capitulation. In both cases 

it was at best a matter of a supporting 

role. The main reason for the passive 

expectation of the result (or passive 

loyalty) must be sought in war weariness 

and above all in the fallibility of the 



156 

entire political direction of the Sudeten 

Germans under the freely accepted 

leadership of the NSDAP. 

The war and its outcome 

The final change in the life of the 

Sudetengau came at the beginning of the 

last year of the war. The “Sudetenland” 

ceased to be “the rear” and was now 

close to the front, with the designation 

of “zone of operations”. That meant that 

the troops were no longer subject to 

different military commands but were 

subordinated as a whole (including 

those of the Protectorate) to the newlycreated 

central group of armies 

commanded by Lieutenant General 

Ferdinand Schörner. “The war has 

arrived at a final decision,” Konrad 

Henlein wrote openly on February 2, 

1945 in the main Sudetengau daily 

Die Zeit. Members of the Volkssturm 

received a crash course. The task of 

constructing a defensive emplacement in 

the “Sudetenland” was also tackled with 

equal urgency. 

The fact that the Sudeten territory 

would not be left out of military



operations was indicated to the 

inhabitants of the Sudetengau by the 

increasingly frequent allied air raids. At 

first they targeted the industrial centres 

but later also the main towns, 

particularly Ústí nad Labem, Karlovy 

Vary and Cheb. 

The situation was different in the 

“eastern Sudetenland” to which the Red 

Army was coming closer from the 

northern Polish areas and the eastern 

On the international scene the Czechoslovak resistance to the Third Reich was 

represented by Edvard Bene‰’s provisional government in London. It was recognised 

by the British government in June 1940. 

areas of Slovakia. For that reason 

measures were gradually introduced 

there from September 1944 in 

connection with the so-called ARLZ 

Plan (Auflockerung, Räumung, Lähmung, 

Zerstöring – abandonment, clearance, 

disablement, destruction). 

From autumn 1944 until almost the 

end of the war, long columns of 

German refugees from Eastern 

Prussia, Pomerania, Rumania, 

Yugoslavia, Hungary, Slovakia and 

bombed areas of Germany streamed 

across the territory of the Protectorate 

and the Sudetengau. 

Another sure sign for the German 

and Czech inhabitants of the 

157 

Chapter IV 

Sudetengau that the war was coming to 

an end were the concentration camp 

inmates and prisoners of war being 

marched through the territory and also 

the Protectorate. 

Even though various new measures 

were constantly being taken the German 

population in that period became 

increasingly demoralised and 

uncontrollable. That particularly applied 

to those who had come to the 

“Sudetenland” from other parts of 

Germany to work there as officials and 

various envoys. First of all their families 

and then they themselves started to leave 

the territory surreptitiously. Most of the 

leading Nazis had fled by the beginning 

of April. The front was literally rushing 

forward from all directions driving ahead 

of it Nazi troops, German refugees, 

forced labourers, prisoners of war and 

inmates from Nazi prisons and 

concentration. All the main roads were 

congested with them. The hordes of 

refugees trudging wearily through the 

country or resting here and there in 

groups had a negative effect on the 

morale of the local Germans, as if they

Chapter IV 

saw in them a vision of their own 

impending future. 

The war first approached the 

Reichsgau from the east. The liberation 

of those areas was initially connected 

with the Ostrava Operation of the 4 th 

Ukrainian Front of the Red Army and 

later became part of the Prague 

Operation. The Soviet troops fought 

their way through to the Moravská 

Ostrava approaches in early March 

Edvard Bene‰ and Winston Churchill reviewing Czechoslovak troops in England. 

1945. However, the Germans managed 

to prevent direct access to that city 

which was still protected by pre-war 

Czechoslovak fortifications. The Soviet 

command therefore carried out an 

initial assault on Opava and then came 

back from there to attack Ostrava. In 

that way less damage was caused to the 

industrial areas of Ostrava, but the 

eastern part of the Sudetengau was 

turned into a battlefield with all the 

consequences caused by the war, which 

was extremely cruel there right up to 

the end. 

The clearance and evacuation phase of 

the ARLZ plan aimed at destroying 

everything of importance in the wake of 

the retreating German troops was 

declared at the beginning of March 1945 

only for the eastern districts of the 



158 

Opava Regierungsbezirk, i.e. Bílovec, 

Nový Jičín, Opava, Bruntál and Krnov, 

plus Frývaldov ( Jeseník). The original 

plan was to evacuate the entire 

population, but eventually it was only 

implemented for the German 

inhabitants, leaving the Czechs where 

they were, particularly in Opava and 

Bílovec districts. The Nazis did not have 

time to declare the clearance phase of the 

plan in the western area of the “eastern 

Sudetenland”, i.e. in the districts of 

Šumperk, Šternberk, Zábřeh, 

Lanškroun, Moravská Třebova, Svitavy 

and Králíky, but there, too, the Nazi 

troops destroyed everything they could, 

particularly bridges and roads. 

The American troops were also 

approaching western Bohemia (the 

Cheb/Karlovy Vary Regierungsbezirk and 

from the spring of 1945, the superiority 

of the allied aircraft over the Luftwaffe 

was increasingly apparent. Dwellings 

were also hit during bombing raids on 

industrial plants and transport 

installations. In addition to material 

damage there was also major loss of life 

among the civilian population. The 

Sudeten-German inhabitants started to 

fear not only for the lives of their men at 

the front but also for their own.



A somewhat different situation arose 

in the Ustí nad Labem Regierungsbezirk 

particularly as far as the Czech 

population was concerned. The advanced 

divisions of the main shock battalions of 

the Red Army’s 1 st Ukrainian Front, 

which had commenced operations in the 

vicinity of Dresden in support of the 

Prague Uprising eventually fought their 

way across the extremely difficult terrain 

of the Ore Mountains during the night 

of May 7/8 and quickly advanced into 

Bohemia. The advance units of the 4 th 

Guards Tank Army penetrated the area 

via Hora Svaté Kateřiny and Moldava 

and secured the districts of Most, 

Chomutov and Bílina, and by evening 

they were within reach of Žatec, Louny 

and Slaný. After capturing Cínovec and 

Teplice, units of the 3 rd Guard Tank 

Army thrust towards Lovosice and 

Terezín and rapidly advanced on Prague. 

On May 7, 1945 at around 5 p.m., 

the Gauleiter, Konrad Henlein, left 

Liberec for the area of Karlovy Vary 

with his closest staff in order to contact 

the American troops. His intention was 

to negotiate the recognition of the 

Sudetengau and its occupation by the US 

army. He eventually made contact with 

the American army at Loket on the 

Bene‰ and Roosevelt in the USA, May 1943. 

159 

Chapter IV 

morning of May 8, in the company of 

his adjutant Umann and his interpreter 

Bayerl. All three were taken by jeep to 

Cheb, the headquarters of the 1 st 

Infantry Division of the US 5 th Army 

Corps. None of the top American 

commanders was ready to negotiate 

with them and they were simply 

interrogated at the local prisoner-of-war 

camp before being taken to Pilsen on 

May 9. After interrogation at the 

headquarters of the 5 th Army Corps 

Henlein was transferred around 

midnight to a temporary prisoner-ofwar 

camp at the local barracks. There 

the former supreme leader of the 

Sudetengau committed suicide in the 

night of May 9, 1945. 

THE CZECH RESISTANCE 

MOVEMENT 

From the beginning of the occupation a 

resistance movement operated constantly 

in the so-called Protectorate and was 

organised by the émigré Czechoslovaks. 

Edvard Beneš became the leading 

figure of resistance movement abroad. 

Although he enjoyed considerable 

authority in the democratic resistance on 

Czech soil, it was initially no easy task 

for him to assert himself as head of the

Chapter IV 

Czechoslovak political leadership in 

exile. Separatist forces among the Czech 

and Slovak politicians (e.g. the envoy in 

France, Štefan Osuský, the former prime 

minister Milan Hodža, the deputy and 

alternative member of the Permanent 

Committee of the National Assembly, 

František Schwarz and others) were 

supported by members of France’s ruling 

circles connected with the Munich 

policy. By the end of 1939 it had only 

been possible to achieve the 

establishment of a Czechoslovak 

National Committee as a representative 

of the Czechoslovak people with limited 

powers, aimed at reviving the 

Czechoslovak Army on French soil. The 

Czechoslovak military units organised by 

the Czechoslovak authorities and 

fighting alongside the allies were above 

all of political importance in the light of 

efforts to achieve the liberation of the 

Czechoslovak state. 

The Czechoslovak National 

Committee was also recognised to that 

limited extent by the British Foreign 

Office on December 20, 1939. 

However, the efforts of the 

Czechoslovak émigrés under Edvard 

Beneš were aimed at achieving 

recognition of the continuity of the 

Czechoslovak state in its pre-Munich 

borders and under the pre-Munich 

constitution. The annulment of Munich 

was the basic political and legal 

programme for which the former 

President wanted to obtain the support 

of all sections of the émigrés irrespective 

of their nationality or political 

affiliation. To a certain extent he was 

influenced by his experience of the 

campaign for an independent 

Czechoslovak state earlier in the 

century, although he constantly stressed 

the fundamental differences between 

them, in the sense that Czechoslovakia 

and its constitution had already existed. 

The goal of the resistance in exile was to 

assert the Czechoslovak legal code, to 

implement it in its pre-Munich state 

and return to its roots 

of October 28, 1918. 

This led Edvard Beneš to punctilious 

observation of the Czechoslovak legal 



160 

rulings in force, and in particularly the 

Constitution of 1920. He therefore 

strove to establish state bodies that were 

analogous to those laid down in the pre- 

Munich Constitution. One of the 

important issues tackled by the 

Czechoslovak resistance in exile was its 

relationship with the Czechoslovak 

Germans, the overwhelming majority of 

whom had supported the antidemocratic 

programme of Henlein’s 

party since the mid-thirties and become 

the main internal political force serving 

Hitler’s plans of smashing and 

destroying Czechoslovakia. 

In the global contest between the prodemocratic 

and anti-democratic forces, 

those citizens of democratic 

Czechoslovakia had adopted positions 

in support of Nazism. The 

Czechoslovak authorities (with the 

active and personal support of Edvard 

Beneš), had provided a refuge for Jews, 

democrats and other opponents of Adolf 

Hitler fleeing the Reich. Thus a Czech- 

German anti-Nazi and democratic 

alliance had been forged. The 

Czechoslovak citizens represented by 

the Sudeten-German Party, on the other 

hand, had worked for the establishment 

of a Nazi regime on the territory of the 

Republic by electoral means and by 

armed attacks on the Czech population 

and on German anti-fascists. Konrad 

Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten- 

German Party, summed up that activity 

in Vienna on March 4, 1941 (albeit in a 

somewhat exaggerated fashion) as 

follows: “It took the Sudeten Germans 

only a few years to fundamentally 

jeopardise the internal stability of 

Czechoslovakia and utterly disrupt the 

internal situation that it was ripe for 

destruction. That could only come about 

thanks to the fact that all the Sudeten 

Germans became National Socialists… 

One day, history will deliver its verdict: 

the Sudeten Germans carried out their 

duty freely and loyally.” During the war 

they were to provide members of the 

militant contingents of the Nazi 

repressive apparatus on the territory of 

the Protectorate and those areas directly 

annexed to the Reich.



The most important component of 

the anti-fascist minority were the 

German Social-Democratic formations. 

Some of their top leaders died in 

concentration camps. Some of them 

went into exile and were politically active 

there. They included the group headed 

by Wenzel Jaksch. The group refused to 

cooperate with the programme to revive 

Czechoslovakia, however. In practical 

terms it meant that Wenzel Jaksch 

refused to allow Czech Germans join the 

military units of the Czechoslovak 

resistance in exile and fulfil their 

constitutional obligations as 

Czechoslovak citizens loyal to the 

Czechoslovak state. Only a section of the 

German exiles from Czechoslovakia, 

chiefly those of a left-wing persuasion, 

was ready to cooperate in the renewal of 

a free Czechoslovak state. 

In spite of those disagreements Beneš 

and Jaksch maintained certain contacts. 

In particular, the situation back home 

was such that the only German to be 

coopted onto the Council of State was a 

representative of the Communist Party, 

Karl Kreibich. 

Above all, the home resistance 

movement refused to collaborate with 

the Germans, while in the initial phase 

of the occupation the government 

headed by the “President” Emil Hácha 

strove to ensure the Czech’s survival 

within the framework of the Greater 

German Reich, although after the 

appointment of Heydrich it simply 

carried out orders as a sort of cog in the 

occupation machine. 

The resistance, which from about the 

autumn of 1939 became the leading 

political force of the nation initially 

took the form of great national 

demonstrations, mostly camouflaged as 

national pilgrimages, which culminated 

in the demonstration to mark the 

founding of the Czechoslovak Republic 

on October 28, 1918, attended by 

hundreds of thousands. Those activities 

were firmly suppressed by the occupiers, 

who closed the universities, deported 

students to concentration camp and 

executed their leaders. From then on 

resistance went underground. Large 

161 

Chapter IV 

nationwide organisations came into 

existence: a political headquarters made 

up of Beneš’s colleagues; Obrana národa 

(Defence of the Nation) created by 

army officers as a secret army; an 

organisation of left-wing socialists; the 

“Věrni zůstaneme” committee; the 

underground Communist Party; the 

publishers and distributors of the V boj! 

underground magazine; the “Council of 

Three”, etc. Central resistance bodies 

were also established: the central 

leadership of the Home Resistance, the 

Central National Committee of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, and the Czech 

National Council. Alongside them there 

existed a large number of local groups. 

Some of the latter, such as Český 

Kurýr (Czech Courier), the National 

Resistance Information Service, Předvoj 

(Vanguard), and, up to December 1943, 

the underground Communist Party, 

asserted the anti-fascist character of the 

resistance and anticipated anti-Hitler 

activities by the Germans in the Reich 

and in the Sudetenland. However, 

disillusionment and the terror campaign 

of the occupation authorities caused all 

of them, with the exception of Předvoj, 

to switch before long to an anti- 

German line, which was a typical trend 

for all the anti-Hitler allies. The Czech 

resistance was above all a political 

movement, even though, in the second 

half of the war, there was also partisan 

activity and diversionary operations. It 

was mostly of a left-wing political 

orientation, with elements of 

democratic (but not Soviet) socialism. 

Its central objective was the salvation of 

the nation and the creation of a free 

nation state of the Czechs, Slovaks and 

Carpathian Ruthenians - without 

Germans (or Hungarians). Despite its 

essentially political character, the Czech 

resistance did succeed in creating a 

number of crises for the occupation 

regime – in autumn 1939, after the 

Soviet Union entered the war, after the 

assassination of Heydrich and at the 

end of the war. It culminated in the 

Czech national uprising, which took 

place, as in other countries, as the front 

came close, i.e. at the end of the war.

Chapter IV 

RECOGNITION OF THE 

CZECHOSLOVAK 

GOVERNMENT AND THE 

INCEPTION OF DECRETORY 

AUTHORITY 

In his efforts at continuity with pre- 

Munich Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš 

stressed above all the need for 

international recognition of the 

Czechoslovak political representation in 

exile by foreign governments and relied 

Nazi units parading in front of the Old Town Hall in Prague. 

first and foremost on the stance of the 

British government. After the fall of 

France, a large part of the exiles there 

moved to Great Britain. 

The first major achievement of 

Beneš’s endeavours were the letters from 

Lord Halifax of July 18, 1940 and above 

all of July 21, 1940, recognising the 


and establishing relations with it 

according to agreed conditions. 

The establishment and recognition of 

the provisional Czechoslovak 

government were also reflected in the 

efforts of the resistance not only to act 

according to pre-Munich legislation but 

also, conditions permitting, in 

accordance with constitutional custom. 

In the spirit of the latter, Beneš, as head 

of the resistance in exile and President of 



162 

the Republic, issued a decree appointing 

the chairman of the Catholic-oriented 

Czechoslovak People’s Party Msgr. Josef 

Šrámek Prime Minister, and naming 

further members of the government – 

ministers and secretaries-of-state. 

With reference to Article 68 of the 

1920 Constitution, that letter of 

appointment was countersigned by 

Msgr. Šrámek as the newly appointed 

Prime Minister. The decree also defined 

the wartime tasks of the new 

government. 

For the time being, the rights of 

parliament were divided between the 

President of the Republic, the 

government and the Council of State. 

For that reason, Beneš issued his decree 

No. 1 on the same date – July 21, 1940 – 

establishing the Council of State as an 

advisory body to the President of the 

Republic and an ancilliary supervisory 

body within the framework of the 

provisional state system of the 

Czechoslovak Republic. In accordance 

with that decree, The President 

appointed the members of the Council 

of State to serve for one year. The 

Council’s composition was intended to 

reflect the entire political spectrum of 

the resistance forces operating abroad.



Definitive recognition of the 

Czechoslovak government by Great 

Britain came with a letter from Anthony 

Eden to Jan Masaryk on July 18, 1941 

appointing a British envoy to the Edvard 

Beneš as President of the Czechoslovak 

Republic. In the note it was stated: “This 

decision also means that His Majesty’s 

Government now considers the legal 

status of the President and government 

of the Czechoslovak Republic to be the 

same as the status of the other allied 

heads of state and governments currently 

based in this country and that henceforth 

163 

Chapter IV 

Germans living in Prague came to Prague Castle to welcome Hitler who made a brief 

visit to the city and issued a “Decree on the Establishment of the Protectorate”. 

the following terms will be used when 

officially designating the Czechoslovak 

regime: the Czechoslovak Republic, the 

President of the Czechoslovak Republic, 

the Government of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, the Legation of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, etc. Likewise, 

Her Majesty’s Government agrees that 

any agreements that might be negotiated 

with your government should be 

negotiated on behalf of the 

Czechoslovak Republic.” However, not 

even that note included any recognition 

of the continuity of Czechoslovakia as

Chapter IV 

regards the pre-Munich boundaries. 

The British government’s recognition 

of the official Czechoslovak 

representatives based in Great Britain 

was decisive in terms of international law, 

including in respect of domestic 

constitutional matters. That same day, 

they were also recognised by the Soviet 

Union, even before the British, when a 

treaty was concluded between both 

countries signed by Jan Masaryk and the 

One of the most powerful men in the Protectorate was Karl Hermann Frank (right) 

born in Karlovy Vary, while the Sudetenland was ruled by Konrad Henlein (left) 

who came from near Liberec. 

Soviet envoy Ivan Maisky. Recognition by 

the United States was achieved on July 21, 

1941, in a letter from Ambassador 

J.G.Winant to Jan Masaryk, and by 

China on August 27, 1941. The 

Czechoslovak representation in exile was 

recognised in the subsequent weeks in 

similar documents by other European 

countries at war with Germany and by a 

number of Asian and American 

countries. However, Czechoslovak 

diplomacy strove in vain to win 

recognition from the Vatican, which 

maintained diplomatic ties with Slovakia. 



164 

From the act of international 

recognition to the establishment of the 

government, the entire structure of the 

resistance in exile represented the 

Czechoslovak state, as Edvard Beneš 

stated in his speech to the first meeting 

of the Council of State on December 11, 

1940. 

Although the President and 

Government strove to ensure that the 

exile bodies acted in accordance with the 

legal provisions of the First Republic and 

to create substitute bodies similar to the 

ones operative then, there were still a 

number of obstacles to the 

implementation of that concept resulting 

from the different conditions of exile. In 

that respect the original notions of the 

creators of the exile legislation 

underwent a gradual transformation. 

The fundamental legal provision that 

provided the basis for subsequent 

legislative activity was the Constitutional 

Decree of the President of October 15, 

1940, No. 2 of the Czechoslovak Official



Gazette, concerning the Provisional 

Exercise of Legislative Power. That laid 

down that the acts of the President of the 

Republic which, according to the 

Constitution, required the assent of the 

National Assembly would be approved 

pro tempore by the government instead. 

Those acts included representing the 

state abroad, concluding international 

treaties, declaring a state of war and 

other related powers. 

During the anti-occupation demonstrations on the anniversary of the establishment of 

Czechoslovakia the student Jan Opletal was shot.When he died a few days later the 

students once more took to the streets in protest. In retaliation, the Nazis closed down 

the universities and SS units invaded the halls of residence, taking hostage 1200 students, 

who were interned in concentration camp. 

Other provisions of the Constitutional 

Decree were the right to issue 

presidential decrees during the term of 

the provisional regime, whenever it was 

necessary to amend or cancel legislation, 

or introduce new legislation, such 

decrees to be submitted to the 

government for approval. In conformity 

with the Constitution, it required the 

counter-signature of the Premier or a 

member of the government. That 

Constitutional Decree again reflects a 

painstaking effort to change existing 

165 

Chapter IV 

legislation as little as possible and to 

assert the exceptional character of those 

presidential powers. They were restricted 

not only to a specific period but also a 

specific purpose – the needs of the war 

effort. The emphasis on the continuity of 

Czechoslovak constitutionality was also 

evident in correspondence with the 

British authorities. Those two decrees 

marked the beginning of the decretal 

phase of Czechoslovak legislation. 

The decrees issued were either 

constitutional or routine. Procedurally 

speaking there was no difference 

between them. The difference was only 

in terms of legal content. 

The transfer of various powers to the 

President of the Republic by Decree 

No. 2 of 1940 was also justified on the 

grounds of the state of constitutional 

emergency in which the Czechoslovak 

state found itself during World War II. 

The activity of the National Assembly 

and its Permanent Committee was ruled

Chapter IV 

out by the occupation. Neither the 

Protectorate government nor its “state 

President” were organs of the 

Czechoslovak Republic. 

The concept of exceptional powers for 

the President of the Republic at times of 

constitutional emergency was not foreign 

to T.G.Masaryk either, as he explained in 

his book “The World Revolution”. 

Edvard Beneš was constantly influenced 

by his views. 

The President of the Republic did not 

issue decrees on his own behalf or at his 

own initiative. Apart from the first 

Constitutional Decree established the 

Council of State, they were always 

proposed by the government. The 

government was the proactive organ, and 

similarly to the process of submitting 

government bills for the National 

Assembly (Article 81, point a of the 

Constitution) and draft decrees to the 

President of the Republic, it agreed on 

them and submitted them to the 

President to be issued as decrees. The 

President submitted any dissenting 

opinion in writing to the government 

but did not act contrary to the 

government decision. The fact that the 

decrees were issued on the basis of 

government proposals is stated in the 

preamble. According to Constitutional 

Decree No. 12 of 1942, the decrees were 

also issued after a hearing of the Council 

of State. From April 1945, decrees that 

were also to apply to Slovakia were 

issued after agreement with the Slovak 

National Council. By its Order No. 1 of 

September 1, 1944, the Slovak National 

Council decreed that it exercised total 

legislative, governmental and executive 

power in Slovakia. Those decrees of the 

President of the Republic that were to 

apply to Slovakia had to be issued after 

agreement with it. 

About from the bodies whose 

involvement in the issuing of decrees is 

specifically mentioned in the text, another 

body with a more specialised role, the 

Legal Council, generally also contributed 

to drafting the London decrees. It was 

established on February 4, 1942, on the 

decision of the President of the Republic 

(not by decree) and its status was altered 



166 

on March 27, 1943. The activity of that 

body was wound up, again by decision of 

the President on the basis of a 

government proposal, on February 22, 

1945, the day the Council of State 

ceased to function. It was intended to be 

a body analogous with the 

Constitutional Court. Its rulings had an 

influence on the specialised aspects of 

the legislative activity of the Londonbased 

government, including the 

presidential decrees. Its activity is 

associated with the name of E. Schwelb, 

an outstanding legal expert from the 

ranks of the exiled German social 

democrats. 

The overwhelming majority of the 

presidential decrees and other 

regulations issued in London were 

related to the then activity of the exile 

resistance and with the war against 

Germany and its allies. They included, 

for instance, amendments to the law on 

military criminal proceedings in the 

field, military discipline, the organisation 

of the Czechoslovak armed forces on the 

territory of the United Kingdom of 

Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the 

partial mobilisation on territory 

controlled by the French Committee of 

National Liberation and the status of 

women in the Czechoslovak military 

units. In addition, each year the state 

budget was established by decree and 

there were decrees on the completion of 

medical studies in Great Britain, etc. By 

there nature, those decrees were 

restricted to the period of war, even 

though their repercussion extended 

beyond that period. A number of decrees 

were intended to create conditions for 

post-war development. Crucial for the 

post-war legal system was the President’s 

Constitutional Decree No. 11 of August 3, 

1944 on the renewal of legal order, 

setting out in legal form the concept of 

the continuity of the Czechoslovak legal 

system. It was drafted over a two-year 

period and was amended on the territory 

of the Republic before being proclaimed 

as Law No. 12/1946. It was to be the 

basis for the drafting of further 

regulations valid only in the historical 

territories. It established what was and



was not current law. The cut-off point 

was the moment when the sovereignty of 

the Republic was violated as a result of 

the four-power Munich Treaty whereby 

the Czechoslovak people were deprived 

of their freedom to assert their will as 

enshrined in the constitution. The date 

marking the beginning of the period of 

disfranchisement was September 30, 

1938 and the period would be deemed to 

end at a date determined by government 

decree. 

From the cited facts it follows that the 

personal involvement of the President in 

the drafting of the decrees that are 

designated according to his function was 

not exclusive and often it was not even 

crucial. Over time his influence went on 

changing. 

Up to April 5, 1945, the President of 

the Republic alone possessed legislative 

power. The Council of State was an 

advisory body and the government had 

the right to propose decrees. The 

government was not a representative of 

political parties, although it comprised 

members of various parties. The power 

relations described changed when the 

first home government was established 

in Košice on April 4, 1945. The Council 

of State was abolished. Outwardly the 

decrees continued to be issued in the 

same way, but their drafting now shifted 

entirely to the government, which 

became the de facto legislator. 

No one in the resistance doubted the 

continuity of the state, however. Some 

statesmen, members of parliament and 

senators were in exile, others were in 

prison. Within the domestic resistance 

movement there was a prevailing 

hostility towards the representatives of 

the former political parties. 

On December 16, 1941, the 

Czechoslovak government declared that 

it had been at war with Germany and 

Hungary from the moment when their 

governments committed acts of violence 

against the security, independence and 

territorial integrity of the Republic and 

that it was in a state of war with all 

countries at war with Great Britain, the 

USSR and the USA. In so doing it also 

declared itself to be the legal and 

167 

Chapter IV 

political successor to the first 


Czechoslovakia, as represented by its 

London-based bodies, became a member 

of the United Nations Organisation. It 

also became a signatory to many other 

multilateral treaties. 

THE INFLUENCE OF 

OCCUPATION AND WAR ON 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE 

TRANSFER PLAN 

The occupation of the territories of 

Bohemia and Moravia not included in 

the appendix to the Munich Treaty 

(“Rest-Tschechei” in Hitler’s parlance) 

marked a watershed in the development 

of the idea of resettling the Sudeten 

Germans. The enemy was now 

unmistakable and the idea gradually 

spread among the Czech nation at large 

in the immediate wake of March 15, 

1939. It was advocated by the first 

resistance organisations and a large part 

of public opinion. That trend first peaked 

after the Germans’ brutal reprisals for the 

great demonstration on October 28, 

1939, to mark the twenty-first 

anniversary of the Czechoslovak 

Republic. On that occasion the Germans 

shut down the universities (ostensibly for 

three years, but they did not respect that 

undertaking or have any intention of 

doing so), brutally arrested their 

students, sending them to 

Sachsenhausen concentration camp and 

executing some of the student leaders. 

Discrimination against the Jews and 

the first brutal acts of the Gestapo and 

the German courts caused the Czechs to 

fear for the future of their nation (they 

regarded the anti-Jewish measures as a 

prototype of their own fate) and fostered 

a hatred that gave rise to a plan of 

retribution that included the expulsion of 

the Germans from the Czech provinces. 

Those plans for compulsory transfer 

evolved; they were not yet directed 

against all the Sudeten Germans, but 

against a majority of them, particularly 

members of the SdP, and to a certain 

extent they incorporated the possibility 

for certain smaller fringe territories to 

cede, an idea most likely inspired by

Chapter IV 

Many Czechs were interned in the Mauthausen concentration in Upper Austria, where 

they were decimated by inhuman forced labour in the quarries.The photo shows the 

notorious steps up which inmates had to carry 25-kilo granite slabs to build 

the so-called “Czech Wall”. Many of them died from exhaustion. 

Beneš’ message from exile, in which the 

idea of transfer was bound up with the 

question of the renewal of the 

Czechoslovak Republic. Initially still a 

politician without any constitutional 

status recognised by the big powers, 

Edvard Beneš’ worked on the assumption 

that the Republic would be restored, but 

the question was what frontiers the Allies 



168 

would recognise, i.e. whether the country 

would include the Germans, or only 

some of them, or none at all. 

In his first talks with Wenzel Jaksch, 

the leader of the Sudeten German 

resistance in exile organised in the 

“Treuegemeinschaft der sudetendeutschen 

Sozialdemokraten” (the Loyal Association 

of Sudeten German Social-Democrats)



on August 3, 1939, Edvard Beneš stated 

that the Sudeten Germans would 

obviously be part of the Czechoslovak 

Republic but that it would probably be 

best to reduce their numbers, again partly 

be ceding some of the border zones and 

partly by population transfer, in such a 

way that the post-war Czechoslovak 

Republic would retain just over one 

million Germans, which would 

considerably reduce their pressure on the 

Republic. However, at the same time 

Beneš declared that it depended on the 

attitude of the Czech population and that 

nothing could be laid down definitely in 

advance. Thus by and large he continued 

to develop the idea of his “5 th Plan” and 

his January message from exile. 

In his talks with Beneš, Jaksch said 

nothing to him about his concept for a 

new federal organisation of Central 

Europe set out in his booklet “Was 

kommt nach Hitler?” (What will follow 

Hitler?); this would not be based on the 

Versailles settlement but essentially on a 

Greater Germany and with the possible 

involvement of the Sudeten Germans 

and Czechs, and the assent of the 

Austrians and various other countries. 

Instead he based his talks with Beneš on 

his alternative project of a federal 

Czechoslovakia in which the Sudeten 

Germans would enjoy autonomy and 

have their own provincial government. 

After the outbreak of World War II 

three deputies of the Treuegemeinschaft, 

Messrs. Kessler, Wiener and Kögler, sent 

Beneš a letter declaring themselves to be 

in favour of a new Czechoslovak 

Republic established as along federal 

lines without any prior conditions. Jaksch 

reprimanded them on the grounds that 

“the incorporation of the Sudetenland 

into Germany was internationally 

sanctioned” (i.e. by Munich). Henceforth 

the Treuegemeinschaft was only to refer in 

general terms “to the liberation of the 

Sudeten-German territory from the Nazi 

regime” and “the establishment of a new, 

free Europe”, in order to retain 

“operational flexibility” 

vis-à-vis the Czechs. 

A more detailed and fundamental 

formulation of the aims of the Sudeten- 

169 

Chapter IV 

German social-democratic anti-fascists, 

after a preliminary explanation of their 

positions, which cannot be reproduced 

here due to the limits of the present 

work, was provided by their so-called 

“Holmhurst Conference” held on March 

10, 1940, in the hotel of the same name 

in the English town of Loughton. Its 

resolution, drafted chiefly by Jaksch, 

rejected the errors of the Versailles 

system for having fragmented Central 

Europe and called for a new “greater 

federal solution”, which would be 

preferred by the Treuegemeinschaft; the 

conflict should remain anti-Nazi and not 

become an anti-German war and it 

should not be followed by anti-German 

revanchism. The Sudeten-German 

problem was to be solved as part as part 

of that larger Central-European 

solution. However it did admit the 

possibility of Sudeten-German 

autonomy within the framework of a 

federal Czechoslovakia, including a 

separate government and parliament. 

Agreement on that was to be opportune 

and free and the Czechoslovak political 

leadership was to issue the invitation to 

the Sudeten-German leadership. That 

was their condition for supporting the 

liberation struggle and for the 

Sudeten-German exiles’ joining 

the Czechoslovak army abroad. 

“Holmhurst” was rejected by the 

Sudeten-German exile trade-union 

organisation led by J. Zinner and 

J. Lenke, who, while opposing transfer, 

took an overtly pro-Czechoslovak line 

and later set up their own organisation 

independent of the “Jakschites”. That 

meant that the Sudeten-German exiles 

did not constitute a united resistance 

movement or adopt a common platform 

with the Czech resistance. Both Czechs 

and Germans would be influenced 

adversely by that factor when tackling 

the Sudeten-German issue. 

BENEŠ, THE HOME FRONT AND 

JAKSCH AFTER 

THE DEFEAT OF FRANCE 

Germany’s crushing defeat of France in 

the summer of 1940 seriously weakened 

the anti-Hitler groupings while

Chapter IV 

paradoxically bolstering the cause of a 

renewed Czechoslovakia. Now isolated 

and seeking a closer alliance with forces 

that might lend it support, Great Britain 

recognised Beneš’ Czechoslovak 

government-in-exile on July 18, 1940, 

albeit only as a provisional government 

for the time being and without its 

implying recognition of the pre-Munich 

frontiers. 

With that support, Beneš, now in his 

position as President of a governmentin-exile, 

started to clarify his perceptions 

of the post-war Czechoslovakia, in 

which the question of frontiers and the 

Sudeten Germans were of foremost 

consideration. In so doing he clashed 

with the views of the home resistance, 

which had by then evolved in an anti- 

German direction. However, it would be 

wrong to ignore the fact that there were 

those in the home resistance who held 

the opposite view. 

In addition to the moderate 

collaborationist or conservative positions 

already referred to, which German policy 

increasingly pushed to the fringe of 

society or neutralised (on the one hand 

by making it necessary to adopt 

compromisingly pro-German positions 

and on the either by arrests) there were 

the views of various resistance groups. 

These were the National Resistance 

Information Service (ISNO), the journal 

Český Kurýr (Czech Courier), and the 

Communists. They all emphasised the 

anti-fascist character of the resistance 

and warned against its yielding to anti- 

Germanism. After the Soviet-German 

non-aggression pact, however, the 

Communists, followed Comintern 

directives (although they had not done 

so initially, when they adopted a pro- 

Czechoslovak line) and dismissed the 

slogan of a restored Czechoslovakia as an 

imperialist manoeuvre – a position it 

revised from the spring of 1941. 

On the other hand, the fact is that the 

Czech resistance at home had, as a 

whole, moved towards a radical 

nationalist position as a result of the 

occupiers’ anti-Czech measures. It was 

reflected in the aforementioned shift 

from anti-fascist to anti-German 



170 

positions, and in that respect to a more 

radical attitude towards the issue of 

German resettlement after the war. Such 

radicalisation was, however, a trend 

common to the whole of occupied 

Europe, as well as to Great Britain and 

the USA. It would be further intensified 

in connection with the need to build a 

firm front against the effects of the 

German military victories and in 

response to the bombing of Britain and 

the brutality of the occupation that 

increased with the euphoria among the 

Germans aroused by their victories. 

In the case of the Czechs, it is 

remarkable that the defeat of France, 

while provoking a sense of 

disappointment among the general public 

and weakening the resistance, did not 

succeed in breaking the will to resist. On 

the contrary, the positions of those who 

remained in the resistance became more 

resolute and radically anti-German, as 

well as more radical in social terms too. 

That was reflected in the formulation of 

the national programme entitled “For 

freedom! To a new Czechoslovak 

Republic!” adopted by the entire noncommunist 

Central Leadership of the 

Home Resistance (ÚVOD). It was 

drafted by its social-democratic section 

PVVZ – the Petition Committee “We 

Shall Remain Faithful” (a reference to the 

closing pledge of Beneš’ speech over 

T.G.Masaryk’s coffin) and ended with a 

plan for democratic socialism. It is 

somewhat paradoxical that that swing to 

the left was accompanied by a sudden 

anti-Sudeten radicalisation that had 

already been manifest in the discussion 

conducted by Beneš with the ÚVOD via 

an underground radio link in the autumn 

of 1940. 

The motive for that discussion was 

Beneš’s attempt to bring representatives 

of the Sudeten-German exiles into the 

planned advisory body to the substitute 

parliament – the Council of State. 

Beneš, who was aware of Jaksch’s 

confidential memoranda, which 

invariably included the idea, mentioned 

earlier, of a “broader solution” or a federal 

Czechoslovakia (which was unacceptable 

to the Czechs after their experience of



the Sudeten Germans’ two attempts at 

destroying the state and what they had 

undergone at the hands of the Germans, 

including the Sudeten Germans) sat on 

the fence. Nevertheless he decided to 

accept Jaksch’s official invitation to talks 

on a Sudeten-German solution within 

the framework of the post-war 


He reacted favourably to Jaksch’s 

conciliatory letter that accompanied a 

Reinhard Heydrich was appointed by Hitler as a replacement for the “over moderate” 

Konstantin von Neurath to finally put paid to the home resistance movement. His arrival 

in Prague in September 1941 unleashed a brutal reign of terror. He is in the foreground 

on the photograph with K.H.Frank beside him on the left. 

copy of the Holmhurst resolution. He had 

another meeting with Jaksch on July 4, 

1940 and offered him six places in the 

Council of State for Sudeten German 

representatives and the post of deputychairman 

for Jaksch himself. In response, 

Jaksch did not rule out the possibility but 

said that first of all it was necessary to 

settle with the Beneš government the 

demand for a declaration that after the 

war the Sudeten-Germans would enjoy 

equal rights. 

At the end of October and the 

beginning of November, however, the 

home resistance protested against the 

171 

Chapter IV 

entry of German representatives into the 

Council of State. In this situation Beneš 

had to manoeuvre between two mill 

stones. He replied by radiogram to the 

home resistance on November 18, 1940. 

He warned them that the programme of 

the resistance must not be governed by 

“feelings of vengeance and hatred” (even 

if justified), but “by the lasting interests 

of the nation and state”. These he 

considered to be first of all the 

preservation of Czech national territory, 

which would counter the Sudeten 

Germans’ demand for a closed German 

territory and the Greater German 

programme for German living space 

(Beneš used the term “Lebensraum” 

somewhat ironically also in respect of 

Czech demands). They could not both 

be settled with the area delimited by the 

Munich border; so that border had to go. 

The President did not describe the 

future frontiers directly as “pre-Munich” 

but as “essentially historical”, leaving 

scope for certain pragmatically conceived 

rectifications. On the territory bordered

Chapter IV 

Heydrich and Hácha in front of the crown jewels, the most important 

symbol of Czech statehood. 

by those frontiers two national 

(“ethnographic”) areas would be created 

– Czech and German. By the first he 

meant the territory within the line of 

Czechoslovak fortifications, by the 

second, the area between that line and 

the state frontiers, in the form of three 

administrative districts (župy) based on 

Karlovy Vary, Liberec and Krnov. That 

meant, Beneš stated in his conclusion, 

that “we want the Germans in the 

Republic.” Therefore “we must not 

entertain unrealisable hopes that it is 

possible to destroy or expel three million 

Germans, as some of us naively 

imagine”. In this Beneš drew on the 

ideas of Julius Grégr, T.G.Masaryk and 

his own. He added, however, that it was 

possible to assume “the departure or 



172 

expulsion or hundreds of thousands of 

compromised Nazi Germans and the 

forced resettlement of some further 

hundreds of thousands from the areas 

mentioned above [the German enclaves 

in the Czech hinterland] to the three 

German districts or to Austria or 

Germany.” If the Germans chose to 

remain in the Czech hinterland they 

would forego their minority language 

rights (as was the case in Switzerland). 

He estimated that a total of one million 

Germans would be affected by these 

expulsions and resettlements. (Beneš did 

not give any more precise figure in the 

document). The transfer should be 

carried out, as Beneš told Jaksch, “in an 

amicable fashion” and would involve 

financial compensation. The Germans



who remained in the state would enjoy 

local self-government or autonomy in 

“their” districts. 

This newly revised radical concept was 

then developed by Beneš in his 

memorandum “Czechoslovakia’s Peace 

Aims” of February 1941, which was 

probably closest to his own private 

opinion. Its principles may be 

summarised as follows: unlike the 

demands of the Polish government in 

exile of November 20, 1940, his aim was 

solely the territorial renewal of the 

Czechoslovak Republic and he made no 

claims on German territory. However, in 

the light of the situation at the end of the 

war, it would be possible to revise the 

Czechoslovak state frontiers in respect of 

“minor details”, so long as the defence of 

the state, its economic viability and 

communication needs were safeguarded. 

Beneš went on to elaborate on the 

principles foreshadowed in the 

radiogram of November 18 of the 

previous year: 

After the war the boundaries of the 

living space of the Czechs (and Slovaks) 

would also be fixed within the 

173 

Chapter IV 

framework of the entire state frontier, 

and these would also be militarily 

defensible and economically acceptable. 

Between those ethnographic boundaries 

and the historical frontier “a territory will 

be created that may be regarded 

definitively as a predominantly German 

area of Bohemia and Moravia”, which 

was the old demand of the Sudeten 

Germans. Within it “there will be 

established for the German population a 

The car in which Heydrich used to travel to Prague from his residence in Panenské 

BfieÏany had to slow down every time it took a sharp bend in the Kobylisy district of the 

city. It was here that the Czech assassins were waiting for the Acting Reichsprotektor. 

To the left is Heydrich's car, immobilised by the attack. 

specific regime of national freedom” 

(Beneš most likely had in mind here the 

British concept of local government), 

which would mean “that the Germans 

and Czechs could final settle their ethnic 

disputes within the framework of the 

Republic”. To that end it would be 

necessary to resettle Czech and German 

populations in order to achieve unified 

and ethnically homogeneous territories. 

Those principles, which make no 

mention of collective guilt and 

punishment and which were not “radical 

in terms of transfer” (the numbers to be 

resettled were not given) were viewed by 

Beneš as part of the overall issue of 

minorities in Central Europe. In each

Chapter IV 

central European state a “basic national 

territory” would be delimited that would 

be monoethnic, vital to the national 

existence and indisputable. The 

remaining ethnically or linguistically 

mixed territories, the disputable ones, 

would we precisely delimited and 

assigned to this or that state with 

precisely delimited state and 

ethnographic boundaries. That would 

ensure that “henceforth there would exist 

territories that were politically and 

legally monoethnic”, which could also be 

created by the exchange of populations 

such as between Turkey and Greece after 

World War I. 

This concept came up against 

opposition from other factors, however, 

which had a hand in framing a solution 

to the Sudeten-German question – the 

home resistance and a significant 

contingent of the exiles. 

As was stated earlier, after the fall of 

France there was widespread public 

disillusionment . This was due to the 

occupiers’ often cruel treatment of 

members of the resistance. Paradoxically 

the repression had the effect of 

hardening the resistance that had been 

drastically reduced. Thus the reaction of 

the home resistance to Beneš’ concepts 

was extremely negative. According to 

one member of the ÚVOD “people now 

have such a terrible desire for vengeance 

that it will be hard, nay impossible, to 

control”, because “people see their 

“Lebensraum” within the historical 

frontiers and regard the Germans as 

incomers who must be expelled”. 

Another member of the ÚVOD, also 

forced into hiding in the tough 

conditions of underground activity, 

declared: “We can’t wait to see the back 

of our darling Hitlerites. It’ll be a real 

scrap to make sure those damned župy of 

yours, that you’d get torn to pieces here 

for, are set up somewhere near Berlin… 

au revoir in the Czechoslovak 

Republic… without župy!” 

Beneš did not give in to the home 

resistance right away, and on December 11, 

1940, he continued to speak in the 

Council of State in favour of German 

participation therein. However, shortly 



174 

afterwards, a radio message arrived in 

London from ÚVOD, the supreme body 

of the non-communist home resistance, 

dated December 19. While agreeing with 

Beneš that the post-war situation was 

still unpredictable, ÚVOD stated, on the 

contrary, that this was precisely why the 

opportunity should be taken to achieve 

an optimal solution, i.e. the most radical 

possible settlement of the Sudeten 

German question. The exile government 

should act in consort with the 

representatives of other states in order 

that the German question in the 

Czechoslovak Republic be settled as part 

of a comprehensive ethnic scheme for 

Europe. However, as in the earlier 

messages, so here the ÚVOD 

categorically ruled out “Beneš’s župy” 

because they would “again mean the 

danger of an enclosed German territory”, 

which the Czech political leadership 

traditionally feared, among other reasons, 

because it would ease the way for a 

potential Sudeten-German secession as 

in 1918 and 1938. In place of župy, the 

ÚVOD proposed smaller noncontiguous 

German territories, outside 

the Czech ethnographic frontiers, which 

would be widened, the sequestration of 

German property and in general ending 

German economic influence.



Beneš received all those messages just 

prior to crucial talks with Jaksch on 

December 21, 1940. He was thus able to 

submit the originals to his interlocutor, 

which he did. Jaksch realised that the 

situation was critical and when Beneš 

declared that he was unable to provide 

the requested response to his proposals 

for the Sudeten Germans’ federative 

incorporation into the Czechoslovak 

Republic, he agreed to a deferral. He 

175 

Chapter IV 

Stránský declared that he could not 

imagine, “as victors after the war, having 

to settle for a smaller territory than we 

had before the war”. František Uhlíř, a 

deputy from the National Socialists’ 

group actually wrote that the German 

minority, which had always constituted a 

threat to the Czechs, would be a constant 

danger within the state, “and if we don’t 

get rid of them the Czechoslovak people 

would be the losers of this war; in fact 

After Heydrich's funeral in Berlin, Hitler informed representatives of the Protectorate 

government that he would obliterate the Czech nation from the map of Europe once 

and for all if amends were not made immediately. The Nazis showed what 

he meant by obliteration in the village of Lidice near Prague. 

subsequently wrote to the British 

Foreign Office requesting permission to 

establish a Sudeten-German bureau for 

freedom and autonomy with virtually 

equally rights with Beneš’s government, 

but the British refused. Those events 

seriously undermined future possibilities 

of a concerted approach by both political 

leaderships, particularly when Jaksch 

started to engage in dubious manoeuvres 

regarding the validity of the Munich 

agreement. 

The situation went from bad to worse 

when Beneš’s vision was rejected by close 

colleagues of his in top posts of the 

government in exile. Minister Jaroslav 

we’d forfeit our own future”. Other 

ministers also came out against Beneš’ 

concept, including General Ingr, 

Ladislav Feierabend, Juraj Slávik and 

Hubert Ripka, the latter adopting a 

particularly radical stance. 

The opposition of the top exile leaders 

coupled with the opposition of the home 

resistance and Wenzel Jaksch’s 

ambiguous behaviour, made Beneš 

realise that he had failed with his 

proposal. So between May 7 and 22, 

1941 he dropped them and returned to 

his initial plan of ceding territory to the 

Germany in return for a compensatory 

transfer of a large number of Sudeten

Chapter IV 



During the night after Heydrich’s funeral Lidice was sealed off, and in the morning the 

Nazis shot all 173 male inhabitants of the village aged over 15 (below).The women were 

carried off to concentration camps, and the children were, according to the official 

report, taken to the Reich for “appropriate re-education”. 

In fact, however, most of them were murdered. Above is one 

of the last group photographs of pupils at the Lidice village school. 

176



After the liquidation of the population, Lidice was burned and razed to the ground. No 

trace of the village was supposed to remain, and so the Nazis even destroyed the village 

cemetery and covered it with soil. It turned out, however, that it was impossible to erase 

from people’s memories a small village that scarcely anyone had previously heard of. 

The news of the Nazi bestiality and the name of Lidice 

spread round the world, becoming a symbol of Nazi tyranny. 

177 

Chapter IV

Chapter IV 

Germans; with the intensification of 

Nazi terror and the favourable evolution 

of the war, that proposal was modified in 

the direction of a total transfer and gave 

rise to slogan of a national Slovak state 

free of Germans and Hungarians. 

HEYDRICH’S TERROR 

RADICALISES TRANSFER PLANS 

The fact that Hitler appointed Heydrich 

as Acting Reichsprotektor was 

connected with the development of the 

Czech resistance movement. This grew 

to such an extent after the attack on the 

USSR on June 22, 1941 that the leading 

Nazis began to worry about whether 

peace could be maintained in the 

Protectorate. Heydrich even advanced 

the theory that there was the threat of a 

revolution. This was certainly an 

exaggeration, but the very fact that this 

prognosis was made is testimony both to 

the growth in the resistance movement 

and to the attempts by the SS to take 

advantage of the situation that was 

arising in order to assert control over the 

Czech region. 

Heydrich saw his mission in the 

Protectorate as being on the one hand to 

implement immediate pacification 

measures, and on the other to further 

clarify the fate of the Czech nation. This 

was of course in keeping with Hitler's 

intentions. 

He tried to fulfil the first task by 

abandoning the alleged weakness of his 

predecessor in the Reichsprotektor’s 

office, Baron von Neurath, and switching 

to a government of out-and-out terror. 

Heydrich believed that Czechs should be 

brought to heel whenever they raised 

their heads or – God forbid – thought 

about a revolution. It was true that it was 

not possible to break them completely, 

but it was possible, and necessary, to ride 

roughshod over them, and “force them to 

obey and to pull in the right direction”. 

And so once Heydrich arrived at Prague 

Castle at the end of September 1941 he 

proclaimed a state of emergency and 

martial law, under which executions were 

ruthlessly carried out on the orders of socalled 

military courts, which were in fact 

composed of high-ranking Gestapo 



178 

officers. Officially 437 resistance fighters 

(with a few black-marketeers thrown in 

for tactical reasons) fell victim to these 

courts. However, the real number was 

higher, as some of those condemned to 

death were deported to the Mauthausen 

concentration camp, where a swift death 

awaited them, without this being 

publicised on the sinister red notices that 

were stuck up on street corners in order 

to terrify the Czechs. In addition to this, 

Heydrich made use of social demagogy, 

by for example raising certain rations of 

food or shoes – although it was usually 

the Protectorate that had to pay for this 

– or receiving delegations of workers 

and farm labourers. This strategy also 

involved providing soup in the factories. 

(Hitler, however, was somewhat 

sceptical about the success of this ploy, 

because – as he remarked during 

discussions at mealtimes – Czech 

women were excellent cooks, and 

Heydrich’s soups did not go down too 

well with the Czechs.) 

Among the other measures he 

introduced was the uncompromising 

reduction of the autonomy of the 

Protectorate. As part of his repressive 

approach he intimidated the government 

by having the Prime Minister, General 

Eliáš, condemned to death and executed. 

Neither the government nor “State 

President” Hácha resigned, as Presidentin-exile 

Beneš called on them to do, but 

became Heydrich’s acquiescent tools. It 

seems that towards the end of 1941 

Heydrich was considering the total 

abolition of the autonomy of the 

Protectorate, but eventually, partly 

influenced by the military defeat of the 

Germans near Moscow, he directed his 

efforts towards changing its status from 

one of autonomy to that of an 

“administration authorised by the 

Reich”. In particular, he reorganised the 

Protectorate government by ordering the 

meetings of the Council of Ministers to 

be abolished; the government was only 

able to take decisions on how to carry 

out the directives of the Reichsprotektor. 

He appointed “his” people to 

government posts, people he knew 

would obey him, including above all the



former Czechoslovak colonel Emanuel 

Moravec, a figurehead whom the Czechs 

hated if anything worse than the 

Germans. Heydrich’s star turn in this 

regard was to appoint the German 

Walter Bertsch as Minister of the 

Economy and of Employment. In this 

way he was able to follow the 

government’s every move, and in 

addition, Bertsch as a German “cannot 

be expected to learn Czech”, so that the 

Czech government had to hold its 

discussions in German! This was to be 

followed by the unification of the groups 

of experts of the Office of the 

Reichsprotektor with the Czech 

Ministries. On the lower administrative 

levels, Germans were to “move into” the 

offices of the Czech administration, 

where they were naturally to assume key 

posts. 

In this way the possibility first raised 

in Hitler's nationally neutral definition 

of the Protectorate, contained in his 

edict of March 16, 1939, was to be 

brought to fulfilment. An administration 

of the “territory occupied by the German 

army and annexed to the Reich” was to 

come into being that was fully controlled 

by the Germans and partially 

implemented by them as well. 

One of Heydrich’s most important 

actions, however, was to confirm and 

further develop a strategy (namely, the 

“final solution” for the fate of the Czech 

nation), as well as updated tactics for 

dealing with the Czech resistance 

movement and taking advantage of the 

economic war potential of the Czech 

lands. It should be realised that Heydrich 

was not completely original in this 

approach, but was developing the 

principles formulated by the State 

Secretary in the Office of the 

Protectorate, the Sudeten German K.H. 

Frank, and approved by Hitler as early as 

September 1940! It was then that the 

liquidation of the Czechs as a nation had 

been established as the “final solution”, 

together with the tactic of postponing 

this solution until after the Germans had 

won the war, while in the meantime 

giving priority to making the most 

effective use of the Czech economy. 

179 

Chapter IV 

Heydrich incorporated these 

principles of dealing with the Czech 

question into the project of building up a 

Pan-German Reich, which in his view 

should also comprise Norway, Holland, 

Flanders, Denmark and Sweden. To the 

east the borders of this proposed empire 

were to be permanently moved forward 

with the help of advancing Germanising 

ramparts – supposedly in the same way 

as a coastline was reclaimed by 

surrounding the land with protective 

dikes and then drying out the area 

behind them. Using this method, the 

Ukraine and part of Russia were to be 

taken over. The nations in these areas 

were to be used as “helots” (as Heydrich 

called them), in other words as 

subordinate, enslaved labour. Those 

Czechs who, for racial reasons, could not 

be Germanised were to be settled in this 

region, too, so that they could “fulfil their 

pro-German function” in the East and 

North as foremen and overseers. 

Overall, the Czechs were to be divided 

into four categories, according to a 

mixture of racial and political criteria. 

The first consisted of those who were 

“racially sound and holding sound 

views”, including about one third of the 

Czechs, who were to be the recipients of 

the “act of charity” of germanisation. The 

second group (again about one third of 

the total), who were “unsound” both 

racially and in their views, were destined 

for the East. The third group, those with 

“sound views, but racially unsound” were 

to be moved to the Reich and deprived of 

the possibility of having children, so that 

they would die out. The fourth group 

were Czechs who were “racially sound, 

but with unsound views”. Heydrich 

considered them to be the most 

dangerous of all, for they were a “racially 

sound social group capable of leading” 

and able to organise effective resistance 

to the German plans. If attempts to 

subjugate these Czechs failed, than it 

would be necessary to “solve the problem 

once and for all by sending them to the 

firing squad, for I cannot have them 

moved out of the country because there 

in the East they would form a leading 

social group directed against us”.

Chapter IV 

This “final solution”, as has already 

been said, was to be postponed until after 

the German military victory, in line with 

Frank's concept. This however did not 

mean that certain features of it could not 

be prepared during the war as part of 

immediate “pacifying” tactics. Such 

features included a racial inventory of 

the Czech nation, partial germanisation 

of Czech lands, the “Aryanisation” of 

Jewish property and, associated with 

this, the liquidation of the Jews, which 

Heydrich not only ordered, but started 

to put into practice. The principal 

measure to this end was the 

concentration of the Jews in the town of 

Terezín – a “ghetto behind walls” – 

where many of them died, with the rest 

being deported to the death camps, 

prominent among them Auschwitz. In 

this way some 70 to 80 thousand Czech 

Jews were eventually murdered, 

including those who espoused the 

German language, such as the 

outstanding cultural circle of Prague 

Jews that had included figures such as 

Kafka. Overall, some 260 to 272 

thousand Jews were exterminated from 

the whole territory of pre-Munich 

Czechoslovakia – the figure varies from 

one author to another. According to 

P. Škorpil in his work Cesta do katastrofy 

(The road to catastrophe), Prague 1993, 

p. 122, the number of other 

Czechoslovak victims of Nazism was as 

follows: 

- 8,500 were executed 

- more than 20,000 died in 

concentration camps and prisons, during 

death marches and during interrogations 

- some 8,000 were victims of armed 

clashes in the Czech lands and their 

annexed border regions 

- between 15,000 and 19,000 died in 

the Slovak national uprising and the 

reign of terror that followed it 

- 6,800 fell on the battle fronts 

- 4,000 died during air bombardments 

- about 7,000 Romanies did not 

survive the racial persecution. 

Škorpil puts the total figure of 

Czechoslovak victims at 337 to 343 

thousand. Other authors give a figure of 

up to 360,000, which is not so very 



180 

different, if we take into account 

statistical inaccuracies associated with 

the period. The “speciality” of Heydrich’s 

preparations for the “final solution” was 

the decimation of the officers of the 

Czech resistance movement and the 

effective liquidation of university 

students. This meant that the nation was 

deprived of its national elites – those 

whom Heydrich most feared. 

During the war phase, as we have 

already said, the occupying forces were 

primarily concerned with squeezing as 

much as they could out of the substantial 

resources of the “Protectorate” to support 

their war effort. And this meant 

maintaining calm and order so that 

production would not be interrupted, 

which in turn required suppressing not 

only any form of sabotage or diversion, 

but also open displays of dissent, using if 

necessary the most brutal means (which, 

as is well known, the Gestapo were 

capable of applying with great 

inventiveness). It also made it necessary 

“to put something in the Czech workers’ 

bellies”, as Heydrich put it, “so that they 

are able to do their work”. This meant 

that the “peaceful” daily tactics included 

brutal terror – but “only” to such an 

extent that the Czechs, “whether they 

love us or not… at least can now see… 

that it can harm them if they organise 

uprisings and put up resistance”. We 

cannot win over the Czechs, concluded 

Heydrich, but it is enough if we show 

them that even if they think about their 

freedom, it is best for them if they carry 

on working, for “we need this peace and 

quiet in order to be able to annex this 

region once and for all”. 

This strategy and tactics used by the 

occupying forces meant the Czechs were 

faced with a dilemma and a treacherous 

trap: ensuring their personal survival 

meant they were digging a grave for their 

nation. And it was partly because they 

had to bend in both directions like this, 

not just because of the terror, which was 

not as limitless as in Poland, that hate for 

the Germans, already strong enough, 

increased still further in the minds of the 

Czechs. A good illustration of this is 

provided by the views expressed by



After the German air raid on Coventry, President Bene‰ visited the ruined cathedral. 

perhaps the last moderate element in the 

Czech resistance movement, the magazine 

Český kurýr. As late as August 28, 1941, it 

still defended Beneš’s concept that the 

exiled Sudeten Germans should be part 

of the Czechoslovak State Council in 

London. But by September 30 it wrote: 

“The reign of terror by the new 

‘Protector’ Heydrich will not break the 

Czechs. On the contrary, it is simply 

fanning the irreconcilable resistance of 

the Czech nation against Nazism even 

181 

Chapter IV 

more. The rampaging by the SS pair of 

Heydrich and Frank has made impossible 

any further attempts at co-operation 

between the Czech nation and German 

representatives. The Nazified Germans 

will not win anybody over by the 

approach they are taking. On the 

contrary, they will alienate everybody 

once and for all and stir up such a wave of 

mortal enmity, that when the nation's 

hate overflows it will sweep them out of 

our country.”

Chapter IV 

This was however mirrored on the 

German and especially on the Sudeten 

German side. According to reports by 

the Sicherheitsdienst, great animation, 

indeed enthusiasm, prevailed among the 

Germans: “Now the Czechs know what 

it feels like! At last a tough line is being 

taken against them!” 

The fact that relations were 

becoming exacerbated is demonstrated 

not only by reports and articles, but by 



182 

of taking vigorous action by a new 

lightning strike at an appropriate 

moment”. 

THE ASSASSINATION 

OF HEYDRICH AND THE 

SUBSEQUENT REIGN 

OF TERROR 

Heydrich was prevented from achieving 

his aims when he was assassinated on 

May 27, 1942 by Czechoslovak 

To support the Reich’s war effort, the bells were removed from all Czech churches 

to be melted down for the production of munitions. 

the way the situation in fact developed. 

By January 1942 Frank was 

complaining in a letter to Heydrich that 

“it looks as though 300 executions and 

continuing martial law in Prague and 

Brno have been forgotten. New 

resistance forces are developing their 

activities, broad sections of the 

population are again displaying a hostile 

attitude, and leaflets are being 

distributed on a large scale once more.” 

Heydrich confirmed this in a report to 

Bormann on May 16, 1942, and 

threatened that, while he was prepared 

to wait a while longer, if things did not 

change he had resolved to “emphasise 

the fact that the Reich was still capable 

parachutists sent from London but 

receiving crucial help from the 

resistance movement inside the 

Protectorate. This was followed by a 

new wave of terror that went beyond all 

that had gone before. The German 

police and army searched some 5,000 

towns and villages. 1,357 people 

(according to the statement made by 

Frank after the war it may have been as 

many as 1,700) were sentenced to death 

by military courts (again effectively 

police courts) and executed, in some 

cases simply for “approving” of the 

assassination, and sometimes together 

with their entire families. The total 

number of those killed was however



greater. If we include those who were 

done to death in the concentration 

camps and the victims of the Jewish 

death transports, the number rises to 

about 5,000. The greatest crime was the 

total destruction of the villages of 

Lidice and Ležáky and the murder of 

their inhabitants, which gave rise to a 

wave of protests throughout the world. 

There were in fact other villages in the 

German-occupied zones in Europe that 

were treated in a similar way, but what 

particularly took people aback in the 

case of Lidice and Ležáky was that it 

was officially proclaimed by German 

officials to be part of the law of the 

Third Reich. 

Furthermore, Hitler told Hácha that 

he intended to have the Czechs moved 

out of Bohemia and Moravia. He thus 

proclaimed openly the concept of the 

final solution, which until then had been 

kept strictly secret, and relations between 

Czechs and Germans were exacerbated 

until they reached the lowest point of 

any stage of their history. The Nazis and 

the government of the Protectorate 

183 

Chapter IV 

backed up their attempts to track down 

Heydrich's assassins by offering a reward 

of two million Reichsmarks for their 

capture. However, none of the people 

involved betrayed the assassins, and the 

Gestapo only finally got on their trail 

thanks to the parachutist Čurda, who 

was not involved in the assassination 

attempt. 

As a result of the assassination and the 

brutal German reprisals, the question of 

Everyday life in the Protectorate was characterised by privation and rationing. 

On the right, food ration coupons, on the left, a typical Protectorate 

cookery book entitled “Cooking from rations”. 

the removal of the Sudeten Germans 

came increasingly to the fore, both in 

Czechoslovakia and especially in the 

anti-Hitler coalition. 

These developments in Czech- 

German relations, orchestrated by 

initiatives on the German side, also had 

a negative influence on relations 

between the Czech and Sudeten- 

German anti-Nazi movements in exile 

– and even more so on the opinions 

exchanged between the resistance 

movement in the Protectorate and 

Beneš’s government-in-exile. In the 

radiotelegraphic discussion conducted 

from the Protectorate through the secret

Chapter IV 

transmitter “Sparta”, General Ingr, 

evidently following 

Beneš’s lead, pointed out to ÚVOD 

that it would not be possible to resolve 

the Sudeten problem in such a radical 

way as would correspond with the 

general opinion in the Protectorate. 

Following on from this, Prokop Drtina 

indicated that some exiled Germans 

would probably become members of 

the State Council in the autumn of 

1941, which meant that Beneš had not 

yet abandoned this idea. However, 

ÚVOD replied that an increase in the 

radical attitude of Czech society 

towards the Germans had already 

occurred: “The general conviction 

among the people is that the 

Czechoslovak Republic must be 

renewed within its historical borders, 

and that the Germans must be driven 

out.” The viewpoint of ÚVOD itself 

was somewhat more moderate: 

measures against the Germans would 

take the form of punishing guilty 

people and traitors, rectifying damage, 

and socio-economic reforms, but not of 

national reprisals. “It is necessary to 

reduce the number of Germans in the 

country, it is desirable to replace the 

population, but without any loss of 

territory,” said ÚVOD in its statement. 

The discussion continued on the radio 

waves, with Beneš replying that the 

Germans would still be in 

Czechoslovakia after the war and would 

have their own democratic life. The 

resistance movement again warned him, 

and Beneš, referring to the Atlantic 

Charter declaration, which contained a 

paragraph on national selfdetermination, 

once more warned that it 

was not possible to simply assume that 

after the Germans were defeated the 

Czechs would get everything back 

without any great difficulty and the 

Germans would simply be expelled. He 

did however admit that in this regard 

“we must have a maximum programme, 

but also a minimum one”, whereby he 

clearly favoured the minimum one, 

which meant that the number of 

Germans in Czechoslovakia must be 

reduced by a minimum of one million. 



184 

This “minimum” was a certain 

concession to radical views in the 

Protectorate, and was intended to have a 

moderating influence there. This is 

further borne out by the fact that as late 

as September 18, 1941 Beneš informed 

Feierabend that he still intended to 

invite the Germans to participate in the 

State Council. 

On September 22, however, he had a 

meeting with Wenzel Jaksch in Aston 

Abbots and Jaksch read the dispatches 

from the Protectorate mentioned above 

in the original. After this the leader of 

the Treuegemeinschaft himself proposed 

to Beneš that the moment when the 

Germans became members of the State 

Council should be postponed till later. In 

contrast to the situation a year earlier, 

Beneš was now clearly satisfied with this, 

because in view of the way the war was 

developing it was to be anticipated that 

the Sudeten issue would become less 

important. However, the chance that the 

exiled Sudeten Germans joining the 

council would become via facti the 

starting point for some more moderate 

solution disappeared, because the time 

during which it would still have been 

possible had now passed. Reinhard 

Heydrich no longer stood ante portas, but 

had entered intra muros, i.e. into Prague 

Castle, and from there into the grave… 

Here it is necessary to retrace our 

steps a little and examine the 

development of the relations between 

the Czech and Sudeten German 

representatives in exile. The groups 

surrounding Peres and, in particular, 

Zinner, were in favour of a 

Czechoslovakia in which no provisional 

conditions would be set, and the 

Treuegemeinschaft attempted to give its 

programme for the federalisation of 

Czechoslovakia more concrete shape as 

an anti-fascist programme. At a meeting 

on August 9, 1941 the party executive 

issued a statement saying that it felt 

strong enough to be able to consolidate 

conditions in the Sudetenland fairly 

quickly. It therefore asked to be 

entrusted with the process of de- 

Nazifying the border regions, if possible 

without any intervention from Prague,



and rejected any compulsory transfer of 

the population, except for the voluntary 

liquidation of German-speaking islands 

in the Czech-speaking interior of the 

country. This was a few weeks before the 

Heydrich terror broke out. 

Even after this Beneš did not lose his 

head. He accepted Jaksch’s apology and 

display of solidarity, together with the 

acknowledgement that “the Czechs are 

being repressed, and it is the Sudeten 

Germans who are taking part in this 

repression, while it is none other than 

K.H. Frank who is at the head of the 

repression.” As has already been 

mentioned, Beneš gave Jaksch the 

dispatches of his second discussion with 

the resistance movement in the 

Protectorate on the Sudeten German 

issue to read (once again in the original). 

At the time, in contrast to what he stated 

after the war, Jaksch acknowledged the 

feeling in the Protectorate and the two 

politicians agreed that the conference of 

the Treuegemeinschaft on September 25 

would announce the postponement of 

the Sudeten Germans becoming 

members of the State Council. 

On January 26, 1942 Beneš then 

completed his memorandum on the 

Czechoslovak borders, which reflected a 

greater knowledge of the moods and 

attitudes of Czech society, as the 

resistance movement within the 

Protectorate had conveyed them to him. 

Nevertheless, in this memorandum 

Beneš still speaks about them with 

continuing concern: “If it were possible, 

from the overall perspective of European 

security and a better future on both sides 

of the borders of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, to arrive at a better solution 

then the one envisaged by the 

Czechoslovak people which, while 

simple, is violent – if it were possible, I 

would prefer it.” 

In spite of his misgivings, his 

memorandum went further. Beneš’s 

demands for a transfer had now been 

stepped up: territory on which some 

700,000 Germans lived was to be ceded 

to Germany, and twice as many more 

Germans were to leave as compensation 

for the cession of territory. Jaksch 

185 

Chapter IV 

rejected this concept, claiming that the 

Treuegemeinschaft represented all of 

Sudeten Germany. This was the stage 

that relations between the Czechs and 

Sudeten Germans in exile had reached 

when the assassination of Heydrich and 

the subsequent tremendous wave of 

German repression intervened. 

THE TRANSFER OF GERMANS 

FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA – 

PLANS 

After the “Heydrich terror” Beneš came 

round to the general point of view that 

now prevailed in a more acute form both 

within the Protectorate and in exile. After 

several twists and turns that this brief 

outline cannot follow in detail (we must 

mention at least Jaksch’s protest after the 

British annulment of the validity of the 

Munich agreement), Beneš's attitude to 

the transfer came to be dominated by the 

criteria of guilt and punishment, which 

was to take centre stage in further 

planning for the transfer. In 1943 this 

concept gave rise to a ten-point plan, 

with which Beneš eventually flew to 

Moscow in December to negotiate a 

Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty with Stalin. 

Here is the text of the 

“ten-point plan”: 

1. The principle will be accepted, 

established by the laws of the German 

Reich, that all Germans in the 

Czechoslovak Republic are to be 

considered citizens of the German 

Reich. The Czechoslovak government 

reserves the right to decree which 

Germans can obtain or preserve 

Czechoslovak citizenship. 

2. It will be established as a principle that 

all those who are notified, within a 

period of five years at the latest, by the 

Czechoslovak authorities that they are to 

leave Czechoslovak territory, will have to 

do so. The quantity and kind of property 

which they will be able to take with them 

will be specified by decree. The 

Czechoslovak State will give them an 

acknowledgment concerning the rest of 

their property, and Czechoslovakia will 

utilise this property as a payment of 

reparations to to Czechoslovakia from 

Germany for damage caused by the

Chapter IV 

Germans in the Czechoslovak Republic. 

Germany, therefore, will have to 

indemnify these former Czechoslovak 

citizens and will do so by her own 

decision and legislation. 

3. The principle will be established that 

there shall not be in the Czechoslovak 

Republic a commune with a population 

comprising less than 67% of Czech, 

Slovak or Carpatho-Ruthenian 

nationality. The Government will take all 

the measures for putting this principle 

into effect within a specified number of 

years. 

4. Czechoslovakia will be a 

Czechoslovak national State. Citizens 

belonging to national minorities will 

enjoy all the individual democratic and 

civic rights, but they will not be 

considered by law as a national and 

political collective body. Only 

Czechoslovak and Ukrainian schools will 

be supported by the State. Only the 

German primary schools may be 

exempted from this principle. The only 

language to be used by State, provincial 

and county authorities will be Czech, 

Slovak or Ukrainian. In every other 

respect complete democratic tolerance 

and concord will apply. The State will be 

a decentralised State and local selfautonomy 

will be as complete as 

possible. 

5. A detailed scheme of the transfer in 

political, economic, technical and 

financial respects will be drawn up. It 

will represent an extensive five-year 

plan within the scope of a political, 

economic and social five-year plan 

embracing the whole state organism 

and fully correlated to the general 

scheme for the reconstruction of the 

Republic. The main bulk of the transfer 

is to be carried out within a period of 

two years. The economic principle 

underlying the transfer is the 

consideration that all appurtenances of 

industrial enterprises, trades and 

agricultural holdings will remain in 

their place and that until they are taken 

over their present owners and 

administrators will be held responsible 

for their proper condition. As already 

mentioned, the properties of transferred 



186 

Germans and Hungarians thus taken 

will be considered as reparations, and 

credited to Germany and Hungary. 

6. In the first months after the fall of 

Germany, there will be expelled from the 

Republic (unless they are detained for 

punishment) certain categories of 

citizens of German nationality, who, 

owing to their behaviour, have merited 

such treatment. These will comprise 

primarily: 

a) All former citizens of Czechoslovakia 

who were members of the Gestapo, SS 

formations, of the German police, as well 

as all officials of German nationality 

appointed after Munich or after March 

15, 1939, and those officials who 

obviously associated themselves with the 

new regime. 

b) Functionaries of the Henlein Party 

throughout the Republic, Ordners, Hitler 

Jugend, leading personalities of all the 

other Party organisations (Turnverein 

members, etc.). 

c) Those who served during the war in 

uniformed detachments at and behind 

the front for Germany, unless they can 

prove they were engaged in revolutionary 

activity against Germany, or that they 

were of Czech and Slovak or Carpatho- 

Ruthenian nationality. 

d) Teachers, professors, members of Nazi 

student organisations, lawyers, 

technicians, participants in the social and 

political life of Nazi professional 

organisations [“trade unions” in the 

original English translation]. 

e) All those Germans who for their own 

benefit exploited the occupation of 

Czechoslovakia economically and 

financially. 

7. The economic and financial scheme of 

the transfer must provide for the 

question of the financing of the transfer 

of that part of the population that did 

not take a direct part in the activities 

against Czechoslovakia. Payments 

awarded to this category of emigrants 

from Czechoslovakia (for property left 

behind, etc.) will be settled by means of 

Czechoslovak claims for damage caused 

by Germans in Czechoslovakia. 

8. The transfer scheme will envisage also 

the question of resettlement of our



people from Vienna, Austria, and 

possibly Yugoslavia. 

9. A scheme will be prepared for the 

systematic organisation of the 

population of frontier districts within the 

framework of the civil service, the armed 

forces, police, customs and financial 

excise services. 

10. Analogous measures will be adopted 

as regards the transfer of the Hungarian 

population from Slovakia and 

Carpathian-Ruthenia, due allowance 

being made for the changes involved by 

difference of conditions prevailing there. 

In view of the large number of Slovaks 

and -Carpathian Ruthenians living on 

territory of the Hungarian state, this 

will, for the most part, be an exchange of 

population. 

As is clear from the text, this 

programme represented a substantial 

shift in Beneš’s concept towards the most 

radical plans of the resistance movement 

in the Protectorate and in exile, arguing 

for an integral transfer and a purely 

national (“Slavic”) state, which the 

President also proclaimed in a radio 

broadcast from Moscow. This plan 

became the basis for Beneš’s negotiations 

with Stalin on the Sudeten German 

issue. To it he added the proposal for 

reduced Czechoslovak territorial 

concessions, the idea of which he did not 

abandon even at this stage. All this in the 

final analysis meant that Beneš now 

inclined to the same concept put forward 

by the resistance movement in the 

Protectorate and abroad that he had 

rejected in 1940 and 1941. The Soviets 

accepted Beneš's proposals, or rather did 

not reject them. However, they 

themselves were aware that it was 

necessary to wait before adopting a 

definitive plan, and first see how the war 

ended, and in particular what fate the 

Allies would impose on Germany. 

An important part of Beneš’s 

negotiations about the fate of the 

Sudeten Germans was the discussion he 

held with the leader of the Czechoslovak 

emigrants in Moscow, Klement 

Gottwald. Gottwald had originally 

intended to present to the President as 

the position of the Communist Party of 

187 

Chapter IV 

Czechoslovakia an adaptation of a 

resolution adopted by the Comintern in 

January 1943, which did not mention the 

transfer, but made the fate of the 

Sudeten Germans dependent on whether 

and how they opposed Hitler’s regime. 

As soon as he heard from Beneš about 

Stalin's standpoint, he changed his 

position virtually overnight and adapted 

it to Beneš's transfer concept, although 

placing greater emphasis on the antifascist 

viewpoint. 

Once the principle of the transfer of 

the Sudeten Germans out of the 

Czechoslovak Republic had been 

formulated and accepted in principle by 

the Allies, all that remained to do was to 

incorporate it into the official 

government programme (later 

proclaimed in Košice in April 1945), and 

also, importantly, for the Allies to express 

their agreement with this. As an 

experienced diplomat, Beneš was aware 

that without this the whole project 

would be difficult to implement, and 

without it he was afraid to risk 

independent action. 

He therefore visited Winston Churchill 

in Marrakesh on his way back from 

Moscow and informed him about his 

negotiations with Stalin. On January 1, 

1944 he reported to his government: 

“Churchill… confirmed to me that the 

pre-Munich frontiers would remain and 

that our Germans would go, if possible 

all of them.” During the first half of the 

same year the government then drew up 

for the Allies a memorandum on 

Czechoslovak goals, including the 

removal from the country of the Sudeten 

Germans. This theme was then 

elaborated in more detail in a further 

memorandum. 

The basic theses of this memorandum, 

dated 23 November 1944, contained the 

following points: 

■ If it is not to be threatened, 

Czechoslovakia can only retain a 

maximum of 800,000 Sudeten Germans 

out of the total number of 3,200,000 

(according to the 1930 census). 

■ Assuming that their number has been 

reduced by abut 250,000 as a result of 

war losses, and that approximately

Chapter IV 

500,000 prominent Henlein supporters 

and Nazis flee from Czechoslovakia of 

their own accord after a German defeat, 

the organised transfer should concern 

some 1,600,000 Germans. 

■ The Germans who remain after the 

transfer should not be subject to any civic 

discrimination, but on the other hand 

they should not receive any special rights 

“as a political whole”, and in particular, as 

was specified further, “… it is not the 

final intention of the Czechoslovak 

government (on condition that this is 

approved by the free expression of the 

will of the Czechoslovak people) to grant 

the Germans and Hungarians the 

language privileges they have enjoyed so 

far, and which constitute the most 

important feature of the rights of 

minorities in Central Europe. Only 

temporarily and as an exception will 

language concessions be made to older 

people in negotiations with the official 

authorities and the courts, and German 

children from a purely German 

environment will be able to attend 

German primary schools in the first 

generation. The extent of these 

concessions will however be dependent 

on the agreement of Czech citizens…” 

■ In conclusion the government gave an 

assurance that “it hardly needs saying 

that Czechoslovakia will be prepared to 

accept any obligations that may be 

generally accepted and applied in all 

European states, relating to linguistic, 

religious, or racial minorities.” 

■ As a matter of principle, however, the 

Czechoslovak government considered it 

to be extremely dangerous to allow the 

Germans on Czechoslovak territory a 

special minority status once more. 

The memorandum of November 23 in 

fact represents the final formulation of 

the resolution of the German issue 

reached during the war by the 

Czechoslovak government in London, or 

by Edvard Beneš as its spiritus rector.A 

further and this time final wartime 

formula was put forward in the spring of 

1945 by the exiled leadership of the 

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 

Moscow. If we compare the 

memorandum with the previous plans 



188 

(and also with the way in which the 

transfer was actually carried out after the 

war), we have to say that it was not as 

radical as the earlier plans and the 

completely extremist forms taken by the 

transfer in practice. Nevertheless, it 

undoubtedly belongs to the “integral” 

plans, and signifies the victory of the 

nationalist hard line – both in resistance 

politics in general and with Beneš 

personally in particular. This is clear 

from the formulation of the exception 

for those Sudeten Germans who were 

not to be transferred. In their case, too, 

nationalist motivation is used as the 

criterion (active participation in the 

struggle for the liberation of the 

Czechoslovak Republic), while the issue 

of anti-fascism (before Munich as well) 

is pushed into the background. This 

applies even more to the justification for 

the transfer. The original thesis about 

“guilt for Nazi crimes”, which had been 

used in 1942, in particular, is restricted, 

and purely national, anti-German 

motivation now takes centre stage. It is a 

counter-measure against the German 

Drang nach Osten; after the terrible mass 

murders of Czechoslovakians committed 

by the Germans “there can be no hope of 

the people of Czechoslovakia living in 

peace with most of the German 

minority”. This is why the aim is a 

national state, in which even the one 

third of the Germans who remain are 

destined to be assimilated; the nationalist 

viewpoint has now become the alpha 

and omega. 

The memorandum marks the 

definitive formulation of the integral 

concept of the transfer and the victory of 

the nationalist hard line, towards which, 

as we have seen, the views of Edvard 

Beneš had also gradually evolved. This is 

also evidenced by his confidential 

message to the resistance movement at 

home, passed on once again by means of 

the secret transmitter by Prokop Drtina 

on July 16, 1944. In it he says that the 

Allies could be expected to agree to the 

transfer of a maximum of 2,000,000 

Germans. It was therefore necessary “for 

us to get a lot of things done straight 

away in the first few days after liberation,



so that as many of possible of all guilty 

Nazis [underlined by the authors] should 

flee from Czechoslovakia … in the first 

days of the revolution, and that those 

who defend themselves and put up 

resistance should be slaughtered during 

the revolution. Continue to keep this in 

mind, and the whole nation must be 

prepared for this.” Drtina, who was wellknown 

after the war, too, for his Czech 

extremism, formulated the message 

using his own words, and it is not clear 

how far he mirrored Beneš’s intentions. 

Nevertheless, Beneš’s shift from antifascism 

to anti-German radicalism is 

evident; the only safety mechanism here 

is the formula “guilty Nazis” who are to 

be driven out and slaughtered, rather 

than “Germans”. It is possible that 

another factor contributing to Beneš’s 

hard-line radical stance was the fear that 

he might have his thunder stolen in the 

final and post-war wave of nationalism 

by the Communists, who were by now 

also adopting a very radical position on 

the issue of the removal of the Germans. 

An exception among the Communists 

was the important resistance group of 

young people known as Předvoj 

(Vanguard), which even at this stage 

talked in terms of the struggle against 

“Nazis” and not against “Germans”, and 

stressed that the Czech resistance 

movement could not be “guided by 

narrow-minded nationalist 

exterminating chauvinism”. (However, 

the Gestapo also decimated this 

moderate group, and Frank had their 

leading figures executed in Terezín as 

late as May 1945!) 

SOME QUESTIONS 

The question should certainly be raised 

as to whether this escalation into hardline 

national radicalism was necessary 

when a victorious conclusion to the war 

was in sight and the Czech national 

existence was now secure (in contrast to 

the position during the years when the 

Germans had the upper hand). Would it 

not have been better for the resistance 

movement to stress anti-fascism once 

more? But was this possible in the 

specific historical situation? Were not 

189 

Chapter IV 

such demands asking too much of a 

small nation that had been subjected to 

so much punishment and humiliation 

during the occupation? And 

furthermore, did the Germans and the 

Sudeten Germans themselves do 

anything to facilitate and stimulate such 

a turnaround on the part of the Czechs? 

Did they remove the Nazis from power, 

put an end to the war, or change their 

occupation policy? 

To these questions we can only reply 

in the negative. It is true that K.H. 

Frank, as ruler over the Czech lands after 

Heydrich, returned to the policy of 

keeping up the output of the 

Protectorate to support the war effort, 

but he by no means neglected brutal 

terror. According to his own statement, 

about 100 executions took place each 

month, in some cases without trial, on 

the basis of Sonderhandlung (special 

treatment). It is just that this was not 

proclaimed from the rooftops – the news 

was supposed to be spread by Czech 

word-of-mouth propaganda. During the 

period of the Slovak National Uprising, 

Frank ordered retaliatory action, 

including immediate hanging of 

members of the resistance movement, 

whereby “any form of bureaucratic or 

human considerations were to be 

disregarded”. In campaigns against the 

partisans, the SS had those who helped 

the partisans shot, too, and even burned 

down some villages; in Ploština and 

elsewhere they even had the local 

inhabitants burned. 

Perhaps the nadir was reached with 

the gruesome presentation whereby the 

SS practically paraded the hell of the 

concentration camps before the entire 

Protectorate. In an attempt to conceal 

the conditions in the camps in their 

retreat before the Red Army, they 

transported by train or drove on foot the 

prisoners from Auschwitz and its 

subsidiaries or from other camps into the 

West. This “evacuation” traversed the 

whole of the Protectorate, and the news 

of it travelled like wildfire. First came the 

death trains. Their carriages became a 

sort of travelling theatre, in which 

Nazism demonstrated what it was

Chapter IV 

capable of doing to human beings. In the 

open carriages, at temperatures of -200 

and below, the fate of the prisoners was 

worse than in the camps themselves. 

Here the prisoners received nothing to 

eat or drink for several days, here there 

was no protection from the frost, here 

they died in different ways: from hunger, 

from the freezing wind, from thirst, or 

from a bullet, a rifle butt, or a stick, when 

now and then the miserable wretches 

climbed off the trains to gather dirty 

snow or the food and water that the 

despairing Czech population 

offered them. 

These prisoners were followed by 

prisoners of war marching on foot, in 

which conditions for the captured Soviet 

soldiers were no better. 

All of this kindled the flame of Czech 

hate to a white heat. The chronicler of 

the village Sloupnice wrote at the time: 

“No propaganda would have achieved so 

much against the Germans as the sight 

of these poor wretches and their brutal 

treatment.” To cap it all, shortly before 

the uprising, the “death train” arrived in 

Prague itself, where the inhabitants took 

more than 700 of the miserable 

passengers to the hospitals and concealed 

many others. They did not only help 

Czechs, but the other nationalities too, 

including German prisoners. These 

events naturally stimulated the mood of 

retribution among the Czechs in the 

period before their May uprising. The 

result was that their thoughts and actions 

were governed by an even more radical 

anti-German feeling than was presented 

in the official documents that 

had been adopted. 

But as the war drew to a close these 

documents were still waiting for the 

opinion of the Allies. In response to 

Beneš’s reminders, the allies replied that 

“the Czechoslovak demands for a 

transfer can only be resolved within the 

framework of international 

agreements… until then no one-sided 

Czechoslovak operations to remove the 

German population can be permitted”. 

Beneš had been anticipating this, but 

he was still worried by the 

postponement. Uncertainty also 



190 

influenced the text of the government 

programme, which the exiled politicians 

adopted in Moscow and which was 

proclaimed in Košice. 

In it the transfer was not expressly 

declared. Gottwald described it by saying 

that the transfer was present in the 

programme only as a difficult problem 

requiring a clever solution. The question 

of the future fate of those Germans 

whose Czechoslovak citizenship would 

be rescinded and whose request for its 

renewal would be rejected thus 

remained open. 

At this point the conflict between the 

resistance movement and the occupying 

forces once again intervened in the 

course of events in the form of the Czech 

uprising in May which has already been 

mentioned. From its centre in Prague it 

spread throughout a substantial part of 

Bohemian and Moravian territory. (It is 

unfair to dismiss it as taking place “at the 

last minute” – all the European uprisings 

against the Nazi occupation, if they were 

to be successful, did not take place until 

the battlefront moved close.) In the first 

phase the uprising was mostly victorious, 

with the surprised German garrisons 

often surrendering or fleeing. In the 

second phase, however, the Germans 

partly activated their forces, particularly 

the SS units around Prague, and partly 

used the troops retreating from the front 

against the insurgents. (Schörner’s Mitte 

group at first still had 62 divisions with 

900,000 men, 2,000 tanks and so on.) 

They were thus able to go on the 

counter-attack. In the process they 

frequently massacred Czech leaders and 

the ordinary population. On May 5 they 

burned down the village of Javoříčko and 

executed 38 of its inhabitants. The 

following day they carried out executions 

in Třešť, and then in Velké Meziříčí, 

Poděbrady, Turnov, Mělník, and 

elsewhere. In Psáry they dragged off 13 

people who had been defending the 

barricades there, broke their legs and 

arms during interrogation, pulled the 

tongue out of one of them (named Jan 

Karas), and stabbed the rest. And so on. 

The main fighting and reprisals were 

concentrated around Prague. The



German units moved progressively 

through the city, with the SS driving 

Czech citizens against the barricades 

with their tanks. In the Pankrác district 

of the city they forced their way into 

shelters in cellars and shot 37 people 

they found there, including 10 children 

aged between 6 and 15, and 13 women, 

two of whom were pregnant. These 

horrific events incited part of the 

population of Prague to “retaliate against 

the retaliation”, to take revenge on 

members of the Gestapo and the SS and 

some soldiers, and also to deal with 

captured German civilians in a brutal 

way. And so the final act in Czech- 

German coexistence is characterised 

above all by these deaths. On top of all 

this the first transports of Czech 

prisoners from the liberated 

concentration camps started arriving. 

And with them a new horror – how 

many of those prisoners would never 

return, and the appearance of those who 

191 

Chapter IV 

did – often only living skeletons, with a 

horrific tale to tell of what they had to 

undergo in the concentration camps. The 

hate that had been freshly nourished in 

this way, and the exaggerated Czech 

euphoria after liberation (in several cases 

concealing attempts by those who had 

collaborated with the Nazis to reestablish 

themselves in the post-war 

state) then gave rise to the flight of 

Germans from the Reich and from the 

Sudetenland, but also to their “wild” or 

“uncontrolled” transfer, with a number of 

deplorable or inexcusable excesses, on 

more than one occasion explicitly brutal 

ones. This was brought to an end by the 

Potsdam conference between Great 

Britain, the USSR, and the USA, which 

at the same time reacted to demands 

from the Czechs, the Poles, and others, 

and gave its approval to, and indeed de 

facto decided on, the orderly transfer of 

the Germans from these countries – 

including Czechoslovakia.

THE INTERNATIONAL 

FRAMEWORK FOR THE 

TRANSFER OF THE SUDETEN 

GERMANS 

192

Chapter V 

THE FIRST HALF OF THE 

TWENTIETH CENTURY – 

A PERIOD OF ENFORCED 

MIGRATIONS AND TRANSFERS 

A major, and at the time painful, problem 

of the Europe of the first half of the 

twentieth century was the existence of 

ethnic minorities and ethnically mixed 

regions which became flashpoints and 

pretexts for international armed conflict. 

As far as Czechs are concerned this 

particularly concerns the Czech-German 

relationship, or the wider problem of the 

co-existence of Slav nations with a 

German neighbour, and the question of 

German minorities on the territories of 

the “nation states” created after the World 

War I. The problem was, of course, far 

wider. The ethnically-mixed region of 

Alsace-Lorraine comes to mind, which 

after half a century of existence within the 

borders of Kaiser Wilhelm’s German 

Reich returned in 1918 to the bosom of 

the French Republic. 

The first quarter of the twentieth 

century naturally drew the attention of 

politicians, journalists, and political and 

population scientists as well as the wider 

European public, to the area on the 

borders of Europe and Asia – to Turkey. 

The year 1898, the first decade of the 

twentieth century, and again, to a great 

extent, the years of World War I 

(especially the year 1915) had already seen 

brutal massacres of men and death 

marches made up of women and children 

of the Christian Armenian minority who 

had settled in the north-east of Turkey. Of 

the Armenian minority of almost two 

million, barely half survived the collapse of 

the Ottoman Empire. The massacres were 

committed by the Turkish Kurds, whose 

tribes were incited to these excesses by the 

government in Istanbul. The government 

hoped that lessening the Christian 

minority would curtail Russian influence 

in the north of the Turkish Empire. 

The fate of the Turkish minorities in 

the Balkans, during the wars for freedom 

and independence fought against the 

Turkish Empire by the newly emerging 

Balkan states, had far less claim on the 

European journalists’ attention. The 

siege of Istanbul by the Bulgarian army 



194 

during the First Balkan War intruded 

heavily into the life of the Muslim 

population of Thrace in the north of 

Greece. In November 1912, the majority 

of the Turkish farmers fled the advancing 

Bulgarians to the far shore of the 

Bosphorus. A year later, during the 

Second Balkan War, it was the turn of 

the Bulgarian citizens of the region to 

flee north before the advancing Turkish 

army. In the hope of putting a peaceful 

end to the war, international mediators 

negotiated the so-called “Istanbul 

Agreement” (L’échange facultatif mutuel 

des populations bulgares et musulmanes), 

signed on September 16 or, more 

precisely, September 29, 1913. This 

aimed to remove any excuse for further 

conflict through the exchange of the 

remaining 100,000 Bulgarians and Turks 

into clearly divided regions. The start of 

the World War prevented this agreement 

being executed. Nonetheless it became a 

prototype practical solution, and a 

formal example of such situations and 

agreements in the period to follow. 

World War I brought about major 

migrations of people escaping from the 

area of the fighting on the western and 

especially eastern fronts. It also saw the 

first huge compulsory evacuations, 

undertaken as collective punishment for 

certain ethnic groups for alleged treason 

against the warring mother state. This 

was the case for the Jewish communities 

deported from the rear of the Russian 

front to the concentration camps, or sent 

further on to the east of the Czar’s 

Empire. And then again, the Austro- 

Hungarian government immediately 

branded the Serbian population of Srem 

as disloyal renegades and agents of the 

Serbian enemy, and deported practically 

its entire population to the privations of 

the Hungarian puzsta. In 1915, Vienna 

behaved even more brutally towards the 

Italian population of Trent after Italy’s 

entry into the war on the side of the Pact. 

Again, with the rationale that they were 

agents of the enemy, they transferred 

130,000 Italians to the concentration 

camps in the Hungarian puzsta, where, in 

frightful conditions and without any 

appropriate food supply or hygienic or

medical care, around 40,000, or almost a 

third of the internees, died as a result. 

Independently of this, and 

immediately during the first years of the 

war, there surfaced in Germany, mainly 

in the writings of the German academic 

intelligentsia, in the deliberations of the 

German industrial and agrarian unions, 

and even with Kaiser Wilhelm II, the 

concept of annexation of extensive lands 

to the west, but especially to the east, of 

Wilhelm’s Empire – the idea of annexing 

the land stripped of its existing 

population, or at least of the majority 

thereof. In the west, the annexation of 

Belgium and north-east France was 

planned, cleared by the resettlement of 

the French inhabitants westwards, into 

the heart of the republic. In the east, 

there was to be “cleansing” (compulsory 

deportation and exchange of inhabitants) 

of the strip of captured Russian territory 

that was inhabited by Poles and Jews. 

After a victorious end to the war, “The 

Polish Strip” was to be settled by 

compulsorily repatriated Germans from 

the Baltic countries and Russia. These 

plans, towards which the civilian Reich 

Government had a reserved, although 

not entirely hostile, attitude, found 

enthusiastic supporters as of 1916 in the 

representatives of the newly-established 

3 rd Supreme Army Command, Marshal 

Paul von Hindenburg and especially 

Erich Ludendorff. The actual execution 

of the deportation and transportation 

plans was prevented by the collapse of 

the central powers in the Autumn of 

1918, but the concept survived into the 

period between the wars. 

International policy-makers first 

confronted the problem of defining 

“nation states” in regions which had been 

of mixed ethnicity for hundreds of years, 

in the framework of the Paris peace 

negotiations after 1918, when it was 

necessary to delineate and internationally 

guarantee the newly created borders of 

the states of central and eastern Europe. 

Wilson’s idea of the right of nations to 

self-determination potentially played into 

the hands of minorities. The reality that 

the creation of the new states was taking 

place in the context of peace settlements 



195 

Chapter V 

with the central powers who had only just 

been defeated, and at the expense of 

whom the nation states had been 

constituted, naturally blocked any 

recognition of the loudly proclaimed 

efforts of the German minorities to freely 

attach “their” territory to one or other of 

the defeated States. From the perspective 

of the victorious powers, that would have 

meant the strengthening, instead of the 

required undermining, of specifically a 

defeated, but still feared, Germany. In the 

event it was the practical decision of the 

powers that won out, whilst the question 

of the position of minorities and the 

definition of their rights was passed on to 

the newly established League of Nations. 

The attention of Europe was again 

directed to Turkey (as an example for the 

future resolution of similar problems) at 

the beginning of the 1920s. At that time, 

towards the end of 1922 and the 

beginning of 1923 at the International 

Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, 

after the failed Greek attempt to capture 

the majority of Asia Minor, and after 

Atatürk’s successful counteroffensive, 

Europe was looking for a way to end the 

bloody Greco-Turkish conflict, and to 

eliminate once and for all its pretext: the 

existence of Turkish and Greek 

minorities on the territory of the two 

hostile states. Of the 1,500,000 persons 

making up the Greek minorities settled 

in Turkish Anatolia, 1,000,000 had 

already escaped the Turkish 

counteroffensive, leaving 500,000 Greek 

farmers; in Aegean Macedonia there 

lived approximately the same number of 

– for Greece undesirable – Turkish 

minority inhabitants. European 

diplomats – possibly greatly influenced 

by the Swiss anthropologist and 

ethnologist, Georges Montadon – came 

to the conclusion that the only 

“humanitarian” solution would be the 

separation of the mixed populations. 

The mixed area was agrarian in 

character, and the population firmly held 

on to the land they had inherited from 

their ancestors. It was not therefore 

possible to count on the voluntary 

exchange and resettlement of the 

population (furthermore, into

Chapter V 

comparatively distant areas). The 

diplomats presumed that these minority 

citizens did not understand the reasons 

for their suffering or the solution to this 

situation, and must therefore – in their 

own interests – be forced to resettle. The 

result was a compulsory exchange of 

citizens on a hitherto unheard-of scale. 

However, even while the conference was 

still in session, the politicians gathered in 

Lausanne (the League of Nations being 

represented by the former polar explorer 

Fridtjof Nansen who had been a 

prominent post-war activist in the area 

of humanitarian help for war refugees), 

were brought the news that the 

implementation of the compulsory 

resettlement had caused more suffering 

to those “rescued” than the events of the 

previous war. Approximately a third of 

the Anatolian Greeks had died during 

the poorly managed sea voyage from 

oppressive heat, thirst and exhaustion. 

(These are losses on the scale of the Nazi 

death marches from the end of World 

War II). The impoverishment and 

mental suffering of the rest (mutatis 

mutandis, the same applies to the Balkan 

Turks, of whom only 356,000 reached 

the final destination) was not taken into 

account at all by the “reconciling states”. 

There are signs that to some extent 

the diplomats were aware of the 

situation. Lord Curzon, Chairman of the 

Lausanne Conference, summed up his 

doubts at the time about the future of 

compulsory exchanges of citizens as an 

acceptable humanitarian solution in 

similar conflicts, in his statement about 

long-term, bad and dangerous solutions, 

for which the world would pay a heavy 

penalty over the next hundred years. He 

certainly did not foresee that this 

solution of the Greco-Turkish situation 

would, even so, become an example 

which would be quoted in the near 

future by a whole range of experts and 

politicians, mainly from his homeland. 

In their eyes, the 10% loss of life allowed 

for did not present a problem worth 

mentioning. 

For central and eastern Europe, the 

question of ethnic minorities and 

international stability was resolved by 



196 

the League of Nations. It decided in 

favour of the concept of the protection of 

minorities as entities, for the reason that 

the stability of the states would also be 

guaranteed, as they would have no 

formal reason for international conflicts 

under the pretext of protecting their 

“suffering” minorities abroad. 

Less emphasis was placed on that fact 

that, in many ways, this solution meant 

restriction of the rights and the 

development potential of minorities. The 

dominant goal was international stability, 

specifically the indisputability of the 

individual nation states, and not the 

benefit and development of minorities. 

The situation of minorities in central 

and eastern Europe was not simple, 

partly because members of formerly 

ruling nations, specifically Germans and 

Hungarians, now found themselves in 

the position of minorities. The very fact 

of establishing the new states had already 

caused a substantial part of the ethnic 

German and Hungarian populations to 

leave. For example, around 800,000 

German citizens left western Poland, 

while smaller groups, mainly better-off 

Hungarians, left Slovakia. The Polish- 

Russian war also led at that time to 

considerable transfers of the Ukrainian 

and Jewish population to the eastern part 

of Poland. Although these migrations 

were not compulsory in the sense of 

pursuing some higher intent, they 

nonetheless destabilised the new states. 

They can be seen a kind of finale to 

World War I. 

In the mid-1920s, on the initiative of 

Germany, and later with German 

financial help – especially from the 

1930s – and under German control, the 

European Congress of Nationalities was 

established as an international 

organisation, with a view to creating a 

mutual platform for minorities to gain 

influence over European international 

politics, and to get minorities recognised 

as subjects of international law. The 

organisation never attained its goals, but 

in the mid-1930s it became an agency 

for the support of Nazi foreign policy, 

and the propagation of its ideas. 

Through the Union of German

Nationalities Groups in Europe, Sudeten 

Germans also played an important part 

in the European Congress of 

Nationalities, which also co-ordinated 

the co-operation of other ethnic 

minorities (German-Ukrainian with an 

anti-Polish perspective, German- 

Hungarian with the goal of overhauling 

the constitutional arrangements of 

central Europe), all, however, along lines 

determined by the Berlin Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs. 

However, there were also already 

experiments in the 1920s to create 

ethnically homogenous states. The first 

systematic programme was initiated by 

the German Weimar Republic as early as 

1923, when the Ministry of Foreign 

Affairs (Auswartiges Amt), bewitched by 

the fresh results of the Lausanne 

Conference, worked out a plan for the 

gradual transfer of German minorities 

from eastern and southern Europe to the 

territory of the Reich. At that time it was, 

of course, only a theory, and was only 

later put into practice by Hitler’s regime. 

In the 1920s and mainly the 1930s, 

the Soviet Government came up with a 

plan for compulsory migrations that tied 

in with the Czar’s overall efforts on 

behalf of Russian nationalism from the 

period prior to the beginning of World 

War I, for the resettlement of German 

colonists from the border zones of the 

Empire (mainly Bukovina and the 

Dniester valley, but also other parts of 

the Black Sea) into the interior, mainly 

into central Asia and Siberia. This 

applied not only to the colonists who had 

settled the barren Black Sea area with 

the Czar’s permission from the middle of 

the eighteenth century, but also to other 

Slav and non-Slav colonists, specifically 

those that had not accepted the 

Orthodox Church. Now (at a time when 

an autonomous German Republic had 

been established in the Volga region 

within the borders of the Russian 

Federation), the Soviet government 

followed on from this with an attempt to 

“voluntarily” colonise the uninhabited 

regions of Siberia. Repression of the 

German minorities in European Russia, 

central Asia and Siberia was carried out 



197 

Chapter V 

in the 1930s on the pretext of 

collectivisation or the anti-church 

campaign, or as part of the struggle 

against agents of imperialism or Nazi 

Germany. The result of this was, in some 

areas, the almost complete liquidation of 

the male German population. 

The large-scale political and ethnic 

cleansings of the second half of the 

1930s and the beginning of the 1940s 

brought compulsory resettlements of 

East-European Jews, Poles, and large 

groups of Baltic and Caucasian peoples 

into central Asia and the Far East, and 

caused great loss of life. Added to these 

were the consequences of the territorial 

wars conducted by the Soviet Union in 

1939-1941. We should remember the 

fate of 500,000 Finns who, after their 

heroic defeat in the “winter war”, 

preferred escape or evacuation to the 

north of their country rather than live 

within the Soviet Empire. 

At the same time, during the second 

half of the 1930s and especially in the 

first half of the 1940s, some of the 

resettled nations or ethnic groups of the 

Soviet Union had been largely liquidated 

during and through the waves of mass 

executions of pre-agreed quotas of the 

male part of the population, or their 

transfer to forced labour camps in Siberia 

from which there was to be no return. 

Again this especially affected the 

Siberian Germans, and specifically more 

than 500,000 Germans from the Volga 

German Republic that was cancelled 

literally overnight in 1942, but also, for 

example, Koreans from the Amur region. 

Of 820,000 North Caucasian Chechens, 

Ingush, Balskrits, and especially 

Crimean Tartars, Armenians, Bulgarians 

and Greeks evacuated by the armies of 

the NKVD to the steppes and semideserts 

of Kirgizia and Kazakhstan in 

February and May, 1944, more than one 

third of their number did not survive the 

initial massacres, the brutal transport and 

the extremely harsh first months in the 

central Asian camps. This was “not 

known” to Europe at the time. 

When Hitler came to power in 

Germany at the beginning of 1933, he 

put the problem of reuniting all

Chapter V 

Germans into one ethnic/national state 

(under the slogan: “One People, one 

Reich, one Leader”) at the head of his 

programme. Rather than resettle the 

minorities, Hitler preferred, in the spirit 

of the old pan-German concept, to 

“absorb” lands settled by Germans into 

the territory of the Reich. That was how 

it was in case of the Saar, that is how the 

“Anschluss” of Austria can be 

characterised, that is how Hitler 

presented the question of the 

“Sudetenland”. And, in the end, the 

European community was willing to 

perceive the Munich dictate not only as 

the salvation of European peace at 

someone else’s expense, but also as a 

“proven solution” to the minority 

question. For that matter, even in the 

context of Munich, transfers and 

exchanges of citizens were counted on. 

Of course, the only thing that actually 

happened was the expulsion of the larger 

part of the Czech minority from the 

Sudetenland. According to Czech socialwelfare 

statistics, between September 

1938 and March 1939, 139,000 Czechs, 

10,500 Germans and 18,000 selfdeclared 

Jews, as well as other civil 

servants, left the land that had been 

seized by Germany. From the territories 

seized from the Republic by Poland and 

Hungary, specifically from Slovakia, 

42,000 refugees applied for social 

assistance contributions in the Czech 

lands. Accordingly, proposals such as the 

suggestion of Minister of Foreign 

Affairs, Krofta, to save the railway 

connection between Prague and Brno, 

now interrupted by the new border, 

through a major exchange of citizens 

from the area surrounding Svitavy, had, 

for understandable reasons, no hope of 

response from his Nazi counterparts. In 

1939, British diplomats made a last 

minute effort to stop the war with a 

proposal for a far-reaching exchange of 

citizens in the uncomfortably mixed 

Polish-German ethnic areas in Upper 

Silesia and the Polish corridor towards 

the Baltic. The Third Reich did not 

appreciate such a solution to such an (in 

their view) promisingly developing 

conflict. 



198 

Even though our exposition focuses 

primarily on the compulsory transfers of 

large groups of citizens organised by the 

state, we must also inevitably mention 

the massive “compulsorily voluntary” 

migrations of pre-war Europe. Besides 

the ethnically and religiously varied 

masses of refugees from the Soviet 

empire who settled in large groups in 

Germany, Czechoslovakia, France and 

the United States, and besides numerous 

Jewish groups escaping during World 

War I and also in the 1920s, into central 

and western Europe from escalating 

Russian-Ukrainian and Polish antisemitism, 

there were also political and 

racial refugees, or, to be more precise, 

refugees from authoritarian and 

totalitarian states, aiming for the relative 

safety of the European democracies. In 

France in the 1930s, besides refugees 

from Mussolini’s Italy, 100,000 Christian 

and Jewish refugees and emigrants and 

exiles from Nazi Germany also found 

refuge. Czechoslovakia, which was a 

transit station for a number of German 

and Austrian exiles on their way to the 

west, accepted around 20,000 long term. 

This method of getting rid of 

undesirable groups through “compulsory 

emigration” or forcing them to escape 

abroad became commonplace with the 

dictatorships between the wars, and they 

were able to enrich themselves with the 

confiscated property. 

The only legal, contractual, pre-war 

exchange of citizens was the resolution 

of the South Tyrolean question. Hitler 

had already offered his Italian fascist ally 

the repatriation of 260,000 Germanspeaking 

“South Tyroleans” into the 

Reich in 1937, but the dramatic events 

of 1938 postponed the realisation of this 

project to 1939, when 70% of South 

Tyrolean Germans were, with the 

assistance of the SS, resettled “home to 

the Reich”. 

The voluntary nature of this 

“exemplary” and oft-repeated transfer 

during the later changes in the region, is 

clearly demonstrated by the fact that 

many potential evacuees tried hard (and 

in part successfully) to evade transfer, 

and that further, the majority of the

surviving evacuees returned to Northern 

Italy after the war. 

The general progress of the 

repatriation of the German minorities of 

eastern Europe into the Reich was 

outlined by Hitler in his address to the 

Reichsrat on October 6, 1939. According 

to his view, these scattered “splinters of 

German peoples” were to be returned to 

the Reich, which should thereby gain 

better borders than before to separate it 

from the Slav world. Immediately after 

the address, Himmler and his SS were 

instructed to execute this widespread 

repatriation project under the heading 

“Reinforcement of the German Nation”. 

In total during the war, 550,000 north 

Italian, east European and Balkan 

Volksdeutsche were forcibly resettled 

“Heim ins Reich”. As collateral activities 

of this project there were built in such 

preparatory actions as “clearing the 

terrain”, to wit the extermination or 

evacuation, in several phases, of the 

Jewish, Romany and Slav citizens of 

central and, to some extent, also eastern 

Europe. As one of today’s most 

competent experts on this problem, 

Hans Lemberg, notes: the level of 

scruples regarding what it is possible to 

do with people or groups of people has 

been greatly lowered internationally 

since Hitler’s and Himmler’s opening up 

of this new dimension of the ethnic 

homogenisation of the German sphere 

of interest. This was not only the 

extreme view of ultra-right Nazi circles. 

In October 1939, Theodore Schieder, 

after the war one of the most important 

founders of modern West German 

historical scholarship, put the basic 

material for it into the form of a 

memorandum drawing on the plans and 

experiences of World War I, and also on 

widespread and diligent historical, 

ethnographic, sociological, economic and 

geographical research. His memorandum 

summarised the results of more than ten 

years of continuous research in which 

such important historians and politicians 

of post-war Germany as Albert 

Brackmann, Hans Rothfels, Werner 

Conze, and Federal Minister Theodore 

Oberländer, collaborated. In 1939, they 



199 

Chapter V 

all agreed on refutation of the principle 

of self-determination of nations, and 

specifically on the preferential necessity 

for the expulsion, or more precisely the 

complete elimination, of the Jews. 

TRANSFERS DURING WORLD 

WAR II – PART OF THE POST- 

WAR CONCEPT OF EUROPE 

It is fundamental that, at this time, the 

idea of the compulsory separation of 

mixed populations as a possible 

prospective solution to international 

conflict situations was not at all foreign 

to the politicians on the democratic end 

of the European political spectrum. 

Therefore, at the moment of the deepest 

Munich crisis, Edvard Beneš sent 

Minister Jaromír Nečas on a secret 

mission to Paris. He was to submit Leon 

Blum a top secret plan (already fifth in a 

series of attempts to find a compromise 

with Henlein’s Sudeten German Party) 

for a solution to the crisis. In it Beneš 

proposed that Czechoslovakia would 

give Germany those border regions 

inhabited by Germans that lay in front of 

the line of defence. The Republic would 

thereby be rid of 800,000 to 900,000 

Germans. Germany, of course, had to 

promise that it would take an additional 

1,000,000 Sudeten Germans repatriated 

from the Czechoslovak interior. The 

remaining 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 

Germans, “half of them democrats, 

socialists and Jews”, the Republic was 

supposed to be able to manage. 

Compulsory transfer was here given at 

that time as an accepted, appropriate 

solution. A variation of this plan was 

derived later during the London exile, 

according to which three “German” 

provinces, districts or cantons would be 

created in post-war Czechoslovakia into 

which all ethnically German citizens 

would be compulsorily resettled. It is 

interesting that this variation, with its 

intrastate compulsory separation, seemed 

completely acceptable to the socially 

democratic German émigrés, and 

specifically to their chief representative, 

Wenzel Jaksch. 

However, at this time the superpowers’ 

plans were leading in a different

Chapter V 

direction. In May, 1940, in Chatham 

House, the British Royal Institute of 

International Studies (Foreign Research 

and Press Service) led by Arnold Toynbee 

was already preparing the first 

memorandum concerning the 

stabilisation of post-war Europe through 

the creation of a supranational federation 

in central, eastern and south-eastern 

Europe. To achieve this, the academically 

educated British planners (independently 

of the “expulsion” concepts of the Czech 

and Polish governments in exile, or the 

opinions of resistance groups) for the first 

time counted on major compulsory 

transfers, specifically exchanges of 

citizens in the eastern part of central 

Europe. In the opinion of the working 

group in whose name the project was 

proposed by J.D. Mabbot, no stable postwar 

solution was achievable without the 

transfer of several million Germans. The 

name of the central part of this 

memorandum was “Transfer as a 

Contribution to Peace”. 

Disappointment arising from the 

failure of the inter-war minority policies 

of the United Nations, disgust at 

German abuse of the seemingly 

wonderful Munich resolution of the 

problems of the German minority in 

Czechoslovakia ( Jaksch’s émigré 

German Social Democrats would not 

give up the validity of Munich until the 

year 1942) and, of course, the shock 

caused by the violation of the Munich 

agreements only half a year after their 

signing, and primarily the spread of 

World War II (mainly after the entry of 

the Soviet Union and USA into the war), 

all conspired to convince the Allied 

planners that the stability of post-war 

Europe could only be guaranteed by the 

general elimination of minorities as an 

international political phenomenon (Let 

us remember that this took place at a 

time when the states of the anti-Hitler 

coalition had confiscated all German 

property on their territory, and the great 

majority of males of German ethnicity 

who did not join the Allied armies or 

support units had been interned). 

Resistance groups in Poland and in 

the Czech lands and the Czechoslovak 



200 

and Polish armed forces units abroad 

were, from the very beginning of the war, 

suggesting to their representatives in 

exile far more radical plans as to how, in 

practice, to expel Germans completely 

from their country after liberation. It is 

worth mentioning that the Jewish 

underground organisation in the Terezín 

ghetto, for example, took for granted the 

eventual expulsion of Germans from the 

Czech border lands. They managed to 

smuggle out a memorandum containing 

the proposition that after the war the 

land freed of Germans could be settled 

by Jewish returnees from the 

concentration camps in Eastern Europe. 

At that point the authors of this 

memorandum did not suspect that these 

camps were extermination camps from 

which almost no one would come back. 

Action on the future arrangement of 

Europe, and therefore about the way of 

eliminating the problems with 

minorities, increased in energy after the 

USSR and USA were drawn into the war. 

In August 1941, the British Ambassador 

in Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, had 

already recommended in a memorandum 

to the Foreign Office that, when 

considering the post-war map of Europe, 

the borders should be staked out along 

strategic, militarily defendable lines, and 

that this should be achieved at the 

expense of Germany and its satellites. 

The most attention paid to this matter 

was during the Moscow negotiations 

between the British Foreign Minister, 

Anthony Eden, and his Russian 

counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, in 

December, 1941. The idea of widespread 

transfers of German minorities from 

Poland and Czechoslovakia to the West 

had already been tentatively agreed to 

even by Stalin, who had also described 

the concept of the “shifting” Poland 

westwards – again to the detriment of 

Germany. Soviet diplomacy was at that 

time mainly concerned that Britain 

would contractually accept the land gains 

resulting from the territorial wars which 

the Soviet Union conducted in the years 

1939 to 1940 (As part of that, for 

example, 200,000 Poles had been 

expelled from the annexed territories of

Eastern Poland to Siberia, Central Asia 

and the Far East, as well as tens of 

thousands of Jews, and hundreds of 

thousands of citizens of the Baltic states). 

Later, in 1942 when the Soviet-British 

accord was being prepared, US President 

Roosevelt commented on this point that, 

having regard to American public 

opinion, a clause should be inserted into 

the agreement that the citizens of the 

Finnish, Baltic and Polish territories 

annexed by the Soviet Union should have 

the right to leave. The British, however, 

worried that such a commitment would 

lead after the war to a mass exodus of 

inhabitants of the Baltic to the west. 

It is fundamental that by 1944 British 

foreign policy had definitely decided to 

support the concept of post-war 

repatriation of German minorities from 

the eastern part of central Europe to 

Western Germany. Post-war Germany 

was not to be divided into several states, 

but weakened in the long-term by the 

loss of the eastern territories, and the 

expulsion of Germans living there. In this 

context it is important that in the latest 

work on the preparation for expulsion 

and transfers from Czechoslovakia and 

Poland, quoting a list of several sources, 

the foremost European expert on this 

problem, Detlef Brandes, proves that the 

decision of the British War Cabinet of 

July 6, 1942, concerning the invalidity of 

the Munich agreement, and concerning 

the post-war repatriation of German 

minorities from central and south-east 

Europe, was reached after Heydrich’s rule 

of terror in the Protectorate, and after the 

wave of terror against resistance groups 

and also the civilian population of Czech 

lands that followed his assassination by 

Czechoslovak parachutists. It was not, 

however – even taking into consideration 

the wider concept of repatriation – an 

immediate reaction of the British 

government to Lidice, but the 

culmination of the long-term 

development of British thinking. In the 

memoranda which Eden had already 

given to the British government on July 2 

as a basis for this decision, the parallels 

with post-war “repatriation” he thought 

necessary recalled mainly Hitler’s and the 



201 

Chapter V 

Soviet Union’s widespread compulsory 

resettlement programmes. De Gaulle’s 

National Committee of the Free French 

also accepted as its own goal the concept 

of the expulsion and repatriation of 

German minorities from liberated 

territories. 

At this time, Edvard Beneš was very 

flexibly circumnavigating the demands 

and fears of individual groups of 

Czechoslovak émigrés (very radical anti- 

German opinions were being expressed, 

for example, by the Czechoslovak army 

attaché in London, Josef Kalla, and the 

London representative of the 

Czechoslovak Communist Party, Václav 

Nosek) and the resistance at home, as 

well as among the reflections of British, 

Russian and American diplomats on the 

question of giving up part of 

Czechoslovak territory in return for the 

compulsory repatriation of the majority 

of Sudeten Germans. On the contrary, 

during the debates concerning how many 

and which Germans, and on the basis of 

what status they would be able to stay in 

post-war Czechoslovakia, he maintained 

the biggest manoeuvring space he could 

for himself. (The historian, Kamil Krofta 

– pre-war Czechoslovak Minister of 

Foreign Affairs – in the research into 

possible post-war arrangements which 

he was working on shortly before he was 

arrested by the Gestapo, was working on 

the assumption that pro-Czechoslovak 

Germans who had helped with the 

resistance would, in the renewed 

Republic, get the status of foreigners 

with a permanent residence permit). 

However, at this time it was already clear, 

both in exile and in the homeland, that 

after the war one or other form of basic 

diminution of the German minority 

would take place in Czechoslovakia, and 

on a yet larger scale in Poland. 

In May 1943, Edvard Beneš spoke 

about the question of the post-war 

organisation of Central Europe with the 

British Prime Minister, Winston 

Churchill. Before his meeting with the 

Soviet leadership Churchill told him that 

transfer of the population would be 

inevitable. Whoever wanted to leave the 

Baltic states would be free to do so. This

Chapter V 

also applied to East Prussia if it fell to 

the Poles, and the same for the citizens 

of the Sudetenland. They would be given 

a short space of time for them to take 

their most essential possessions and 

leave. Churchill hoped that he would 

manage to persuade the Russians of this. 

It had proved to be successful years ago 

in Turkey and Greece, and it would be 

successful now. Representatives of the 

American State Department were of a 

similar opinion. Ray Atherton, Chief of 

the European Division even stated that 

he personally was in favour of the 

removal of all German minorities to 

Germany, and similarly all Japanese 

minorities from all the countries of the 

Far East to Japan. US President Franklin 

D. Roosevelt held a similarly radical 

opinion (different from the judgement of 

more moderate American military 

planners). In a discussion with the 

representative of the Polish resistance 

movement, Jan Karski, he expressed 

himself in agreement with the plan of 

the leadership of the underground 

Armija Krajowa, that, after the liberation 

of Poland, a short wave of terror along 

the border would be initiated against 

German citizens – those who had settled 

there during the war and also permanent 

residents – which would move them to a 

speedier “voluntary” evacuation. Of this 

plan the President said only: “The 

Germans deserve it.” In December 1943, 

it transpired in Moscow that Czech ideas 

for the post-war transfers of Germans 

were accepted in principle by the Soviet 

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also 

Stalin himself. 

It is not possible to restrict the 

problem of the war-time “removal” of 

minorities to the fate of the Germans. 

More precisely, we have to consider the 

Nazi plans and actions for the evacuation 

and slaughter of the Jewish, Romany and 

Slav peoples of mainly central and 

eastern, but also western and southern 

Europe. The above mentioned radical 

reduction in the level of inhibition 

against the manipulation, expulsion and 

murder of Jewish and other ethnic 

minorities in individual regions took on a 

drastically raised profile specifically in 



202 

east Europe and in the Balkans. In the 

numerous conflicts between central 

European and east European nations in 

the 1940s, the actions of the army, and 

the Nazi policy of slaughter and 

starvation, became a fuse, a catalyst, or at 

least a means of lowering the threshold 

of revulsion against aggression aimed at 

other nations and nationalities, religious 

or cultural groups (In this context, and 

with the support of the most modern 

research of the younger generation of 

German historians, it is necessary to 

mention the Wehrmacht leadership’s 

plans – actually carried out, thank God, 

only in a small way – to eliminate, 

through isolation and death by 

starvation, approximately thirty million 

citizens of Belarus and adjacent regions 

in the rear of the Nazi armies advancing 

on Moscow, and more precisely the 

decision of the Wehrmacht, after its 

planned conquest of the besieged 

Leningrad, to exterminate its entire – 

sick and starving – population). 

From a subsidiary line of racially 

motivated massacres, it is necessary to 

remind ourselves of the great, primarily 

Lithuanian, and especially Latvian, but 

also Ukrainian and, as we now know, also 

numerous Polish, mass murders of 

Jewish citizens of Eastern Europe in the 

summer and autumn of 1941, initiated 

and actually partly scripted for the 

cameras of German documentary 

makers, and then executed by Nazis with 

ultimate brutality. 

Below the surface of the Soviet- 

German conflict, a cruel civil war of 

butchery and expulsion had already 

started in 1942 on the large mixed 

Polish-Ukrainian territory of pre-war 

eastern Poland and north-western 

Ukraine. This is where the Polish 

underground Armija Krajowa came to 

blows with the forces of the Ukrainian 

Nationalists (UPA). As Philipp Ther has 

shown, the two nationalist resistance 

organisations fought in parallel against 

both superpower armies, the Soviet and 

the German (or their forces of 

repression) but also against each other 

(A similarly apocalyptic situation also 

obtained from the end of the 1930s to

the end of the 1940s in the more 

northern parts of Belarus, in the land 

with possibly the highest total losses of 

civilian life in Europe during the war, its 

preamble and aftermath). The Polish- 

Ukrainian war lasted practically until 

1947, causing the death of several 

hundred thousand people and driving 

hundreds of thousands more people 

along the Polish-Ukrainian border from 

their homes in the worst of poverty. 

After 1944, the suffering of war was 

followed by the compulsory Soviet- 

Polish exchange of citizens, or more 

precisely the compulsory transfer of a 

further approximately 2,100,000 

Ukrainians and 630,000 Poles in total, 

who were transferred between the 

Ukraine, reconquered and pacified by the 

Red Army, and Poland with its newly 

“shifted” western borders. 

An in many ways similar war to the 

death, initiated or repeatedly revived by 

local nationalists and Nazis on the one 

hand and the Communists on the other, 

had been taking place for several years 

between individual ethnic and religious 

groups in Yugoslavia, part of which the 

Nazis occupied in the spring of 1941. 

This took place against the background 

of those nations’ largely common 

struggle against the German occupying 

forces. The Serbo-Croatian, but also the 

Christian-Muslim, conflict repeatedly 

assumed the guise of mass butchery of 

civilians, while assisting the efforts of 

Tito’s partisans to weaken the historical 

Italian minority in north-west 

Yugoslavia, or at least to eliminate its 

economic and intellectual élite. In spite 

of mass executions of the representatives 

of the higher ranks of Italian society – 

whether or not they had collaborated 

with the Nazis – carried out by Serbian 

communists in 1943, the Italian minority 

– even partly under Serbian command – 

joined the armed struggle against the 

German occupying forces from 1944. 

This was not much help to them after 

the war, however. 

On November 21, 1944, the German 

minority in Yugoslavia were stripped of 

all civic rights by decree of the AVNOJ 

(The Anti-Fascist Council of National 



203 

Chapter V 

Liberation of Yugoslavia), all their 

property was expropriated in favour of 

the Yugoslav state, and they were then 

exiled from the country. As for the 

Italian population of Istria, which had 

been ceded to Yugoslavia by Italy on a 

decision of the Allies, Tito’s government 

forced them to choose between declaring 

themselves Yugoslavians (which meant 

that they would lose their national and 

language rights, but could stay on in their 

homes), and being rapidly expelled from 

the country to Italy with few belongings. 

In contrast with the fate of the German 

minority, it was not compulsory 

deportation in this case. However, in the 

light of their wartime experience and the 

violence in the immediate wake of the 

war, the Italian population decided en 

masse to leave “spontaneously”. The first 

generation of Istrian Italians, unable to 

adapt to their new situation and 

surroundings, vegetated in barracks in 

camps in northern Italy until the mid- 

1960s. The “reslavification” of the 

Italianised population of north-western 

Yugoslavia was, in a way, similar to the 

rapid “repolonisation” of a large part of 

the citizens of Upper Silesia who for the 

previous almost hundred years had opted 

for German or were bilingual. 

Even though the superpowers had 

agreed on post-war repatriation, the first 

forced evacuation of German minorities 

from eastern Europe had already begun 

under Nazi orders. According to an order 

issued by Hitler in February, 1943, about 

the razing and destruction of land 

abandoned to the enemy, more precisely 

about the evacuation of all citizens of the 

Greater German Reich before the retreat 

of the German Wehrmacht (two weeks 

after the fall of Stalingrad), not a single 

citizen was to be left on territory where 

the Red Army was advancing. 

Evacuations and escapes assumed a mass 

character after the beginning of 1944, 

when the Red Army entered the territory 

of Eastern Prussia, and ushered in its 

occupation policy with the massacre of 

the German civilian population of the 

village of Nemmersdorf. The massacre 

was used and developed “creatively” by 

Nazi propaganda, and – essentially

Chapter V 

against the wishes of the army leadership 

– a massive withdrawal of German 

citizens from the front to the centre of 

the Reich was initiated. Already by then 

(to some extent possibly following the 

Russian example), the Nazis had started 

their tactic of leaving the enemy nothing 

but scorched earth. 

It is symptomatic that Hitler’s orders 

formulated in this spirit conflicted with 

the attempts of the regional Gauleiters 

to prevent a timely evacuation of the 

civilian population and to organise them 

for a militia-type defence of German 

territory. The spontaneous mass exodus 

to the West, motivated by propaganda 

and true stories about the behaviour of 

the Russians, often took place at the last 

moment, just ahead of the advancing 

Red Army. The columns of refugees 

blocked communications and 

complicated the life of the fighting units 

of the Wehrmacht. The fate of the mass 

of refugees was mainly tragic, but the e 

inhabitants, usually farmers, who stayed 

behind in the Russian occupied territory 

ignoring all the so-called “scorched 

earth” commands, fared hardly better. 

The suicidal, methodical “scorched 

earth” policy culminated at the very end 

of the “total war” in Hitler’s “Nero order” 

of March 20, 1945, under which no one 

was allowed to remain, on pain of 

summary execution, on territories taken 

over by the Allies, and under which all 

buildings and equipment had to be 

completely destroyed before the 

evacuation. This order – Nazi terror 

turned against the majority of the 

German people – was also brutally 

complied with on almost all remaining 

territory of the Third Reich. In a sense, 

the systematic Nazi destruction of 

Warsaw after the defeat of the Polish 

uprising of August and September, 1944, 

(carried out, moreover, as the Red Army 

looked on) was a precursor of this 

concept of general apocalypse. 

It was one of the ironies of the period 

that the western Allies, who had finally 

brought the war onto the territory of the 

German Reich, started, at approximately 

the same time, in the winter of 1944-45, 

to alter their relatively benevolent 



204 

policies, even in the matter of 

compulsory transfers. (The British, for 

instance, had refused for a long time to 

consider the compulsory transfer of 

German nationals from the Sudetenland 

as a form of “punishment” – they voiced 

concern that such punishment, if 

inflicted only on true Nazi activists and 

war criminals, would make the volume of 

the transfers insignificant). It turned out, 

however, that even though Germany had 

mercilessly conquered and occupied, 

great effort was needed in order to 

stabilise the situation in housing, health 

care and supplies in the often completely 

devastated occupied territories. The 

floods of physically exhausted and 

demoralised refugees made the situation 

even worse, and became an enormous 

burden and destabilising element for the 

occupying authorities. 

More pragmatic voices therefore 

called for rational limitations on 

compulsory repatriation, demanding 

above all limits on the compulsory 

evacuations of Germans from their 

homes, and better organised, humane 

and administratively less demanding, 

smaller-scale repatriations spread over 

longer periods of time (the western 

Allies were considering a time frame of 

up to five years). Aside from the refugees 

and expelled people, it was also necessary 

to take into account and take care of an 

enormous mass of liberated and, in the 

majority of cases, terribly devastated, sick 

and undernourished prisoners and 

concentration camp inmates or POWs 

from a number of European countries, 

and to regulate the desperate efforts of 

millions of people sent to Germany as 

forced labour to return home as fast as 

possible. In the meantime, in this chaotic 

situation, German prisoners of war were 

being sent overseas en masse by the 

Western Allies to labour camps in the 

USA and Canada, and by the Soviet 

command into forced labour for the 

renovation of war-damaged areas and to 

Siberia. However, it was not until the 

Potsdam Conference between July and 

August, 1945 that “orderly and humane” 

procedures for the compulsory 

repatriation of German minorities from

central and eastern Europe were clearly 

formulated. 

EVACUATIONS AND EXODUS 

Hitler's “Nero Order” had fatal 

consequences for the German 

population, and for cities and villages 

even in the western areas of the actual 

territory of the Reich, but nothing 

surpassed the effects of the mass exodus 

of several million civilians from the East. 

It should be remembered that in this 

gigantic maelstrom of often bombarded, 

always hungry, exhausted, freezing and 

sick columns of refugees, frantic death 

marches of concentration-camp 

prisoners, and military transports crisscrossing 

Poland, Hungary and the Czech 

lands in the general direction of the West 

in the winter of 1944-1945, there were 

also several hundred thousand German 

children below the age of 14 whom the 

German authorities had failed to 

evacuate from the 

Kinderlandesverschickung camps and 

sanatoria, and who were left entirely on 

their own. Let us also remember that the 

ethnic Germans from eastern Europe 

were accompanied in their flight from 

the Red Army by large numbers of the 

Baltic and Slav population, who had 

become rigidly anti-Soviet after the 

traumatic experiences of the 1930s and 

1940s when their countries were first 

bloodily sovietised. 

No proper figures have ever been 

given for the loss of life that occurred 

during this partly forced, partly 

spontaneous, and only in part officiallysanctioned 

evacuation, but it is evident 

that it must have amounted to hundreds 

of thousands. The regional differences 

were enormous. The Nazi evacuation of 

the “Carpathian Germans” was for 

instance relatively orderly, but the 

evacuation of East Prussia and Silesia 

happened at the last moment and in 

great haste and chaos. The German 

nationals in the Silesian part of the 

Sudetenland, for instance, were not 

sufficiently prepared by the propaganda 

to leave their homes, and vehemently 

resisted the compulsory evacuation 

taking place, together with the old men 



205 

Chapter V 

and boys older than 14 drafted into the 

home defence units of the Volkssturm and 

sent immediately to an unnecessary 

death at the front. 

The Polish situation, particularly the 

expulsion and repatriation of German 

minorities from the territory of the 

renewed Polish state, represented a very 

specific case in post-war Europe. The 

Poles were attacked from two sides. The 

Soviet-Nazi pact of 1939, known in 

history as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact 

liquidated the Polish state to the 

advantage of the two momentarily allied 

socialist powers by giving the Soviet 

Union the eastern part of historic 

Poland, the so-called kresy, including key 

cities like the Polish-Ukrainian Lvov and 

the Polish-Lithuanian Vilnius. The 

western part was annexed by Hitler to 

the German Reich and from a third part 

a new so-called General Government 

was created. The Stalin leadership pulled 

off an extraordinary coup after the attack 

on the Soviet Union by Hitler's 

Wehrmacht: by confronting their 

western allies with a fait accompli they 

gradually forced them to recognise the 

Russian part of the pact (and of course to 

dust off the post-World War I Curzon 

Line). This of course meant a radical 

dismembering of the Polish State, and 

therefore something that the Polish 

government in exile in London perceived 

as a betrayal of Poland and the Polish 

people, and would never be willing to 

accept, not even after the death of 

Sikorski. 

The western Allies opted for 

compensation as a way of helping to 

reconcile Poland with the Russian 

expansion, which they were not able and 

– because of their war aims – not ready to 

challenge: post-war Poland was promised 

a major part of East Prussia (originally 

together including Königsberg 

(Kaliningrad) which still remains in 

Russian hands), Gdansk (Danzig) and its 

territories, and Upper Silesia. 

Realistically Poland lacked the capacity 

to populate more (the war and Nazi 

massacres having taken the lives of 2 

million Polish Christians and of more 

than 3 million Polish Jews). Even the

Chapter V 

British-American approach included 

repatriation or resettling of about 

3,500,000 Germans still living on the 

territory of post-war Poland. However, 

after the establishment under Soviet 

auspices of the Lublin “National 

Committee” which gradually took over 

the government in the territories 

liberated by the Red Army, the area of 

the future Poland and therefore also the 

area of compulsory repatriation of the 

German population (irrespective of the 

western Allies’ opinion), started to grow 

substantially until its western border 

reached the Oder-Neisse line. The West 

initially protested but eventually caved in 

to Stalin at the Potsdam talks. The 

expulsion of the German nationals who 

did not escape as the front approached 

was essentially the task of the Red Army 

which was extremely brutal not only to 

Germans but also to the “liberated” 

Poles, some of whom put up armed 

resistance to them. According to the 

estimates of the Federal German 

Archives of 1989, during the 1944-1945 

escapes and repatriations, 400,000 

German civilians from the territory of 

today’s Poland died. After the war a 

situation akin to civil war developed on 

the “newly acquired” Polish territories in 

which everyone was at loggerheads. 

The changes in post-war Hungary 

were also fairly dramatic. The conquest 

of Hungary by the Soviet army was 

followed, from the autumn of 1944, by 

the deportation of approximately 60,000 

Hungarian Germans to forced-labour 

camps in Russia. At the same time a 

sizeable portion of the Hungarian 

civilian population was also deported to 

Siberia, such as immediately after the 

lengthy siege of the fortress in Budapest 

that was fiercely defended by relatively 

few German and Hungarian troops. 

From April 1945, the new Hungarian 

government, and especially the strong 

agrarian party, started a rabid campaign 

leading to the expulsion of the “Swabian 

traitors”. The Hungarian communists 

were of the same opinion: “We cannot 

blame Hitler for everything. The 

Germans must share his fate”. The 

Hungarian social democrats and the 



206 

Civic Democratic Party countered this 

by pointing out that only about half the 

660,000 German nationals of war-time 

Hungary (whose territory grew by 50% 

as a result of the Viennese arbitration), 

joined the Nazi Volksbund der Deutschen 

in Ungarn and its associated 

organisations. The Hungarian 

provisional government had already 

asked the Allied Control Commission 

for Hungary in April 1944 (in 

connection with the preparation of 

agrarian reform) to agree to the 

repatriation of 200,000 to 300,000 

Germans from the country. The Allies, 

especially the Americans, surprisingly 

agreed with alacrity, and were interested 

in taking approximately 500,000 

resettlers. However, they mainly wanted 

building labourers who could be put to 

work renewing the ruined German cities. 

The “Danube Swabians” were mostly 

farmers, however. In 1946, only 150,000 

Germans were finally repatriated into 

the American zone, and a year later 

another 50,000 into Soviet-occupied 

East Germany. Meanwhile sections of 

the Hungarian minorities (240,000) fled 

from the Bukovina, the Trans- 

Carpathian Ukraine, Transylvania and 

the Vojvodina, and smaller groups of 

Hungarians moved to Hungary from 

other European countries, some of 

whom fled, others were resettled and 

approximately 100,000 Hungarian 

nationals from Slovakia were 

“exchanged” for 70,000 Slovaks. 

A number of western and north 

European countries got rid of their 

usually relatively small German minority 

groups but fairly large groups of German 

war colonists, civilian employees of the 

occupation forces and refugees, without 

much scruple or special legislative 

changes, immediately after their 

liberation by Allied forces. French 

research shows today that, for instance, 

de Gaulle's Free French applied exactly 

the Polish approach declared in 1943 by 

the Armija Krajowa. After the liberation 

of Alsace they shot about 8,000 local 

Germans, thereby “encouraging” not 

only war immigrants from the German 

Reich, but also some of the long-term

German population compromised 

during the Nazi occupation to flee the 

country “of their own accord”. The 

majority of the bilingual population then 

simply converted back to its French 

identity. In Scandinavia, only now are 

the historians and publicists trying to 

resolve the question of whether violent 

liquidation of larger groups of Germans 

from the Reich took place in this part of 

Europe, aside from numerous murders of 

collaborators and “collaborators”, or 

whether what we sometimes hear are 

unfounded rumours (the debate about 

thousands of German refugees shot to 

death in Denmark after liberation). 

Specific to Europe are the post-war 

efforts of the Netherlands, vehemently 

demanding territorial compensation for 

polders flooded by the German 

Wehrmacht during defence actions and 

thereby ruined in the long term. The 

Dutch demands encompassed the 

territory of what is at present Rhine- 

Westphalia, equalling approximately one 

third of Dutch territory. According to 

repeated Dutch demands, this area was 

to be transferred to the Netherlands 

without its inhabitants who were to be 

repatriated in the German hinterland. 

However, from the beginning there were 

numerous protests against such 

compensation for war losses, such as on 

the part of Dutch bishops. The Dutch 

demands also encountered resistance 

from the American occupying forces for 

practical reasons. But they were 

definitely abandoned only in 1948 in the 

framework of the Cold War. 

The transfer approach, decided upon 

by the Allies in 1942-1943 after the 

drastic experiences of the first years of 

war and after reports of Nazi 

repatriation, transfer and extermination 

projects and activities, were based on the 

contemporary idea of the “collective 

guilt” of all Germans who did not join 

the anti-Nazi resistance, or did not 

become victims of Nazism (Hannah 

Arendt). The great German writer 

Thomas Mann, who lived in exile in the 

United States, expressed his opinion on 

the “terrible collective national guilt” of 

the Germans in the BBC broadcast 



207 

Chapter V 

“Deutsche Hörer” of December 30, 

1945: “Those, whose world became grey 

a long time ago when they realised what 

mountains of hate towered over 

Germany; those, who a long time ago 

imagined during sleepless nights how 

terrible would be the revenge on 

Germany for the inhuman deeds of the 

Nazis, cannot help but view with 

wretchedness all that is being done to 

Germans by the Russians, Poles or 

Czechs as nothing other than a 

mechanical and inevitable reaction to the 

crimes that the people have committed 

as a nation, in which unfortunately 

individual justice, or the guilt or 

innocence of the individual, 

can play no part.” 

It is estimated that about 12 million or 

according to more recent estimates 

perhaps only about 10 million German 

nationals who originally lived outside 

Germany had to flee, were expelled or 

forcibly repatriated into the German 

territory we know today, and found there 

safe haven and eventually a new 

homeland in the period of 1945-1947. In 

addition about 800,000 Germans, 

consisting of the local population, 

refugees and people expelled by the 

Soviet authorities, fled en masse 

immediately after the war from the 

Soviet zone of occupation later known as 

the German Democratic Republic. 

Finns, Hungarians and Romanians were 

also subject to expulsions and 

compulsory resettlement or fled escapes 

to a lesser, but statistically important, 

extent. According to estimates, more 

than 20,000,000 European civilians were 

forced to leave their homelands, 

permanently or temporarily, in the 1944- 

1948 period. The majority of ethnic 

minorities disappeared from the map of 

Europe in this time. However, post-war 

Europe was stabilised for many decades 

more by Cold War borders than by 

national homogenisation. 

The principle of collective guilt was 

rejected by the United Nations Charter 

of Human Rights in December, 1948, 

but it was not until 1962 that the United 

Nations banned forced migration as a 

political instrument or punishment.

THE IMPLEMENTATION 

OF THE TRANSFER 

208

Chapter VI The Implementation of the Transfer 

THE CZECH PROVINCES 

AND THE GERMANS IN THE 

IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH 

OF THE WAR 

The difficult circumstances prevailing 

during the last months of the war were 

further complicated by the increased 

migration of the German population. It 

is extremely difficult to establish the 

exact number of Germans who were to 

be found on Czechoslovak territory at 

210 

Silesia, with several hundreds of 

thousands more refugees coming from 

the whole of the eastern part of the 

Reich. German sources, however, give a 

figure of between 3 million and 

3.4 million. It is thus virtually impossible 

to determine a precise number. One 

method of establishing a reasonably 

reliable figure for the inhabitants of 

Bohemia and Moravia is to use the 

statistics for the issue of food rationing 

The day before the Soviet forces arrived,Toussaint, the German commander of Prague, 

handed over power in the city to representatives of the Czech resistance on condition 

that the Germans would be allowed to leave and give themselves up to the Americans 

(left).The Czech police reacted to numerous denunciations by widespread 

arrests of people suspected of being informers and collaborators. 

the end of the war. Naturally enough, no 

precise records exist; this was made 

impossible not only by the breakdown of 

administrative structures in the final 

phases of the war, but also by the 

practically uncontrollable mass 

migration that took place among the 

population. In trying to ascertain figures 

for the numbers of the German 

population we have to rely on estimates, 

which may later be corrected as a result 

of further research. 

At the period in question, at least 4 

million German civilians were to be 

found on Czechoslovak territory. The 

majority belonged to the permanently 

settled population, but perhaps as many 

as 1 million consisted of refugees from 

coupons. They show that at the 

beginning of May 1945 there were some 

3,325,000 people living in the occupied 

Sudetenland, of which about 600 

thousand were Czechs or other people 

with non-German nationality. This gives 

a figure of roughly 2,275,000 Germans. 

This however includes people who for 

various reasons came to live in the area 

after 1938. Only somewhat later, on 

June 25, 1945, there were only 

2,716,239 German civilians in the whole 

of Bohemia and Moravia. 

A certain proportion of this number 

consisted of German families who had 

been resettled here during the course of 

the war. For example, during 1943 

Germans came from South Tyrol to

settle confiscated Czech farmsteads in 

northern Moravia. The original Czech 

owners of the farmsteads were evacuated 

without compensation. Similarly, only 

approximate conclusions can be drawn 

about how many of the original Sudeten 

German population, who in 1938 had 

been Czechoslovak citizens, were no 

longer on Czechoslovak territory when 

the war came to an end: estimates are in 

the region of 500 thousand people. This 

The Implementation of the Transfer 

211 

Chapter VI 

able to say that they were Czechs in 

1946. Here, too, we are reliant on 

calculations that are not necessarily 

entirely accurate. Nevertheless, 

exploratory research by the German 

historian Marie Rhode indicate that the 

number of such cases was by no means 

insignificant. Informed estimates put the 

number at around 91 thousand people. 

We further need to take into account 

those Sudeten German deserters (whose 

At the end of the war the Czech roads were crowded with countless 

groups of refugees and prisoners of war. 

includes prisoners of war, the 207 

thousand Sudeten German soldiers who 

died during the war, and also members of 

the repressive Nazi police and civilian 

administrative machinery in the Reich 

and in various occupied parts of Europe, 

who had often left with their whole 

family to take up these posts and had 

been unable to return home before the 

end of the war. This number further 

includes those Germans who died 

during this time from natural causes. 

When calculating the number of 

permanently settled German inhabitants 

of the Czech lands who were suddenly 

“missing”, we also need to take into 

account those who in these dramatic 

times quietly changed their nationality, 

for many people from mixed families, in 

particular, who had described themselves 

as Germans in the 1939 census, were 

number cannot be specified more 

closely) who in post-war Germany 

pretended for practical reasons to be 

Germans from the Reich who had been 

driven out or fled from the East. 

According to the historian Tomáš 

Staněk, there were approximately 650 

thousand Germans to be found in the 

territory of the Protectorate itself during 

the final months of the war, about half of 

whom were fleeing from the advancing 

eastern front (described at the time as 

“guests from other nations”). In Prague 

and the surrounding area there were 

some 250 thousand Germans from the 

Reich, including members of the armed 

forces, those who were wounded, and 

fugitives from the Reich. Many had also 

been evacuated here. On Himmler's 

orders the majority of the roughly 120 

thousand Carpathian Germans from


Slovakia had been evacuated to the 

Protectorate and the occupied Šumava 

region. 

The total number of Germans to be 

found on the territory of the Protectorate 

at the end of the war can thus only be 

guessed at. However, it was a substantial 

number, which plays a fundamental role 

in any assessment or interpretation of the 

transfer. And this is not only because of 

the direct connection with the number of 

Sudeten Germans who were expelled or 

transferred from Czechoslovak territory 

after the war. It also has a far more 

profound significance. For behind these 

summary historical statistics are 

concealed the fates of individual people, 

which in a number of cases are not 

properly reflected in the statistics. For 

example, especially in the first few weeks 

after the end of the war, several of the 

trains transporting the German 

deportees crossed and re-crossed the 

borders of the occupied sectors more 

than once, were sent back, went back and 

forth across the Czech lands, and were 

recorded more than once and in different 

ways. Their passengers, if they survived 

the terrifying journey, might then have 

been left for several months in one of the 

212 

camps or even in their place of origin, 

until finally after the Potsdam agreement 

they set out on the journey on one of the 

properly processed and dispatched 

transport trains to Germany. 

Figures for the number of Germans 

who remained in Czechoslovakia once 

the transfer was over are also inexact. By 

the end of 1947 there were said to have 

been about 200 thousand of them still 

living on Czechoslovak territory, with 

The atmosphere throughout Europe was made worse by the testimony given by many 

freed prisoners about Nazi bestiality in the concentration camps 

and on the death marches. 

roughly a tenth of these in Slovakia. But 

on July 1, 1949 there were said to have 

been only about 175 thousand of them. 

These discrepancies are due partly to the 

repeated migration of individuals, and 

partly to the uncertainty that arose 

regarding which nationality people 

belonged to in the case of mixed 

marriages. And there were not 

inconsiderable numbers of them – 

according to official estimates between 

40 and 60 thousand people, but the 

German literature – without 

documentation – operates with much 

higher figures, going up to 700 thousand 

people. 

In order to understand subsequent 

developments it is particularly important 

to be aware of the increased tension that

accompanied the final months of the 

war. This was caused by the visibly 

approaching defeat of Nazi Germany. 

On the German side fear, apprehension, 

and in many cases probably a feeling of 

guilt became apparent. Both Czechs and 

Germans, though each in different ways, 

were undoubtedly strongly influenced by 

the collapse of the idea of the German 

“master race”, which was particularly 

evident in the pitiful figures of the 

fugitives and refugees from the German 

eastern territories, who thus in fact 

became “Hitler's last victims” 

(Hans Lemberg). 

For the Czechs, the end of the war 

brought with it liberation, the renewal of 

the Czechoslovak Republic, and hopeful 

anticipation of an end to the terror, but 


213 

Chapter VI 

The return of President Bene‰ to his homeland was seen by the vast majority of the 

Czech public as a national victory and historical vindication. 

sometimes also the desire for retribution 

and revenge on those who either 

allegedly or in fact bore the blame for the 

suffering of the past six years. In the 

situation of deepening chaos, all these 

expectations, fed by the dramatic radio 

broadcasts from the Reich or abroad, and 

in some cases by articles in the Sudeten, 

Protectorate, or underground press, gave 

rise not only to apprehension and hope 

but also to tension and nervousness. 

The behaviour of the occupying power 

and in particular events during the final 

months of the war reinforced the 

Czechs’ general aversion to the 

Germans. Among the most significant 

psychological factors that increased the 

anti-German mood were evidently the 

trains transporting inmates and prisoners


of war from the concentration camps in 

Poland that had been closed down and 

from the Sudetenland, and also the 

German terrorist actions carried out 

against the Czech uprising, which we 

described at the end of Chapter IV. 

These already strongly anti-German 

attitudes were further reinforced by the 

information that was received about the 

conditions in which Czechs lived who 

had been called up to do forced labour in 

the Reich or imprisoned in prisons or 

prison camps, and from which some of 

them had managed to escape during the 

chaos of bombardment and evacuation at 

the end of the war. Gradually, too, the 

horrific facts about everyday reality in 

Nazi concentration camps were coming 

to light. The fact that this was often 

uncorroborated information, consisting 

of reports passed on by word of mouth, 

did not reduce its credibility among the 

general public, rather the reverse. 

Nor did the behaviour of most of the 

Sudeten Germans during the final 

phases of the war do anything to 

214 

moderate the anti-German mood among 

the Czechs. The vast majority of them 

remained faithful to the Nazi ideology – 

either out of genuine conviction or 

simply from force of habit. The anti- 

Nazi resistance movement among the 

Sudeten Germans remained very weak 

right up to the last days of the war and 

thus was unable to influence the overall 

negative view that the Czechs had of 

their German neighbours. Many records 

A car with revolutionary guards from Prague in Northern Bohemia.The re-occupation 

of the territory which had been allotted to the Third Reich after the Munich agreement 

at times led to inexcusable violence against the German population. 

can be found testifying to the behaviour 

of local party leaders and bosses at this 

time, and to the transformation brought 

about by the end of the war. The author 

of the chronicle kept by the local Sokol 

[a patriotic sports association, trans.] in 

Šumvald, northern Moravia, recorded 

one such transformation as follows: “We 

will never forget the way they looked. 

The faces of these former tyrants of our 

people were terrified and so pale as to be 

unrecognisable, and they spoke in 

unusually restrained tones”. 

The numerous chronicles kept by 

Czech villages and towns, which have

still not been made use of very much, 

together with the records of personal 

memories, are able – both on the Czech 

and the German side (as translated into 

Czech by Eva Hahn) – to contribute 

valuable information that helps us 

appreciate the mentality of the time. It is 

only in this way that we are able to 

understand much of the motivation for 

later attitudes and deeds. Yet the 

personal experience of contemporary 

witnesses is never a completely 

independent phenomenon, but reflects at 

the same time a suprapersonal, shared 

mentality, a social and cultural setting, or 

an accepted system of values. No matter 

how much understanding we may have 

for the personal traumas of the time, we 

cannot overlook the fact that in 1938- 

1945 Nazism overstepped the limits of 

the shared cultural codes on the basis of 

which Czechs and Germans lived side by 

side. And the perhaps mainly 

subconscious awareness of this fact 

provided fertile ground for the numerous 

reactions by Czech society in 1945, just 

as it was also reflected in the conduct and 


215 

Chapter VI 

behaviour of people in other countries 

that had been occupied by the Nazis and 

indeed in the attitude of the Allied forces 

towards the Germans. 

THE PROCESS OF THE 

TRANSFER 

The phenomenon that has traditionally 

been described on the Czech side using 

the term odsun (rough English equivalent 

“transfer”), and which historians have 

Photograph of Czechs murdered by SS units in the Pankrác district of Prague on May 6, 

1945. In the spring of 2002 the photograph was published in Austria, where it was 

alleged to show a massacre of Sudeten Germans. 

sought to differentiate by using the terms 

vyhnání (expulsion) and transfer 

(transfer), or vyhnání (expulsion) and 

vysídlení (resettlement) is an extremely 

complex issue in which many internal 

distinctions are to be made. Within it, 

three basic groups can be distinguished: 

1. Evacuation from areas threatened 

by war. We have already mentioned that 

most of the Carpathian Germans from 

Slovakia were evacuated to the territory 

of the Protectorate. This was a large 

group of women and children who were 

mostly evacuated from their homes in 

April 1945 when the area became 

threatened by the approach of the


eastern battlefront. Gradually many of 

them then returned to Slovakia and it 

was only in the following months that 

the regulations concerning the transfer 

were applied to them. 

2. Flight from the approaching 

battlefront or from areas that were being 

bombarded, and also flight out of fear of 

being persecuted. The Sudeten Germans 

did not fall into this category very much, 

as relatively few of the original German 

inhabitants in the Bohemian and 

Moravian border areas fled from their 

homes. Perhaps the most well-known 

example is the voluntary departure of 

practically all the Nazi functionaries 

from Ústí nad Labem on the night of 

May 7-8. On the other hand, the border 

area between Moravia and Silesia, in 

particular, experienced a large influx of 

fugitives at the end of the war. Another 

substantial group of refugees on Czech 

territory, from as early as 1944, were 

those from the cities within the Reich 

that were being bombarded. Germans 

from Silesia and the Hlučín area also fled 

into the territory of the Protectorate. 

3. The third category is what is known 

as the “wild” or “uncontrolled” transfer, 

for which it is necessary to use the term 

expulsion. The approaching end of the 

occupying regime had a visible effect not 

only on the military situation, but 

increasingly obviously on everyday life in 

the occupied territory too. The Czech 

population reacted to the changes and 

their symptoms with a surge of emotion. 

One of its most prominent features was – 

as a result of the “Munich” occupation 

and the war, but also of the thorough 

intoxication of victory and freedom once 

again – a surge of national feeling or 

“national radicalism”. It manifested itself 

in a wide range of forms, from deeds of a 

symbolic nature to acts of violent hatred 

against Germans and everything 

German. This was the source of the first 

cases of expulsion, ill-treatment and 

murdering of Germans, which, depending 

on the local conditions, may have taken 

place even before May 8. The task of 

systematically examining this first phase 

of the transfer, which continued until 

August 1945, still has to be undertaken by 

216 

historical researchers. In the meantime we 

have to rely on incomplete information, 

records of the most glaring cases of 

violent expulsion (which are relatively 

well documented), or on the results of the 

research that has been carried out so far 

on a regional level. One of the best of 

these surveys has been carried out by 

Milan Skřivánek for the Svitavy area. 

Trying to construct a view of the 

events of May 1945 is made difficult by 

Germans had to wear white armbands 

and were put to forced labour. In a 

contemporary cartoon the young boy is 

asking why the Germans arms are 

“bandaged”. He is told that it is because 

they had had their arms 

raised for six years. 

the extremely confused situation. There 

was not yet any fixed central 

administration, still less records. Most 

of what took place, including the 

removal of the Sudeten Germans and 

their detention, was spontaneous. 

Events were triggered off by the mood 

locally and organised by the local 

officials. But as Tomáš Staněk has 

shown in his study of the sources, right 

from the beginning a major, if not key, 

role was played by the army. As early as 

May 15, General Zdeněk Novák, head 

of the Prague military command “Alex” 

which co-ordinated the military 

occupation and the “cleansing” of the 

Sudetenland, issued an order to “deport 

all Germans from territory within the 

historical borders”. Only a sufficient 

number of labourers and employees to

ensure the running of agriculture and 

industry were to be allowed to remain in 

the country, but they were only to have 

the status of foreign workers, without 

any civil rights. 

The attitude of the soldiers was clearly 

determined by the army guidelines, 

summarised for example in the Ten 

Commandments for Czechoslovak Soldiers 

in the Border Regions, issued on June 5: 

“The Germans have remained our 

irreconcilable enemies. Do not cease to 

hate the Germans… Behave towards 

Germans like a victor… Be harsh to the 

Germans… German women and the 

Hitler Youth also bear the blame for the 

crimes of the Germans. Deal with them 

too in an uncompromising way.” The 

tone and content of these instructions 

resembled those of similar instructions 

that British and American soldiers 

deployed in occupied Germany received 

in the form of orders and pamphlets. For 

example, in the American army 

pamphlet Pocket Guide to Germany, 

issued in 1944, the main command was: 

“Do not fraternise with the German 

instigators of the war! Remember that 

victory had to be bought with the lives of 

American soldiers. Germany is an enemy 

country which has not been liberated but 

conquered. Today Germans may have 

had enough of the Nazi party, but in the 

past they sinned against the rights of 

humanity. They cannot return to civilised 

society, and simply say ‘Sorry’”. 

[Retranslated from the Czech, ed.] The 

Allied pamphlets also warned soldiers 

about the hundreds of thousands of 

trained and resolute Nazi saboteurs and 

killers who were waiting for them among 

the civilians in the occupied territories. 

Hatred, a clearly defined partition 

between one's own people and the 

Germans, and warnings of mortal 

danger, were the main themes to be 

found in the army material. 

On 15 June the army was entrusted by 

a government decree with implementing 

measures to apprehend Nazi criminals 

and carry out the transfer of the German 

population. In rounding up the 

Germans, putting them to forced labour, 

deporting them and confiscating their 


217 

Chapter VI 

property, the army was supposed to work 

together with the local authorities and 

the police. The army command was also 

the main initiator of the transition from 

smaller campaigns to expel and remove 

the Germans to a systematic transfer. A 

secret order issued by the First Section at 

the headquarters of the Ministry of 

National Defence on July 27, stipulated 

that the transfer should be carried out on 

as large a scale as possible, and so quickly 

that the Western powers would be faced 

with a fait accompli. In this the Ministry 

of National Defence was following the 

Polish example and taking advantage of 

the Soviet “goodwill” towards carrying 

out the transfer. British and American 

representatives, by contrast, were at this 

time, in their response to a diplomatic 

note from the Czechoslovak government 

dated July 3, already calling for 

discussions on the policy of the transfer, 

which in the form it had taken up till 

then had aroused a certain unease among 

the Allies. The Czechoslovak 

government’s plans to carry out the 

resettlement of 2,500,000 Germans 

within one year were not even welcomed 

by Soviet military leaders, who asked for 

the beginning of the systematic transfer 

to be postponed for practical reasons. 

The Anglo-American plan at this stage 

was for the resettlement to start in five 

years’ time. Until then they only wanted 

to see partial, internal transfers of the 

German population and them being put 

to forced labour; this should also apply to 

German fugitives from the Reich and 

prisoners of war to be found in 

Czechoslovakia at the time. 

On June 8, an ordinance issued by the 

Ministry of the Interior set up settlement 

departments at the District National 

Committees or administrative 

commissions which were supposed to 

ensure the removal of the Germans from 

areas under their jurisdiction and their 

parallel resettlement by Czechs. 

However, the actual functioning 

organisation of the transfer and the 

entire system of forced migration was not 

created until the second half of 1945 – a 

process accompanied by continuous 

conflicts over jurisdiction, in which the


departments of the Ministry of the 

Interior gradually gained the upper hand. 

The principles of the systematic transfer 

of the Germans out of Czechoslovakia 

were approved by the government at a 

session on December 14, 1945, and the 

directive on the implementation of this 

decision was published by the Ministry 

of the Interior in a circular dated 

December 31, 1945. 

The status of the German minority in 

Czechoslovakia was regulated by a 

government decree dated May 5, 1945 

and Decree No. 5 of the President of the 

Republic dated May 19, 1945, under 

which the Germans were proclaimed to 

be a population on which the state could 

not rely. This was the basis for a series of 

further measures that had a considerable 

impact on the status of the Germans in 

society and on their everyday life. They 

had to wear a visible distinguishing 

mark, usually a white armband with the 

letter N (for the Czech word Němec, 

meaning German). In the same way, 

Germans from the Reich and prisoners 

of war had to wear a yellow band, and 

anti-fascists a red-and-white or crimson 

one. All Germans who had been 

Czechoslovak citizens before the war 

were deprived of the right to vote, 

excluded from holding public office, and 

of course were not allowed to serve in the 

army. In addition, the possibility of 

entering into a mixed Czech-German 

marriage was restricted. 

The German language was rapidly 

eliminated from public life. The use of 

the term “Sudetenland” was forbidden 

(in the same way as the word Prussia had 

been erased from the political map and 

the dictionary in Germany). The savings 

of the German population were 

transferred into blocked accounts, where 

their owners could not dispose of them as 

they wished. The exchange rate of the 

Reichsmark to the Czechoslovak crown 

was fixed at 10:1. People of German 

nationality were not allowed to move 

freely in the border regions. For example, 

Germans could only go shopping at 

certain hours set apart for them, and 

their everyday lives were influenced by a 

series of other restrictive measures. It is 

218 

easy to see that many of these measures 

were inspired by Nazi regulations during 

the period of the occupation. The 

Germans were now supposed to have a 

taste of what the Reich had wished on 

the members of the occupied nation for 

six years. This is borne out by the food 

rations allocated to the Germans in the 

immediate post-war period, which 

corresponded to the rations allocated 

only recently in the Protectorate to the 

Jews. 

A universal obligation to work was 

proclaimed for the Germans. Skilled 

workers and farmers usually stayed at 

their previous workplaces, but many 

unskilled workers, especially women and 

adolescents, were sent away from their 

homes to work elsewhere, including the 

Czech-populated interior of the country. 

It thus often happened that families were 

split up. In this way a problem emerged 

that was to accompany the entire course 

of the transfer and have a very 

unfavourable impact on the first years 

that the Sudeten Germans spent in 

Germany. 

Families were also split up at this time 

for other reasons. A large number of 

Germans, most but by no means all of 

them active Nazis, were interned 

immediately after the liberation of 

Czechoslovakia, as they were in all the 

occupied zones in Germany. 1,215 

internment camps, 846 work and 

disciplinary centres, and 215 prisons 

were established on Czechoslovak 

territory, and according to German 

figures some 350 thousand of the 

2,750,000 Germans in Czechoslovakia at 

the time passed through these 

institutions. At the beginning, 

internment was random, often simply on 

the basis of denunciation, without any 

investigation being carried out. 

All these measures, the “revolutionary 

conduct” of many Czechs, and the 

overall atmosphere of defeat in the weeks 

and months immediately after the end of 

the war understandably gave rise to 

extreme apprehension and fear among 

the German population. It is no 

coincidence that it was during this 

period that the largest number of

suicides took place, with a total of 6,667 

cases being recorded. It was not 

uncommon for parents (or mothers left 

without their husbands) to kill all their 

children and then commit suicide 

themselves. In Ústí nad Labem the 

increasing number of suicides even led 

the police to order the gas supply in the 

town to be temporarily cut off. The 

reasons for these suicides varied. 

Certainly in many cases it was because of 

a feeling of guilt accompanied by the fear 

of retribution. This guilt did not always 

relate to wrongs done to the Czechs. In 

many cases Germans had also been 

guilty of offences against other 

Germans. But probably the largest 

number of suicides was connected with 

the complete loss of security and 


219 

Chapter VI 

prospects for their lives and fear of the 

future. The loss of life among the 

German population during the period 

that marked the dividing line between 

war and peace must also be partly laid at 

the door of the German war machinery 

itself. In a number of places – for 

example in Ústí nad Labem – cases are 

recorded where the civilian population or 

the capitulating Wehrmacht soldiers 

were killed or executed by fanatical SS 

Before the transfer some 150,000 Germans (out of a total of 2,500,000) were 

concentrated in internment camps, which were later re-named Transfer Collection 

Centres, through which all the Germans passed. 

groups or at the end of the war by 

Landwehr (domestic defence) units that 

were hastily constituted and in which the 

local civilian population were 

forced to serve. 

The excesses of “revolutionary 

conduct” also frequently came to the fore 

in the way the “uncontrolled transfer”


itself was carried out. In most cases the 

inhabitants of a village or town (or part 

of one) were forced to pack a few 

essential items and leave home within a 

very short time – a few hours or, in 

extreme cases, a few minutes! They were 

allowed to take with them luggage 

weighing between 30 and 60 kg, 

including a limited number of personal 

things, food for 3 to 7 days, and a 

maximum of 1000 Reichsmarks in cash, 

but in many cases only 100 Reichsmarks 

or even less. They were forbidden to take 

savings books, large amounts of cash, 

stocks and shares, jewellery – apart from 

engagement rings – and many other 

things, such as cameras or portable 

radios. The Germans who were to be 

moved out were collected in one place, 

and then transferred to German territory 

either on foot or using various forms of 

transport. The conduct and behaviour of 

some of those who organised and carried 

out these expulsions was shameful and 

220 

reprehensible, and they further took 

advantage of the drastic situation to 

steal, perpetrate acts of violence, and 

carry out degrading personal searches. 

The first transfers were directed 

primarily into the Soviet-occupied zone, 

and from southern Moravia into Austria. 

However, the administration of the 

occupying forces in these destinations 

adopted a reserved or even directly 

negative attitude to these transfers, 

The appalling experiences they had been through during the war led to callousness 

and cruelty on the part of the Czech population too. 

because they further complicated the 

already difficult humanitarian situation 

in these areas. According to the 

guidelines for the transfer, Germans 

from the Reich were supposed to be 

resettled to Germany as the priority 

group, followed by Germans who had 

immigrated to Czechoslovak territory 

after October 1938, and refugees from 

the German territories in the East. 

However, the original inhabitants were 

frequently expelled in the first wave as 

well, and even people from mixed

marriages. It was not until the end of July 

that a directive was issued defining the 

individual categories of the German 

population destined to be moved out. 

The first category were the “occupiers”, 

i.e. those Germans who had 

immigrated to the Czech lands after 

October 1, 1938, the second “guilty 

persons”, provided they had not already 

been interned, and the third former 

civil servants, who had become 

unemployed when the Czechs took 

over the administration of the country. 

The fourth group consisted of farmers, 

the fifth those who owned businesses 

and trades, and the sixth members of 

the liberal professions, while labourers 

were only seventh, and the final 

category was “others”. This order of 

priority was dictated not only by the 

extent of the guilt attached to them 

during the war, but also economic 

considerations, for the transfer also had 

an economic aspect that could not be 

overlooked. This clearly manifested 

itself at the time of the organised 

transfer as a factor that worked against 

the removal of some groups of the 

German population. 

HOMICIDAL EXCESSES 


In addition to the “uncontrolled 

transfer”, the three months after the end 

of the war saw numerous acts of violence, 

murders, mob justice, lynchings, and 

several mass murders of the German 

population intentionally organised by the 

army. In the context of the “uncontrolled 

transfer” the incident that people are 

most generally aware of is what is known 

as the “Brno death march “, the violent 

expulsion of Germans from Brno on 

May 30-31, 1945. It was one of the most 

well-known excesses and was widely 

commented on at the time. It was even 

dealt with by the Czechoslovak 

government on June 1. The expulsion of 

some 20 thousand Germans from Brno 

seems to have taken place on the 

initiative of the Moravian Regional 

National Committee, and it was carried 

out by the National Security Guard 

under the command of Captain 


221 

Chapter VI 

B. Pokorný, with the help of what were 

known as “workers’ patrols”. 

The psychological background to the 

incident is probably provided by the 

particularly negative experiences that the 

Czechs in Brno had with the Germans 

there during the period of the 

occupation, and also the fact that apart 

from Ostrava, which was obstinately 

defended by the Nazis, Brno was 

practically the only Moravian town that 

actually had to be liberated by the army 

at the end of the war. In deciding on and 

preparing the march, party political 

motives doubtless also played a role, for 

the issue of expelling the Sudeten 

Germans became a politically powerful 

argument in the political struggle 

immediately after liberation. 

After a degrading and thorough search 

of their baggage, the column of women, 

children, and old men set out late in the 

evening of May 30, via Rajhrad in the 

direction of the Austrian border, which 

was, however, closed at the time. The 

tradition of the exiled Germans asserts 

that thousands of people were shot dead 

during the “death march” itself, but the 

Austrian historian Emilia Hrabowecz, 

who has investigated the case in detail, 

has been unable to find evidence of this. 

In fact, she mentions that exhausted old 

people were transported on lorries and 

weary children were carried on their 

shoulders by the Czech guards. 

Nevertheless, the psychological situation 

of the totally exhausted Germans could 

not have been more traumatic. The 

actual tragedy occurred after most of the 

group had been sent back from the 

Austrian border and were interned for 

about a month and a half (from June 1, to 

July 10) in the former German children's 

camp in Pohořelice. Here an epidemic 

broke out that 455 people fell victim to. 

Further deaths occurred among 

participants in the march who were 

interned in villages around Pohořelice. 

The probable total number of victims 

who died in connection with the march 

(an unspecified number of expelled 

Germans is said to have died in Austrian 

territory) is estimated at up to 800, but 

journalists talk about 1,300 or even eight


thousand deaths, for which there is no 

evidence. 

In its way an even more serious type of 

incident was represented by three mass 

murders committed by irregular armed 

groups or military units of the 

Czechoslovak army. At the end of May 

and the beginning of June a total of 763 

people were shot dead in Postoloprty and 

its immediate vicinity. An even more 

shocking case occurred on the night of 

June 18-19, 1945, with the murder of 

265 Germans from Dobšiná in the 

Carpathians, who were being 

transported back to Slovakia by soldiers 

of the 17 th Bratislava foot regiment 

under the command of Lieutenant Karol 

Pazúr. At the railway station in Horní 

Moštěnice near Přerov 265 people were 

shot dead, including 120 women and 74 

children. The most well-known massacre 

took place on July 31, in Ústí nad 

Labem. On this day an explosion 

occurred in a munitions store in Krásné 

Březno in the suburbs of Ústí. It has 

never been discovered what caused the 

explosion, but it left 27 people dead and 

dozens more injured, and caused 

immense material damage. As soon as 

the 20-minute-long series of explosions 

began, a massacre of the German 

population started on Mírové náměstí 

(Peace Square), in front of the main 

station, and on the bridge across the 

Elbe. Between 80 and 100 people were 

victims of the massacre. (Sudeten- 

German political commentators used to 

claim a number of up to eight thousand.) 

An analysis of the archive sources carried 

out by the archivist Vladimír Kaiser has 

shown that the majority of the 

perpetrators were not local Czech 

inhabitants – they even warned the 

German labourers who were going home 

from work at that time and concealed 

some of them. The perpetrators were 

mainly members of the revolutionary 

guard, soldiers in the Czechoslovak 

army, members of the Red Army, and a 

large number of civilians who had 

arrived in the town immediately before 

the massacre. Incidentally, agreement 

with the massacre was expressed in a 

public speech by General Ludvík 

222 

Svoboda, who came to the town as a 

member of the investigating committee. 

The committee, while unable to 

determine the cause of the explosion, 

attributed it a priori to the German Nazi 

sympathisers known as “werewolves”. 

The three massacres mentioned here, 

together with a larger number of 

smaller-scale and less well-known 

executions and murderous excesses at 

this time, cannot be attributed solely to 

festering national wounds or extreme 

attempts at “just retribution”. They were 

prepared by the army intelligence service 

in order to create the impression that a 

rapid mass transfer of the German 

population out of the country was the 

only real possible way to stabilise the 

situation with regard to the nationality 

and security issues. The Allies, already 

backing down from the earlier, more 

radical, and more comprehensive 

resettlement concepts in the face of the 

immense problems of supplies, energy, 

health and migration on the territory of 

defeated Germany, were thus to be 

presented with a fait accompli on the eve 

of the Potsdam conference: the subject 

for negotiations there was not to be the 

transfer as such and its extent, but simply 

its pace, forms and procedures. 

The term used at the time for such 

incidents, and also for the violent and 

criminal treatment of interned Nazis, 

was “Gestapoism”. Examples of it, 

though on a lesser scale than those 

mentioned above, are to be found in 

many places, including a large number of 

the internment camps. By the autumn of 

1945 there were already more than 150 

thousand people living in them – this out 

of a total of more than 250 thousand 

displaced Germans – and this figure 

included more than 16 thousand 

children, ranging in age from infants to 

15-year-olds. Conditions in the 

internment camp near Kolín, in which 

internees were raped and beaten and two 

of them were even killed in what was 

described as a “St. Bartholomew's Day 

Massacre” on the night of August 22, 

1945, were investigated by the 

Czechoslovak parliament. According to 

a rough estimate by Tomáš Staněk,

approximately 10 thousand people died 

in Bohemian and Moravian camps and 

prisons in the years 1945-1948. The 

causes of death included epidemics, 

undernourishment, overall exhaustion, 

and old age, but also ill-treatment and 

executions. The worst conditions 

prevailed in the Small Fortress in 

Terezín, in the Všebořice and Skřivánčí 

Vrch camps near Ústí nad Labem, in 

some of the Prague camps, and in 

Lešany near Benešov. 

This period also produced many 

“freedom parasites”, often people with a 

dark past, who took advantage of the 

situation to improve their position, 

enrich themselves, or cover up their past 

transgressions, or simply people in whom 

the favourable circumstances brought out 

their negative psychological qualities. 

The principal figure in the Horní 

Moštěnice massacre, the convicted 

Lieutenant Pazúr, had been – as later 

investigation showed – a member of the 

Hlinka party and the Hlinka Guard, and 

his brother is even said to have served as 

a volunteer with the SS. In spite of this 

Pazúr was released from prison in the 

early 1950s. Similar flagrant examples 

can be found elsewhere, including the 

behaviour of many people in the 

internment camps, collection centres 

and prisons. 

We can also include in this group 

people whom the revolutionary situation 

provided an opportunity to acquire 

property at the expense of those who 

were transferred. In his study of the 

transfer of the Germans from the Svitavy 

region, Milan Skřivánek has given 

reliable evidence of such cases. Some 

members of the so-called “Revolutionary 

Guard”, established in the second half of 

May on the initiative of the Prague 

military command, also acquired an 

unsavoury reputation in this regard. 

There is however evidence that the state 

authorities tried to prevent such excesses, 

and that as the situation gradually 

calmed down and the state 

administration was able to establish its 

authority the number of such cases 

decreased. It has also been shown that, as 

was the case in neighbouring Poland, 


223 

Chapter VI 

many violent incidents of all types can be 

laid at the door of members of the Red 

Army, who could not be prosecuted by 

the Czechoslovak authorities. 

Judging from what research has been 

able to establish up till now, it can be 

inferred that the reaction of the 

democratic part of Czech public opinion 

to the excesses accompanying the 

“uncontrolled transfer” was one of 

embarrassment to say the least. This is 

borne out not only by the personal 

testimony of many people but also by the 

legal sanctions against the perpetrators. 

As early as September 25, 1945 the 

government issued an edict that declared 

some acts carried out in the period from 

May to September 1945 to be criminal, 

and they were also – though by no means 

all of them – punished by the courts. In 

July 1947, four months before the end of 

the transfer, the Czechoslovak National 

Assembly set up a special commission, 

on which all political parties were equally 

represented, in order to investigate “mass 

interventions against Germans, 

Hungarians, and other people after 

5 May, 1945”. On the initiative of this 

commission a number of criminal 

prosecutions were carried out, including 

that of Pazúr. In 1948 the German 

recidivist Kurt Landrock, who during the 

war had for a time been imprisoned in 

Auschwitz, was condemned for violence 

and murder in the internment camp in 

the Small Fortress in Terezín. 

It should be pointed out that these 

excesses and others like them were not 

the subject of an amnesty under the 

terms of Law No. 115/46, dated May 8, 

1946, “on the legality of activities 

connected with the struggle to regain 

freedom for Czechs and Slovaks”, more 

widely known as the Amnesty Law. What 

did become exempt from prosecution 

under the terms of this law were acts 

carried out between September 30, 1938 

and October 28, 1945 in connection with 

the struggle for freedom. This primarily 

concerned acts carried out by members 

of the resistance movement, especially 

partisans, which general legal sentiment 

would have to have regarded as criminal, 

but which were performed at the


instigation of the foreign or Czechoslovak 

resistance movement and were in keeping 

with the intentions of the Czechoslovak 

government-in-exile. Controversial, 

though legally relevant in the context of 

the times, was the category of “just 

retribution” contained in the law, and 

many instances of this that were 

pardoned took place in the post-war 

months. On the other hand, people who 

perpetrated acts of violence for 

reprehensible motives, such as the desire 

for gain, lust, or the attempt to cover up 

other criminal acts, were excluded from 

the provisions of the amnesty law. The 

frequently criticised amnesty law, which 

was prepared at the beginning of July but 

not promulgated until October 28, thus 

was not, and could not be, a “general 

pardon”. Nor was it unique as a legal 

instrument in post-war Europe. Similar 

laws were passed in Italy, France and 

Austria. In Poland and Yugoslavia, on the 

other hand, special laws of this type were 

not adopted, because the legitimacy of 

acts of violence related to the struggle for 

224 

freedom was considered to be selfevident. 

During the period of the 

“uncontrolled transfer” some 560 

thousand members of the original 

German population left the Czech 

lands, being either expelled or removed 

or leaving voluntarily. Estimates that 

also include Germans from the Reich 

who had settled here during the war 

and those who had fled from the 

The Czech homesteader in this illustration from a contemporary newspaper jokingly 

comments on the departure of the Sudeten Germans: "Saint Wenceslas just promised to 

hand over 350 of them, but we would like to hand over the lot once and for all". 

Comparing the miserable masses to the 350 oxen that the patron saint of the Czech 

lands paid as tribute to the Holy Roman Empire may sound cynical, but it evidently 

represented the feelings of the majority of Czechs at the time. 

advancing eastern front and then 

remained on Czechoslovak territory 

after May 8, 1945 are however much 

higher: up to 750 thousand people, of 

whom 450 thousand found refuge in the 

Soviet-occupied zone, 200 thousand in 

the American zone in Germany, and 

150 thousand in Austria. These figures 

are however to a considerable extent 

unreliable. 

The transfer proper, meaning the 

organised removal of the German 

minority from the Czechoslovak 

Republic, took place during the period 

from the autumn of 1945 to the spring

months of 1947 (although officially it 

ended in October 1946). As a kind of 

postscript, further transfers on a smaller 

scale took place up until the 1950s. Their 

purpose was either to reunite families, or 

to enable people from special 

professional groups, who had had to 

remain in the country up to that point, to 

be resettled to Germany. 

The decision made by the Potsdam 

conference on August 2, 1945 

concerning the transfer of the German 

minority from Poland, Hungary, and 

Czechoslovakia, and the way it was to be 

carried out, was discussed by the 

Czechoslovak government on the very 

next day, i.e. August 3 (dated August 2), 

and on August 16 the Czechoslovak 


225 

Chapter VI 

Trains were mostly used for the organised transfer. This was how one of the longest and 

most dramatic chapters in the history of Central Europe came to an end. 

government sent their response to the 

Allies on the subject in the form of a 

diplomatic note. The government 

planned to transfer some 2,500,000 

people over a period of one year. On 

August 2, all Czechoslovak Germans 

(with the clearly defined exceptions of 

active anti-fascists and victims of 

Nazism) were stripped of Czechoslovak 

citizenship by a Presidential Decree. The 

categories of people destined to be 

moved out corresponded to those in the 

directive issued at the end of July that 

was mentioned earlier. 

Preparations for the transfer 

continued until December 1945, when 

the government issued a Central 

Directive on the Implementation of the


Transfer. A special Office for the 

Transfer of the Germans was 

established, attached to the Ministry of 

the Interior, and in the Ministry of 

National Defence a special staff was set 

up to be responsible for the technical 

implementation. The police force was 

entrusted with the supervision of the 

transfer. On the local level, the local 

authorities of the National Committees 

or (in the border regions) the 

Administrative Commissions were 

responsible for the way the transfer was 

carried out. The Offices for the 

Protection of Work were also involved. 

The directive expressly stated that “all 

authorities involved in implementing the 

transfer shall be obliged to ensure that 

the transfer is carried out in an orderly 

and humane way”. Medical services were 

provided in the camps and during the 

transports. During the organised transfer 

there were no longer such flagrant 

excesses as during the spring months of 

1945, and offences or misdemeanours – 

mostly cases of theft – were condemned 

in the Czechoslovak press and 

prosecuted. 

The Czechoslovak authorities, after 

consultation with the Allied occupation 

authorities, endeavoured to ensure that 

the necessary conditions for carrying out 

the transfer were created. Only entire 

families were now moved out, and 

families that had been split up were, 

where possible, reunited. The attempt to 

remove the largest possible number of 

Germans from the country absurdly led 

to numerous cases where the authorities 

did not bother to punish Nazi criminals 

and interned representatives of the 

Hitler regime. Instead, active members 

of the NSDAP or SA, or people of 

German nationality who had committed 

criminal acts during the time of the 

occupation and who had been interned 

up to this point, were now released and 

placed in the transports as part 

of the transfer. 

This part of the transfer, too, had its 

own dynamics, its individual stages 

differing from one another. The first, 

transitional stage ran from August 1945 

to the end of the year. After this all the 

226 

transports were interrupted. The most 

flagrant shortcomings in the internment 

camps were eliminated, and the camps 

themselves were gradually either closed 

down or transformed into collection 

centres for people destined for the 

transports. (Altogether there were 107 

such collection centres.) In the camps 

the food situation was improved (for 

example children under 6 were now 

entitled to the same allocation of food as 

Czech children) and the order was given 

to draw up accurate lists of confiscated 

property. On the other hand, already at 

this stage the transfer caused 

considerable problems in Germany, 

where conditions for those who had been 

moved out of Czechoslovakia started to 

become extremely difficult 

as the winter set in. 

The second stage of the organised 

transfer took place between January and 

May of 1946. During this period the 

trains transporting the Germans out of 

the country had as their destination the 

American-occupied zone, because the 

Soviet administration had stopped 

accepting transports in view of the crisis 

in the Soviet-occupied zone. After 

consultation with the Czechoslovak 

authorities, the Americans laid down 

clearly-defined rules for the transfer. 

These stipulated many features in 

addition to the number of trains 

dispatched and their size – 40 coaches 

with 30 people each, i.e. a total of 1,200 

people. An exact list of those being 

transported had to be drawn up for each 

train, and these lists were also checked. 

Medical services were to be provided by 

two nurses and usually two doctors of 

German nationality, who returned when 

the transport had arrived and were not 

supposed to be finally moved out of 

Czechoslovakia until the end of the 

transfer. Each train also had its own selfadministration. 

Those being transported 

were allowed to take personal belongings 

weighing between 30 and 50 kg and cash 

of up to 1000 marks per person (though 

in some cases it was less). They also had 

to have warm clothing and bed linen, a 

change of clothes and shoes, a blanket, 

and essential kitchen utensils. At the

time the train crossed the border each 

person being transported had to have 

food reserves for three days; the amount 

of food required was based on the 

military norms for prisoners of war. 

Provided food was bought with food 

rationing coupons; however, the 

transportees were allowed reserves 

equivalent to a weekly allowance. In 

addition, the military administration 

provided food during the journey. 

Although the victorious powers agreed on the transfer of the Sudeten Germans, they 

had different attitudes to the way it was carried out. The West adopted a reserved 

stance, the Soviet Union an offensive one. 

The large and rapid increase in the 

population in the American zone, 

however, started to cause considerable 

difficulties. The new arrivals had 

tremendous problems not only with 

temporary accommodation, but above all 

with overall integration into Bavarian or 

Hessian rural society, In spite of being 

skilled workers, the Sudeten Germans 

did not fit into this environment, and 

were not made particularly welcome 

there. In addition, the occupying 

authorities did not regard them as 

refugees or deported people, who would 

have been entitled to international help 

and protection. The American 

authorities therefore tried to tackle the 

increasing difficulties by asking for the 

pace of the transfer to be slowed down, 

and the Czechoslovak side complied 

with this request. 

Economic problems connected with 

the transfer did not just appear on the 

German side. The transfer also inflicted 

considerable losses on the Czechoslovak 

economy. It was no coincidence that 

skilled workers were only assigned to the 

last transports and some highly qualified 

professions were even excluded from the 


227 

Chapter VI 

transfer altogether. The sudden decrease 

in the number of skilled workers affected 

in particular mining, the northern 

Bohemian and northern Moravian 

metallurgical and chemical industries, 

textile production, glass-making, and the 

wood-working industry. Compensating 

for the losses caused by the mass transfer 

proved to be an exceptionally demanding 

and long-term task – for example, the 

campaign to recruit workers into the 

mines in 1949 arose out of the labour 

shortage resulting from the transfer. 

Furthermore, the organic social make-up 

of the Czech border regions, which had 

been created by a natural process over 

centuries, was seriously disrupted. 

Because of the deformed political and 

social development after 1948, it has not 

been possible to renew it fully even today. 

In agriculture, too, the drastic impact of 

the transfer soon became obvious. By 

July 1946 the government had to 

announce a “national mobilisation of 

labour for agriculture” and introduce 

three months’ compulsory work in this 

sector for all young people in a two-year 

age range. 

The third stage of the organised 

transfer lasted from June to October 

1946, when the “transfer” officially 

ended; on October 29, 1946 the last train 

transporting Germans out of the country 

left Dvory near Karlovy Vary. In the 

middle of the year transports into the 

Soviet zone were renewed again, so that 

for a time the number of people being 

transported increased. During this 

period the economic and eventually also 

the international political ramifications


of the transfer became increasingly 

obvious. The transfer of the Germans 

out of Czechoslovakia was 

unconditionally supported both publicly 

and politically by the Soviet Union. In 

Western Europe and the USA support 

for the transfer was no longer so clearcut 

and grew weaker all the time. Critical 

reactions had been heard from the start, 

with the circumstances surrounding the 

“uncontrolled transfer” being repudiated 

in particularly strong terms. Part of the 

political spectrum and the general 

public, in Great Britain in particular, 

started to condemn the whole idea of the 

transfer. In the summer of 1946 the Paris 

conference failed to approve the removal 

of 200 thousand Hungarians from 

Slovakia. So far as the carrying out of the 

organised transfer is concerned, 

Czechoslovakia received a certain 

amount of appreciation. As Jan Masaryk 

informed the government, on September 

16-18, he negotiated at the Allied 

Control Council with “the American 

General Lucius D. Clay and the Russian 

Lieutenant-General Lukyachenko. Both 

these officials conveyed their thanks and 

appreciation for the exemplary and 

perfect organisation on the part of the 

Czechoslovak authorities in carrying out 

the transfer, and declared that the way 

the Czechoslovak authorities proceeded 

in dealing with the practical aspects of 

this tremendous task deserved the 

highest praise”. 

In the autumn of 1946 difficulties 

once again arose in providing bearable 

living conditions in the American zone. 

The Americans therefore once again 

negotiated with the Czechoslovak side 

and the transports were halted. They 

were supposed to have been started again 

in April 1947. However, in September 

1946 American Secretary of State 

Byrnes in his famous speech in Stuttgart 

proclaimed the end of the policy of 

punishing Germany. This was a 

symptom of the changing international 

situation. At the Moscow conference of 

the victorious powers held in the spring 

of 1947 the Western countries then 

supported the idea of ending the 

transfers. By the summer of 1947 it was 

228 

obvious that the transfer in its mass form 

was over. In Czechoslovakia there 

remained a German minority of some 

200 thousand people. 

The transfer of the German 

population out of Czechoslovakia 

continued to be carried out during the 

following four years, although on a 

smaller scale. During 1947 more trains 

left for the American- and Sovietoccupied 

zones, carrying the families of 

those who had already been moved out 

earlier. The conditions for these 

additional transports were however laid 

down by special new legal regulations. 

The end of the same year saw the 

launching of what was known as “Project 

Austria”, whereby some 2,000 skilled 

German workers left Czechoslovakia via 

Austria for Sweden over a three-year 

period. The project was initiated by the 

Swedish Treuegemeinschaft group of 

exiled social democrats led by K. Kern 

and E. Paul. The final phase of the 

transfer of Germans out of 

Czechoslovakia can perhaps be 

considered to be the “Link” project in 

1950-1951, whereby on the initiative of 

the West German government the 

International Red Cross arranged for a 

further 16,832 Germans the possibility 

to move out of Czechoslovakia to the 

Federal Republic of Germany. Once 

again it was mainly skilled workers who 

were involved, so the Czechoslovak 

government called a halt to the project 

for economic and political reasons. 

Three groups among the German 

population deserve special mention: 

people living in mixed marriages, Jews, 

and anti-fascists. The political and social 

position and living conditions of these 

often overlapping categories constituted 

a very sensitive issue on the domestic 

political front. During the phase of the 

“uncontrolled transfer”, people of Czech 

origin living in mixed marriages were 

generally moved out too. Sorting out 

their property rights and the passing on 

of those rights (for example through 

inheritance) was a complicated business, 

particularly in connection with the 

confiscation of German property that 

was taking place. Often, too, their

elationships with the purely Czech 

environment were not very easy. In this 

case, again, relations only improved with 

the passing of time, and then only slowly. 

The Jews found themselves in a very 

specific position. No more than 50 

thousand of them survived the holocaust 

or returned home from exile. A large 

group of Jewish soldiers returned to their 

homeland with the Western and Eastern 

Czechoslovak armies. Many of these 

people did not have a clearly defined 

nationality; many victims of persecution 

became Jews simply on the basis of the 

perverse Nazi racial laws. (In Chapter IV 

we already discussed how many Jews fell 

victim to the Nazi holocaust and we also 

gave details of other Czechoslovak loss 

of life.) Some of the surviving Jews 

declared themselves to be Czechs, other 

Germans or Hungarians, and still others 

felt that their nationality was Jewish. The 

great majority of Czechs and Slovaks 

provided them with support, but their 

integration into society and in particular 

the restitution of their property that had 

been “Aryanised” during the occupation 

proved to be a complicated problem. 

Politicians and ordinary citizens did 

certainly condemn the anti-Semitism of 

the Nazis, but they anticipated that the 

Jews would be assimilated into the 

Czech nation quickly and without any 

problems. As the later Communist 

propagandist Václav Kopecký put it in 

the Moscow newspaper Československé 

listy in the summer of 1944, “Disavowing 

anti-Semitism does not mean allowing 

any violation of the national Slavic 

character of the future Czechoslovak 

Republic”. 

Administrative barriers were put in 

the way of German-speaking 

Czechoslovak citizens returning to the 

country after the war, and some Jewish 

exiles were put off from returning by 

news of a mood in the country that was 

unfavourable towards the Jews. In the 

months immediately after the war, the 

Czechoslovak authorities treated 

German-speaking Jews in the same 

restrictive way as they did the main 

German population. The press drew 

attention to the fact that in many places 


229 

Chapter VI 

even those who returned from the Nazi 

concentration camps had to wear the 

same white armbands as the Germans, 

and that in spite of the persecution they 

had suffered they were exposed to the 

same restrictions as ordinary Germans. 

As the Mladá fronta newspaper wrote on 

October 11, 1945: “If Jews declare that 

they have German nationality, then they 

must go down the same road as any other 

member of the German nationality…” In 

the summer of 1946, in response to a 

complaint from the Council of Jewish 

Religious Communities, even the 

Ministry of the Interior confirmed that 

all the valid regulations concerning the 

Germans also applied to the Jews, with 

the exception of those who had been 

recognised as anti-fascists. A large 

proportion of the Jewish population 

therefore tried to leave the country as 

quickly as possible. 

The surviving Jews also met with 

problems in their attempts to have 

restored to them the Jewish property that 

had been “Aryanised” into German 

hands. In 1945 this property was taken 

under the administration of the state, 

where it was supposed to remain until 

orderly restitution took place according 

to Law No. 128/46. Large items of 

property that had been nationalised in 

the post-war period were not to be 

subject to restitution. The Jews who 

returned to Slovakia were treated 

particularly harshly. A number of Jews 

who proclaimed themselves to be of 

German nationality did eventually leave 

the country under the conditions valid 

for anti-fascists or Austrians. But one of 

the tragedies of the post-war months is 

the fact that some Jews were transferred 

out of the country together with the 

other Germans. It was not until 

September 10, 1946 that the Ministry of 

the Interior issued a directive according 

to which all people of “Jewish origin” 

were to be excluded from the normal 

transfer transports. But by then for many 

of them it was too late. 

Anti-fascists who could prove their 

active resistance to Nazism and their 

defence of Czechoslovakia before and 

after Munich were entitled to protection


of their person and property. Their 

agricultural land was not confiscated and 

they were supposed to be exempt from 

the transfer. To start with the antifascists 

also played an active part in the 

re-establishment of the state 

administration, but generally speaking 

the Czechs distrusted them, and so their 

share in public life gradually declined. By 

the autumn of 1945 many of them 

therefore started to favour the idea of 

moving to Germany, especially to the 

Soviet-occupied zone, where they hoped 

to be able to build socialism. The reasons 

they gave for their voluntary request to 

move out of Czechoslovakia were social 

and language difficulties, and they also 

referred to the attitude of Czech society 

towards them. In addition, their own 

political parties, the Social Democrats 

and Communists, often called on them 

to leave the country, referring to the need 

to strengthen anti-Nazism in Germany 

itself. They were also inspired by the idea 

of constructing a new Germany. In this 

they were supported by the Communist 

Party of Czechoslovakia, and the 

Socialist Unity Party of Germany 

(SED) gained in them many 

ideologically well-prepared 

functionaries. Anti-fascists enjoyed 

considerable concessions so far as the 

conditions of the transfer were 

concerned, particularly as regards 

movable property. They were allowed to 

take practically all their possessions with 

them, including musical instruments, for 

example. According to Hana Mejdrová, 

a total of nearly 140 thousand antifascists 

and their families left the 

country. However, it is true that within a 

short time some of them tried to reenter 

Czechoslovakia illegally, and when 

detained they told the police that they 

feared for their lives in Saxony, because 

the old Nazis were still in power there 

under the protection of the Soviet 

officers. 

VICTIMS OF THE TRANSFER 

The most tragic chapter of the transfer 

relates to those among the Czechoslovak 

Germans who lost their lives while they 

were being expelled or transferred or in 

230 

connection with the transfer. Quite 

understandably, the number of those 

who died still remains one of the most 

open wounds in the debate about the 

transfer. It seems clear that it will never 

be possible to establish the exact number 

of deaths, and it will be necessary to 

work on the basis of estimates. The 

alleged number of deaths given up to 

now in the German and Austrian press, 

ranging from 220 thousand to 270 

thousand, cannot be sustained; among 

other things, this would then mean that 

roughly every tenth person would have 

been a victim of the transfer! On the 

initiative of the joint Czech-German 

Commission of Historians, a statistical 

and demographic investigation was 

carried out, resulting in the “Opinion of 

the Commission on the losses connected 

with the transfer”. The number that the 

commission arrived at has since been 

accepted by a large section of the 

historians, press and media in other 

countries (including for example the 

main expert on German war losses 

Rüdiger Overmans). We therefore 

reproduce here the wording of this 

Opinion in full: 

“1. Figures for the victims of the 

transfer, i.e. the loss of life suffered by 

the Sudeten German population during 

the expulsion and forced removal from 

Czechoslovakia and in connection with 

these acts, vary enormously and are thus 

extremely controversial. The values given 

in German statistical calculations vary 

between 220 thousand and 270 thousand 

cases that are unaccounted for, which are 

in many cases interpreted as deaths; the 

figures given in research carried out so 

far varies between 15 thousand and 30 

thousand deaths. 

“2. The discrepancy is due to differing 

notions of the term ‘victims of the 

transfer’: the detailed research has tended 

to take into account only the victims of 

direct acts of violence and abnormal 

conditions. The contrasting approach 

that is often adopted is to count all the 

unaccounted for cases in the statistics as 

victims of the transfer. 

“The differing figures are also due to 

the fact that different methods of

investigation and evaluation are used: 

“- The basis for the figures from the 

detailed research is the deaths that can 

be individually proved (15 thousand – 30 

thousand). 

“- Another approach consists of 

evaluating the church files on missing 

persons; the result is both a large 

proportion of people that are 

unaccounted for (225 thousand) and 

evidence of 18,889 deaths that can be 

definitely proved. 

“- Because of the lack of official 

documents recording deaths, statisticians 

have drawn up a comparative ‘balancesheet’ 

for the population. The difference 

between the original and the final 

number for the population (220 

thousand – 270 thousand) is often taken 

to be identical with the number of 

deaths. 

“3. In the Commission’s view a 

particular problem with the ‘balancesheet’ 

approach is that most of the data it 

works with are based on model 

calculations and estimates that are 

derived from quantities that cannot be 

compared with one another. Here we can 

point out some of the main weaknesses 

of these calculations and estimates: 

“- The Commission assumes that the 

original number for the Sudeten- 

German population in the Czech 

provinces (3,331,415), which is based 

predominantly on the results of the 

census carried out by the German Reich 

in May 1939, included a not 

insignificant group of people who before 

1939 had declared themselves to be of 

Czech nationality, but who in 1939 now 

declared themselves to be German. A 

second and equally substantial group, 

having declared themselves German in 

1939, would have claimed Czech 

nationality after 1945. The ‘balancesheet’ 

approach does not make sufficient 

allowance for these changes. The 

quantification of these groups is 

currently being undertaken by a German 

research project. The first preliminary 

results indicate that some 90 thousand 

people changed their nationality in this 

way. 

“- The statistical figures for the losses 


231 

Chapter VI 

in the German armed forces also need to 

re-examined. In the 1950s it was 

assumed that for the whole of Germany 

some 3.7 million members of the 

German army died in the fighting during 

the war. By contrast, more recent 

German research has come to a figure of 

about 5 million. It is necessary to take 

this into account when estimating 

Sudeten-German losses. 

“If the overall balance-sheet were to 

incorporate the recently published data 

from the 1950 census in the German 

Democratic Republic, which show only 

612 thousand former Sudeten Germans 

on East German territory instead of the 

figure of 914 thousand used up till now, 

the number of cases unaccounted for 

would rise to over half a million. This 

would lead to absurd results. 

“All these factors would inevitably 

influence the balance-sheet of the 

Sudeten-German population. As, 

however, these discrepancies are 

conflicting, the Commission 

recommends that the use of the method 

of statistical comparisons and deriving 

the number of victims of the transfer 

from it should be abandoned, especially 

as it is not possible to find more adequate 

data that could be properly used in 

statistical comparisons. 

“4. These considerations indicate that 

the method of statistical comparisons 

leads to too wide a range in its results, 

and the comparisons cannot be used for 

scientific research if they cannot be 

verified. Tracing the individual transfers 

on the basis of the sources offers a more 

reliable starting-point, because it can be 

verified. It is however a far more 

demanding undertaking. Important and 

perceptive results have recently been 

submitted in Czech studies, in particular. 

“According to these studies, some 10 

thousand people died in the years 1945- 

1946 by violent deaths in the internment 

camps, during forced labour and as a 

result of abnormal conditions. To this it 

is necessary to add some 5-6 thousand 

deaths from unspecified causes that are 

directly connected with the way the 

transfer was carried out, so that the 

minimum number of victims according


to the current state of the research – not 

including suicides – is around 15-16 

thousand. This figure is confirmed by 

Czechoslovak statistics for the years 

1945 and 1946, which give a total of 

22,247 deaths as a result of ‘violence, 

external and unexplained causes’ or 

suicides (6,667 cases). 

“This is close to the total of 18,889 

deaths that can be proved that emerges 

from the files on missing persons 

mentioned earlier, a figure that includes 

3,411 proven suicides. Even assuming 

that there are gaps in these figures and 

doubling the minimum number of 

victims, a maximum number of 30 

thousand is reached. 

“Although the Commission only dealt 

with impersonal figures, it is well aware 

of the traumatic results caused by the 

experiences and upheavals of the 

twentieth century, of which the 

expulsion and removal of the population 

formed part. 

“The Czech-German Commission of 

Historians is convinced that the 

numbers that have been ascertained up 

to this point are realistic and that it is 

necessary to make them more accurate 

through further research. It is therefore 

of the opinion that the figure of 220 

thousand ‘victims of the transfer’ or even 

higher figures should not be used either 

in academic discourse or in political 

debate.” 

TERMINOLOGY 


Even the terms used to describe the 

transfer of the Sudeten German 

population out of Czechoslovakia have 

been criticised and are the subject of 

disputes. First of all it must be said that 

at various times and in various contexts 

and negotiations a number of different 

words have been used in Czech, 

German, English and Russian to refer to 

the transfer. Thus Czech has used odsun 

(usually translated in English as 

“transfer”), vyhnání or vyhánění 

(German Vertreibung, English 

“expulsion”), vyhoštění (deportation), 

(nucené) vysídlení (possible English 

equivalents “(forced)” “resettlement”, 

232 

“displacement”, or “removal”), přesídlení 

(resettlement), stěhování (removal), and 

transfer (transfer), but also očista 

(cleansing) or národní očista (national 

cleansing). Official documents, i.e. the 

Minutes of the negotiations of the 

Potsdam conference in article XII and 

the Report on the conference of the 

three powers in Berlin in Article XIII 

(which are essentially the same) use the 

English term “transfer” and the Russian 

premeshcheniye. Each one of these terms 

carries with it a certain semantic burden, 

the result of the way it is used in the 

different languages or its use as a legal 

term for the forced departure of the 

Sudeten German population from 

Czechoslovakia. On the Czech side a 

wave of disagreement was caused by the 

German term die Vertreibung 

(expulsion), which was incorporated 

into the wording of the Czech-German 

declaration of 1997 alongside the Czech 

term odsun (usually translated in English 

as “transfer”), even though the effect was 

softened somewhat by translating 

Vertreibung using the imperfective aspect 

vyhánění in Czech rather than the 

perfective vyhnání. On the other hand, 

on the Sudeten German side the Czech 

term odsun is considered to be 

unacceptable, with most recently 

R. Hoffmann seeing it as “humiliating, 

distorting, quasi legitimising, and in the 

sense of collective guilt… 

criminalising”. 

It is in the nature of the terms used in 

the ordinary and academic language of 

the social sciences in particular that they 

have various meanings, and can therefore 

evoke various associations and thus 

various interpretations. If they become 

rooted in common usage to the extent 

that the terms Vertreibung and odsun have 

done, and if in addition they are 

associated with such open and painful 

issues, it is extremely difficult to stop 

using them. Rather than trying to bring 

about a change in the terms by force 

(which means it will be difficult to 

implement), it is necessary to get to 

know the past as accurately as possible 

and to eliminate and overcome the 

shadows of the past in the interest of the

present and future co-existence of the 

two nations. It is only within the 

framework of such a process that it will 

be possible to discover terms that are 

acceptable to both sides, or at least to 

come to understand the motives leading 

to the use of the current terms or to the 

creation of others. 


233 

Chapter VI 

The Czech-German Commission of 

Historians used the term vyhánění or 

Vertreibung (expulsion) for the 

“uncontrolled transfer” and the term 

vysídlení or Zwangsaussiedlung (English 

equivalent “removal” or “resettlement”) 

for the “organised transfer”.

THE TRANSFER AND 

ITS LEGAL ASPECTS 

234

Chapter VII The Transfer and its Legal Aspects 

DECREES FROM THE PERIOD 

OF THE PROVISIONAL STATE 

It is mainly journalists who have made a 

direct link between the forcible transfer 

and the decrees of President Beneš, 

frequently using the President’s name in 

a pejorative manner to refer to them. 

Their connection with the issue of 

transfer is more derived than direct. As 

we have already said, the idea of “total” 

transfer was conceived in direct relation 

to the steps taken by the Nazi occupying 

authorities during the Protectorate, and 

inseparably from the development 

of the relationship with Germany and 

Germans during the war. 

Decrees of the President of the 

Republic began to be issued after 

recognition of the Czech Provisional 

Government by Great Britain in July, 

1940. This was done on the basis of the 

Constitutional Decree of October 15, 

1940, concerning the temporary 

execution of legislative power. 

To guarantee the re-establishment of 

Czechoslovakia, a series of constitutional 

decrees was published in 1944. This 

consisted of a constitutional decree 

concerning the temporary 

administration of the liberated territories 

of the Czechoslovak Republic, issued on 

October 3, 1944, a decree concerning the 

re-establishment of legal order, dated the 

same day, and a constitutional decree 

concerning National Committees and a 

Provisional National Assembly, issued on 

December 4, 1944. 

It is in this sense that the decrees of 

the President are directly linked with the 

legal framework for the re-establishment 

of the Czechoslovak State and legal 

order. The key decree was the one 

concerning the re-establishment of legal 

order. It decreed that the constitutional 

and other Czechoslovak legal provisions 

issued before Munich now constituted 

the Czechoslovak Legal Code, whereas 

all regulations published between that 

date and the end of the so-called “time of 

loss of freedom” did not become part of 

the Czechoslovak Legal Code because 

they were not issued of the free will of 

the Czechoslovak people. For a limited 

time those laws that did not contravene 

236 

the Czech Constitution could be used. 

The date of the end of the “time of loss 

of freedom” was later determined to be 

May 4, 1945. 

On February 22, 1945, a 

constitutional decree was issued 

concerning the execution of legislative 

power during the transitional period. It 

authorised the President of the Republic 

to continue issuing decrees even after the 

naming of the new government, and 

after return to the liberated territories, 

in accordance with the constitutional 

decree concerning temporary legislative 

power issued on October 15, 1940, until 

such time as the Provisional National 

Assembly had been formed. It was this 

regulation that formed the basis for 

issuing Presidential decrees from April 

to October, 1945. At the beginning of 

February, 1945, a Presidential decree 

concerning exceptional regulations 

safeguarding economic life in the 

liberated territories was passed, and 

on March 5, 1945, further decrees 

concerning financial and currency 

safeguards during the interregnum. 

All these Presidential decrees were to 

guarantee the re-establishment of 

economic and monetary conditions 

immediately after the war. Of these the 

most important decree is from February 1, 

1945, concerning exceptional safeguards 

for economic life, Úřední věstník čsl. č. 2 

(Official Czechoslovak Gazette No. 2). 

It expressed two main principles: a) 

Restitution of property of which the 

transfer occurred after September 28, 

1938, under pressure of racial, political 

and national persecution; b) Seizing of 

all private and public enemy property, as 

well as the property of so called “national 

security risks” within the territory of 

Czechoslovakia. In this connection the 

expression “temporary administration” of 

enterprises, factories and possessions 

which were under the ownership, tenure 

or administration of “security risks” to 

the state, appears. During the acquisition 

of the enemy property, the Czechoslovak 

government invoked British and 

American laws on the confiscation and 

seizure of German property on their 

territories and following international

agreements concerning reparations. It 

also applied similar standards to those 

which other governments in exile, or 

those first in power after the war, were 

preparing or already using at that time. 

On February 28, 1945, a Presidential 

Decree concerning the punishment of 

Nazi war criminals, traitors and their 

accomplices, and on special people’s 

courts, was issued and was to form the 

basis for the state-wide execution of 

punishment of war criminals and also 

domestic collaborators. This decree is 

also called the Retribution Decree. 

As early as January 13, 1942, 

in St. James’s Palace in London, 

representatives of eight governments in 

exile and France had met to pass a 

declaration which demanded 

punishment for Nazi crimes committed 

in occupied states. The Czechoslovak 

position was considerably influenced by 

the obliteration of Lidice and other 

repressive acts which followed the 

assassination of Heydrich. This 

Retribution Judicature incorporated a 

new definition of international law as 

in the Moscow declaration of the 

Foreign Ministers of the Big Three of 

October 30, 1943, concerning the 

punishment of Nazi criminals. This 

newly developing area of international 

law was ultimately defined in what was 

known as the London Agreement of 

the Four Powers concerning the 

punishment of war criminals on August 8, 

1945, and the setting up of the 

International Military Tribunal. Its 

statutes also contain definitions of 

crimes against peace, war crimes and 

crimes against humanity. The Tribunal 

was set up for the “prosecution and 

punishment of the major war criminals 

of the European axis”. 

The Retribution Decree of the 

President of the Republic reserved to the 

Czechoslovak criminal law and judiciary 

the punishment of “Nazi war criminals” 

that were not judged by other allies, and 

also “domestic” wrong-doers – so-called 

traitors and collaborators. The President 

took as his starting point similar 

principles to those passed by other 

governments in exile. 

The Transfer and its Legal Aspects 

237 

Chapter VII 

The actual process of restoring the 

Czechoslovak Republic differed in 

important ways from the above “London 

concept”. Some of the decrees, for 

example, were not applied in Slovakia, 

because it was not possible to ignore the 

authority of the Slovak National Assembly 

which had legislative power, and 

Ruthenia, which had already become part 

of the USSR during the spring of 1945, 

and was completely beyond the scope of 

the Czechoslovak state authorities. 

DECREES AND LAWS FROM 

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD 

The conversations that took place in 

Moscow about the form of the first postwar 

government, and the drafting of the 

Košice government programme, made 

fundamental changes to the form of 

Presidential decrees. The Košice 

government programme contained basic 

rules on government policies in the 

domestic and international arenas, and 

the Presidential decrees were intended 

to help implement them. 

The new government programme 

provided for the replacement of the 

existing government machinery by 

elected National Committees, the 

punishment of war criminals and 

collaborators, and nationalisations. The 

government programme also dealt with 

the German and Hungarian minorities. 

According to Article VIII, these 

minorities “for the most part became 

compliant instruments of political forces 

invading the Republic from abroad.” At 

the same time the government declared 

that it “has no intention of taking action 

against its loyal German and Hungarian 

citizens, and certainly not those who in 

the most difficult times remained loyal, 

but it will deal with offenders strictly and 

without mercy, as is demanded by our 

nation’s conscience, the hallowed 

memory of countless martyrs, and the 

peace and safety of future generations.” 

The instrument that would be used for 

this task was to be withdrawal of 

Czechoslovak citizenship. In Articles X 

and XI, the government proposed seizing 

the assets of the citizens of hostile 

nations, that is persons of German and


Hungarian nationality that had offended 

against the Czechoslovak State, as well 

as traitors and collaborators. As to the 

estates of the above mentioned 

categories of persons, there was to be 

confiscation of all agricultural land as the 

beginning of agrarian reforms. The 

government in its programme also 

confirmed the principle of the return of 

property confiscated during World War II 

as the result of national, political or racial 

persecution. 

With the passage of the government 

programme and assumption of legislative 

activity by the Slovak National Council, 

the role of Presidential decrees changed. 

Decrees issued on the liberated territory 

were qualitatively different from the time 

in London. They were issued pending 

the establishment of the Provisional 

National Assembly, and the way they 

were prepared and their scope changed. 

The role of Edvard Beneš and his office 

in the preparation of the decrees 

diminished compared to the situation in 

London, and the parties of the National 

Front and the government assumed 

greater influence and political 

responsibility. 

The most important task of the 

government immediately after the war 

was to renew the functioning of state 

power over the entire territory of the 

Republic, and to start the economic, 

social and political renewal of the state. 

It was precisely through the Presidential 

decrees that marked changes occurred to 

pre-Munich legislative authority, and 

primarily to the legislative, political and 

economic structure of the Czechoslovak 

Republic. The ninety-eight decrees 

issued on the liberated territory were 

diverse in character. They included the 

large area of retribution decrees, decrees 

about changes in legislation, decrees on 

securing renewal and subsequent changes 

in the national economy and state 

finances. They referred to finances, the 

establishment of new universities, and 

also standards concerning labour law and 

the status of state employees and the 

judicial system. There were also decrees 

about nationalisation, decrees on the 

management of manufacturing and 

238 

foreign trade, and decrees deciding the 

destiny of the German and Hungarian 

minorities in the Czechoslovak Republic. 

Some of these fundamentally affected the 

Constitution of 1920, others, for example 

the decree on re-establishing Central 

European Time, were only superficial. 

From the perspective of the impact of the 

decrees on the problem of the German 

minority, attention is focused on a group 

of four, which we will now study closely. 

These are the decrees concerning 

property and state citizenship of the 

members of the German and Hungarian 

minorities in the Czechoslovak Republic, 

nationalisation, retribution and 

ratihabitio. 

DECREES RELATING TO THE 

TRANSFER OF THE GERMAN 

AND HUNGARIAN MINORITIES 

FROM CZECHOSLOVAKIA 

In the current discussion about decrees, 

on the German and Austrian side they 

are mainly identified with the transfer 

or expulsion of members of the German 

minority from Czechoslovakia. The 

relationship between the Presidential 

decrees and the transfer is a very 

complicated question. According to the 

most prevalent position currently of 

Czech legal history, the transfer of the 

German and Hungarian minorities 

from the Czechoslovak Republic is 

actually a problem which must be 

judged in the international legal and 

political context of the end 

of World War II. 

In the relationship between the 

Presidential decrees and the transfer of 

the German minority from the 

Czechoslovak Republic, it is possible to 

state that the decrees concern questions 

of the state citizenship and property of 

persons of German and Hungarian 

nationality. For the actual execution of 

the transfers, a government order and a 

regulation issued by the Ministry of the 

Interior and the Ministry of National 

Defence were used. No decree of the 

President of the Republic that would, 

strictly speaking, legally regulate the 

transfer was ever issued. For the singling 

out of those persons to whom transfer

would apply, the key Constitutional 

Decree was that of October 2, 1945, 

No. 33/1945 Coll., concerning the 

regulation of Czechoslovak state 

citizenship of people of German and 

Hungarian nationality. The President 

began from the position that their 

Czechoslovak state citizenship had lasted 

for the entire time of the war, and it was 

with this decree that the Czechoslovak 

Republic freed them from their duty to 

the State. These persons were freed from 

their Czechoslovak citizenship, and 

therefore it was possible to carry out their 

transfer to the occupied zones in 

Germany. According to the decision of 

the Potsdam Conference, it was the duty 

of the allied forces’ authorities to accept 

them, which gave these transfers an 

internationally legal dimension. The 

decree narrowly connects with the 

decision in Potsdam, given the fact that, 

although it had already been prepared 

and confirmed by the government in 

June, 1945, in reality Edvard Beneš only 

signed it on August 3, 1945, and dated it 

August 2. 

Czechoslovak law did not recognise 

post-Munich changes to the law or legal 

status that occurred after March 15, 

1939, and by which the majority of 

Czechoslovak citizens of German 

nationality became citizens of the Reich. 

The decree started from the position that 

state citizenship had to be withdrawn 

retroactively from those people who 

became citizens of the Reich and 

Hungary after “Munich” or March 15, 

1939. The reasoning behind this course 

of action by the Czechoslovak state was 

the fact that subjects of German and 

Hungarian nationality became citizens 

of a state with which Czechoslovakia 

had been at war since September, 1938. 

On the other hand, from the beginning 

of the discussion about this decree 

during exile in London, it was 

emphasised that it would be necessary to 

define the group of people to whom this 

regulation about the withdrawal of 

citizenship would not apply. It concerned 

those citizens who stayed loyal to the 

Czechoslovak state, or even fought for its 

liberation. The Constitutional Decree 


239 

Chapter VII 

concerning the renewal of legal order 

denied the validity of the regulations 

about state citizenship which were 

passed during the time of loss of 

freedom. This decree defined the group 

of persons who retained Czechoslovak 

citizenship, and also the group of people 

who could reapply for Czechoslovak 

citizenship. Citizenship remained with 

those persons who could prove that they 

stayed loyal to the Czechoslovak 

Republic – for example, who participated 

in fighting against Nazism in 

Czechoslovak or allied units, or in the 

domestic resistance movement. Further 

proofs of loyalty to the Czechoslovak 

state were activism after emigration, 

financing of the resistance movement, 

and so on. But it could never apply to 

members of the SS, SA or NSDAP. State 

citizenship was also retained by persons 

whose family members were murdered 

for their anti-Fascist activities, or died in 

concentration camps. The Ministry of 

the Interior had the legal authority to 

decide on the retention of citizenship. 

Citizenship remained with those 

Germans and Hungarians “who in a time 

of increased peril to the Republic 

declared themselves to the authorities to 

be Czechs or Slovaks.” Apart from the 

construction of the law which had 

international and internal legal aspects, 

it is necessary to note that, in concrete 

situations immediately after the war, 

considerations of practical feasibility 

prevailed during the deliberations of the 

Czechoslovak authorities. 

Other German anti-Fascists could 

also apply for restoration of citizenship 

in the period of six months from the date 

of the decree of the Ministry of the 

Interior, subject to the opinion of special 

commissions. This category of “anti- 

Nazis” or “anti-Fascists” included those 

who were imprisoned for racial or 

political reasons. Details of this were set 

out in a decree of the Ministry of the 

Interior of October 25, 1945, and in a 

circular of the Ministry of the Interior 

from October 24, 1945. A request for 

return of citizenship could not be 

accommodated if “the applicant violated 

his duty as a Czechoslovak citizen.”


Among these, for example, were those 

who became members of legislative 

authorities, were judges or high state 

officials, officers or non-commissioned 

officers of the enemy forces, members of 

Nazi party organisations or movements, 

leading business managers of German 

enterprises or members of the 

Sudetendeutscher Freikorps. State 

citizenship could not be restored to 

persons who had made public speeches 

against the Czechoslovak state, who had 

been decorated or on whom honours had 

been bestowed “given by the enemy state 

or an enemy institution”, and also not to 

those “who in any way whatsoever cooperated 

with the enemy” or “profited or 

tried to profit economically or financially 

for themselves or for persons related to 

them from the state of affairs resulting 

from the occupation of Czechoslovak 

territory by enemy forces.” 

For the purposes of these decrees, 

married women and minors were judged 

separately. Applications for the 

restoration of Czechoslovak citizenship 

by the wives and children of 

Czechoslovak citizens were, according to 

the decree, to be judged generously and 

they were to be considered Czechoslovak 

citizens pending a decision about their 

application. The period of time for 

submission of applications to the District 

National Committee for the return of 

Czechoslovak citizenship was set from 

October 10, 1945, to February 10, 1946. 

This decree also punished through loss 

of citizenship those Czechs, Slovaks and 

subjects of other Slav nations who, in the 

time of increased peril to the Republic, 

applied for German or Hungarian state 

nationality without being forced by 

pressure or special circumstances. In 

these cases, the loss of citizenship 

applied even for any “voluntary 

application for German or Hungarian 

nationality”, including submission for 

recognition, admission or registration in 

a so-called national list. National 

Committees, which had to play a key 

role during the application of the decree, 

were to take into consideration “the 

methods and opinions of the occupying 

forces” which were frequently imposed 

240 

on Czechs and Slovaks who did not wish 

to become Germans or Hungarians 

voluntarily, or who, for example as 

children, had no power to prevent it. 

Some of the proceedings reached the 

Supreme Court which in this context 

issued several important rulings. 

The following decrees particularly 

concerned exactions on the assets of 


nationality: 

- Decree 5/1945 Coll., of May 19, 

1945, declared invalid certain property 

dealings from the time of loss of 

freedom, and decreed national 

administration of the property of 

Germans, Hungarians, traitors and 

collaborators, and of certain 

organisations and institutions. 

- Decree 12/1945 Coll., of July 21, 

1945, ordered the confiscation and 

expeditious division of the agricultural 

property of Germans, Hungarians, 

traitors and enemies of the Czech and 

Slovak nations. 

- Decree 28/1945 Coll., of July 20, 

1945, provided for the agricultural 

property of Germans, Hungarians and 

other enemies of the state, to be 

occupied by Czech, Slovak and other 

Slavic farmers. 

- Decrees 100-103/1945 Coll., of 

October 24, 1945 on nationalisations. 

- Decree 108/1945 Coll., of October 25, 

1945, concerning the confiscation of 

enemy property and the establishment of 

National Regeneration Funds. 

Presidential Decree No. 5/1945 Coll., 

of May 19, 1945, “concerning the 

invalidity of certain property dealings 

from the time of loss of freedom, and 

concerning the national administration 

of the property of Germans, Hungarians, 

traitors and collaborators, and certain 

organisations and institutions” declared 

that property transfers and deals 

involving moveable and fixed assets, and 

both public and private property, were 

invalid if they had been concluded after 

September 29, 1938, “under pressure of 

occupation, or national, racial or political 

persecution.” This principle was based on 

the declaration agreed between the Allies 

on January 5, 1943, concerning

expropriation on territories occupied or 

controlled by the enemy. The Allies 

reserved to themselves the right to 

decide on the legality of laws affecting 

property rights and transfers and the 

disposition of property on occupied 

territories or territories controlled by the 

enemy, including “ostensibly legal forms 

of transaction.” As early as October 17, 

1941, the Czechoslovak government in 

exile decided to issue a Government 

Decree concerning property transfers 

made under pressure of enemy 

occupation. Definitive regulations 

concerning post-war restitutions were 

established by Act 128/1946 Coll., of 

May 16, 1946, concerning the invalidity 

of some laws affecting property rights 

from the time of loss of freedom. On the 

other hand, assets of persons considered 

a risk to the state were to be seized for 

subsequent confiscation, nationalisation 

or restitution by the institution of socalled 

National Administration. 

National Administration meant 

restriction of personal property rights, 

and was applied to enterprises and 

possessions where it was required for 

“the uninterrupted flow of 

manufacturing processes and economic 

activity, particularly in respect of 

abandoned industrial property, 

enterprises and real estate, or those 

owned, administered, leased or rented by 

persons considered national security 

risks.” The people considered security 

risks by the state were: persons of 

German or Hungarian nationality, and 

“persons who worked against the 

sovereignty, independence, integrity, the 

democratic and republican form of 

government, security and defence of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, and those who 

fomented such actions and tried to 

induce other people into taking them, 

and intentionally supported in any way 

whatsoever the German and Hungarian 

forces of occupation.” These included, 

for example, members of Vlajka 

(The Flag), Hlinkova garda (The Hlinka 

Guard), Česká liga proti bolševismu 

(The Czech Anti-Bolshevism League), 

Kuratorium pro výchovu mládeže 

(The Youth Education Board), Hlinkova 


241 

Chapter VII 

slovenská l’udová strana (The Hlinka 

Slovak People’s Party), Hlinkova mládež 

(The Hlinka Youth), Národní odborová 

ústředna zaměstnanecká (The National 

Employees’ Trade Union Centre). As 

state security risks, legal entities were 

those: “whose management intentionally 

assisted the German or Hungarian war 

effort, or served Fascist or Nazi 

purposes.” Further, the decree focused on 

the status and powers of the National 

Administrators. It also ruled invalid any 

legal proceedings taken after passage of 

this decree by owners of property which 

was now in National Administration. In 

addition, the former owners, possessor or 

managers of properties put into National 

Administration were to refrain from 

interfering in any way whatsoever in the 

acts of the National Administrator. 


of June 21, 1945, concerning the 

confiscation and expeditious division of 

the agricultural assets of Germans and 

Hungarians, and also of traitors and 

enemies of the Czech and Slovak 

nations, confiscated, for reasons of land 

reform, with immediate effect and 

without compensation, agricultural assets 

which were owned by: “all persons of 

German and Hungarian nationality 

without regard to state citizenship, 

traitors and enemies of the Republic of 

whatever nationality and citizenship, 

who have shown their enmity 

particularly in the crisis and during the 

war years 1938 to 1945, as well as public 

and other companies whose management 

intentionally assisted the German war 

effort, or served Fascist and Nazi 

purposes.” Confiscation took place by 

public decree of the District National 

Committee. Property was not 

confiscated from persons of German and 

Hungarian nationality who actively 

participated in the fight for freedom and 

integration of Czechoslovakia. However, 

they had to apply for an exemption from 

the confiscation decree. The District 

National Committee decided on other 

exemptions from confiscation after 

submissions from the appropriate 

Agricultural Commission. The District 

National Committee took doubtful cases


to the Provincial National Committee, 

which sent them with its advisory 

opinion for a decision to the Ministry of 

Agriculture, which then made a decision 

after consultation with the Ministry of 

the Interior. 

Resettlement by Czech, Slovak and 

other Slavic farmers of land confiscated 

from Germans, Hungarians and other 

enemies of the state was governed by 

Decree 28/1945 Coll., of July 20, 1945. 

In the districts with a majority of citizens 

of German nationality, the land 

remained under the administration of 

the National Agricultural Fund for the 

needs of internal settlement, as it did in 

those cases where there a satisfactory 

number of interested applicants of Czech 

or other Slavic nationality was not to be 

found. Resettlement of agricultural land 

was connected with the overall problem 

of the resettlement of Czechoslovak 

territory abandoned by members of the 

German minority. This was done on the 

basis of Decree 27/1945 Coll., of July 17, 

1945, concerning the unified 

administration of internal settlement. 

Decree 12/1945 Coll., which defined 

groups of people, was the strictest of all 

these groups of Presidential decrees. It 

was motivated by the extensive 

intervention of the German occupation 

authorities into the land ownership of 

Czech citizens. This involved, for 

example, the expulsion of Czech citizens 

and confiscation of their land for the 

establishment of large military training 

grounds for the SS in the area around 

Vyškov, Neveklov and Sedlčany. In 

addition, during the Protectorate of 

Bohemia and Moravia, almost all 

originally Czech and Slovak state 

property (e.g. state forestry and farming 

land) was transferred to institutions 

controlled by the German occupying 

forces. Other methods used by the 

German occupying administration were 

the extensive application of German 

criminal laws and standards, and 

German legal judgements. Paradoxically, 

even provisions of the acquisitions law of 

the first agricultural reform were used to 

transfer land to German subjects. 

A special presidential decree 

242 

(No. 124/1945 Coll.) concerning 

measures to do with land registration 

from October 27, 1945, was intended to 

remedy this state of affairs after the war. 

It was signed on the day of issue, and 

concerned only the Czech provinces. 

The purpose of this decree was the 

removal of “register entries” mainly in 

the land record books which were 

created during the time of loss of 

freedom in favour of the German or 

Hungarian states and legal entities 

connected with them, and the reassignment 

of Czech, Moravian and 

Silesian lands to the Czechoslovak state 

or to other legal entities created by it. On 

request of the owner or other authorised 

person (who had to possess a certificate 

of loyalty to the state), the court could 

direct that a note about the confiscation 

of property made during the time of loss 

of freedom, especially on the orders of 

the Gestapo, or on the basis of the 

administration or laws of acquisition of 

the occupying authorities, be erased from 

the land register. 

On the basis of Presidential Decree 

12/1945 Coll., in the Czech territories 

almost 1,400,000 hectares of agricultural 

land, and one million hectares of forest 

land, were confiscated between 1945 and 

1947. By the end of 1947, 150,000 

applicants had been resettled and 

allocated 1,200,000 hectares of land in 

the border lands. In fertile and attractive 

areas the resettlement went on relatively 

successfully, but there were problems in 

border areas where the density of 

settlement was very low and where some 

of the places remained uninhabited after 

the departure of the Germans. 

Presidential Decree No. 108/1945 

Coll., of October 25, 1945, concerning 

the confiscation of enemy property and 

creation of national regeneration funds, 

confiscated without reparation fixed and 

moveable assets, and property rights (e.g. 

receivables, shares, deposits and 

intangible rights) which on the day of the 

actual end of the German and Hungarian 

occupation were in the possession of one 

of three categories of persons: 

a) The German Reich, the Kingdom 

of Hungary, public corporations, the

NSDAP, Hungarian political parties, 

and other German and Hungarian legal 

entities, including property funds 

b) Physical persons of German or 

Hungarian nationality, with the 

exception of those who had proved their 

continuing loyalty to the Czechoslovak 

Republic 

c) Physical persons who engaged in 

activities directed against the 

sovereignty, independence, integrity, 

democratic and republican form of 

government, security and defence of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, and other 

persons in the sense of Section 18 of the 

main Retribution Decree (below).The 

decree also stipulated in detail how 

confiscation was to be carried out and 

designated the jurisdiction of National 

Committees. The confiscations excluded 

that portion of chattels essential to these 

persons and their families for their life 

and work (such as clothing, bedding, 

linen, groceries and tools).The 

government could also decide on other 

exemptions by decree. Confiscations also 

did not apply to property which was 

taken from Czechoslovak citizens during 

the time after September 29, 1938, 

under pressure of occupation, or as a 

result of national, racial or political 

persecution. Until subsequent allocation, 

confiscated property was administered 

by the National Regeneration Fund. 

The last group of post-war 

presidential decrees of the President of 

the Republic that we will take note of in 

connection with the fate of the German 

minority, are the nationalising decrees. 

The call for nationalisation of key 

branches of heavy industry, mines, 

banking and insurance, had already 

being made during the exile in London, 

and in the programmes of the domestic 

resistance movement. The Košice 

government programme did not regulate 

the question of nationalisation, but in 

July, 1945, the parties of the National 

Front agreed that nationalisation would 

be carried out according to the decrees of 

the President of the Republic, even 

before the convening of the Provisional 

National Assembly. Nationalisation was 

carried out mainly through a series of 


243 

Chapter VII 

presidential decrees signed and 

ceremonially announced on October 24, 

1945, even though the first nationalising 

regulation was the decree concerning 

regulations covering the film industry 

issued on August 11, 1945. 

Decree 100/1945 Coll., “on the 

nationalisation of mines and some 

industrial enterprises” chiefly resulted in 

the nationalisation of mines, large energy 

industry enterprises, foundries, rolling 

mills, engineering works, electro-technical 

companies, arms manufacturers and the 

chemical industry. It also included larger 

glass and porcelain manufacturers, textile 

and spinning mills and other textile 

enterprises of the clothing industry. The 

decree declared that the state assumed 

ownership of these nationalised 

manufacturing businesses, and that the 

property was taken over by a so-called 

National Enterprise. As a rule 

compensation was paid for property 

nationalised, with the exception of that 

owned by the German Reich, the 

Kingdom of Hungary, Nazi legal entities, 

and also physical persons who had lost 

Czech citizenship. Compensation was 

also denied to traitors and collaborators. 

In practice all compensation negotiations 

were conducted with foreign states, 

mainly Great Britain, France, the United 

States of America, Holland and 

Switzerland. The Nationalising Decree 

also regulated the form and management 

of the National Enterprise. Decree 

101/1945 Coll., nationalised the food 

industry, Decree 102/1945 Coll., brought 

in public ownership banks providing 

banking and financial services and 

transformed them into National 

Enterprises, and Decree 103/1945 Coll., 

nationalised private insurance companies 

by taking them into state ownership. 

INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON 

OF THE LEGAL STANDARDS OF 

THE DECREES 

Czechoslovak regulations issued in the 

form of Decrees of the President of the 

Republic and interfering with “German” 

or “enemy” property have to be compared 

with the accepted standards in this area of 

other states of the anti-Hitler coalition.


Among the most important inspirations 

for Czechoslovak legislation were the 

British Trading with the Enemy Act and 

similar American standards. Not only did 

Great Britain and the United States 

enact legislation during the war seizing 

and confiscating enemy property on their 

territories, but Great Britain especially 

called on other European states to enact 

legislation seizing and confiscating 

enemy property. For example, the British 

Foreign Office turned to Denmark in 

August, 1945, asking them to enact laws 

equivalent or similar to, the British 

Trading with the Enemy Act. Denmark 

then enacted Ministerial Decrees on the 

basis of which it was required that all 

German property that was in the 

possession of German legal and physical 

entities before May 5, 1945, be registered 

at a special office. The July 2, 1945, 

decree of the Danish Ministry of Trade 

forbade disposal of this property without 

the consent of the Ministry of the 

Interior or the Ministry of Trade. 

According to a law of July 12, 1945, 

Danish trading companies had to declare 

that they were not owned by German or 

Japanese capital. If any of these firms 

were majority-owned by such capital, or 

if “enemy” influence persisted – such a 

company could be liquidated or put into 

public administration. It was possible for 

property to be confiscated for doing 

business for the benefit of the enemy. 

Enemy property was definitively 

confiscated in Denmark on the basis of 

Act 132/1946 of March 30, 1946. This 

Danish law confiscated as belonging to 

the “enemy” not only the property of the 

German and Japanese states, but also of 

different kinds of German legal entities 

and physical persons with German state 

citizenship. Similar arrangements were 

made by the governments of 

Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland. 

A special decree of the Luxembourg 

government had already, on October 14, 

1944, blocked all deposits, and as a rule 

permitted payments from these only to 

certain categories of persons, but never to 

the enemy. Special decrees of July 7 and 

August 17, 1944, seized the property of 

enemy persons and legal entities with a 

244 

view to subsequent confiscation. 

Luxembourg legislation in this area 

specifically invoked the Paris reparation 

agreement (e.g. the Law of July 20, 

1948), and continued to confiscate 

German property until the beginning of 

the 1950s. 

On its liberated territory, the Belgian 

government also used some of the criteria 

from the London exile, mainly the orders 

of the government in exile of August 23, 

1944, about confiscation and the forced 

administration of enemy property, rights 

and interests which was regulated in 

detail by the orders of the Ministries of 

Justice and Finance. These regulations 

were amended by the Government 

Decree of August 1, 1945. In the case of 

Belgium, this entailed fixed and 

moveable assets, plus rights and securities 

which were “direct or indirect property of 

the enemy state, an enemy organisation 

or a member of the enemy state, or under 

their control or influence.” Besides this, 

confiscation of property, according to 

special regulations, also included the 

property of war criminals and domestic 

collaborators. Belgian legislation 

specifically invoked the Paris reparation 

agreement for the creation of a special 

agency to execute this forced 

administration and subsequent 

confiscations. 

In the case of Holland, too, we should 

look to the exile in London for the 

beginnings of post-war legislation in the 

matter of actions against enemy property. 

Among those, the most important ruling 

of the Dutch government-in-exile was 

from October 20, 1944, “concerning the 

handling of enemy property, its 

registration and expropriation in favour of 

the state, and concerning the creation of 

the Office of Administration.” This 

derived from the decree of the government 

concerning renewal of the legal order, of 

September 17, 1944, and was amended on 

liberated Dutch territory at first by the 

first post-war government on August 15, 

1945, and then also by the laws of 

December 21, 1946, and December 24, 

1947. Dutch regulations named as 

enemy states Germany, Japan and other 

states with whom Holland was at war at

the time of issue of the original decree of 

the government in exile. Enemy property 

was deemed to be not only the property 

of the enemy state, but also of physical 

and legal entities if these were “enemy 

subjects during the period from May 10, 

1940 to the end of the war.” 

The French provisional government in 

1944 based itself on appropriate French 

legislation about business with the 

enemy and about enemy property on 

French territory in the years from 1939 

to 1940. In addition to the principal 

ordinance of the French government in 

exile of August 9, 1944, restoring the 

republican legal system during the 

renewal of France, there was the 

ordinance of October 5, 1944, 

concerning the registration and seizure 

of enemy property. This seized property , 

particularly German, was afterwards 

confiscated on behalf of the French state 

after the ratification of the Paris 

reparation agreement based on the law of 

March 21, 1947. According to French 

law, enemy persons were not only enemy 

states (namely Germany, Bulgaria, 

Hungary, Italy or Japan), but also enemy 

legal entities and persons. Enemy 

persons included not only subjects of the 

enemy states but also persons placed on 

an official list of enemy persons created 

according to the decree of September 1, 

1939. Exact definition of enemy physical 

and legal entities was entrusted to the 

Ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs and 

Finance. Enemy, mainly German, 

property was also affected by French 

nationalisation regulations. 

One of the most strictly formulated 

standards in the area of confiscation of 

enemy property was issued by the 

Yugoslavian AVNOJ. This happened 

after the liberation of Belgrade on 

November 21, 1944. Besides the 

confiscation of German property, 

AVNOJ also introduced the concept of 

the provisional “State Administration”. 

This fundamental standard was 

amended on June 8, 1945. Not only was 

the property of the German Reich 

confiscated, but also that of physical 

entities with German state citizenship, 

or Yugoslav citizens of German 


245 

Chapter VII 

nationality, and persons who openly 

fought against the Yugoslav partisans, as 

well as the property of war criminals and 

their “accomplices”. In December 1946, 

German property became subject to a 

special nationalisation law, and then in 

November 1947 to a law on land reform 

and the resettlement of confiscated land. 

In the case of Poland, the question of 

disposing of enemy, particularly German, 

property, was complicated by the setting 

up of the provisional Polish government at 

the beginning of 1945, and the unresolved 

problem of the Polish western borders. In 

spite of that, by May 6, 1945, the new 

Polish authority on the liberated territories 

had issued a law on May 6, 1945, 

concerning the excluding enemy elements 

from the Polish nation. This law based the 

solution of subsequent questions affecting 

property rights on Polish state citizenship, 

which was to be made retroactive to 

August 31, 1939. As a rule Polish state 

citizenship was not accorded to persons of 

German nationality, except for those 

Germans that stayed loyal to the Polish 

nation and the Polish democratic state. 

The property of German (Reich) citizens, 

and persons of German nationality who 

had not taken Polish citizenship, as well as 

citizens of Polish origin who had lost their 

citizenship, e.g. for registering themselves 

as German subjects under the General 

Government, was submitted to a special 

procedure. First there was an inventory 

and seizure, and then forfeiture in favour 

of the Polish state. Ultimately, the law of 

January 3, 1946, concerning the transfer of 

basic branches of the national economy 

into the property of the state, and also the 

agricultural reform which had already 

begun in the autumn of 1944 and was 

finished in accordance with the 

referendum of June 30, 1946, decided that 

the property of the German state and of 

enemy legal and physical persons would be 

nationalised without compensation. 

THE ISSUE OF REPARATIONS 

The issue of Presidential decrees 

concerning enemy property (and also 

decrees concerning the determination of, 

and compensation for, war damage), as 

well the above-mentioned international


comparison of similar standards in other 

allied states, is closely bound up with 

international legal and political 

negotiations among the Allies towards 

the end of World War II and in its 

aftermath concerning the fate of enemy 

property and reparations from Germany. 

At the Yalta conference in the Crimea in 

February, 1945, the Allies had already 

decided that one of the ways to obtain 

reparations for war damage done by the 

Germans would be one-off confiscations 

of German property on foreign territory, 

and also the use of “German labour”. At 

the conference in Potsdam, the major 

powers decided on detailed methods for 

getting reparations for the USSR and the 

Western Allies, mainly through dividing 

Germany into occupied zones 

(the Czechoslovak Republic being told 

to rely on the Western occupied zone of 

Germany and German foreign property 

for reparations). Potsdam also confirmed 

the idea of compensation for reparation 

from confiscated German property, and 

this to be done within the span of two 

years from the end of the war. States that 

were referred to the Western occupied 

zones for reparation – USA, Britain, 

France, Albania, Australia, Belgium, 

Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, India, 

Union of South Africa, Yugoslavia, 

Canada, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway, 

New Zealand and Greece – met on 

November 9, 1945 at a reparation 

conference in Paris. The result of the 

conference was the signing of an 

agreement regulating German 

reparations, establishing the Inter-Allied 

Reparation Agency (IARA) and 

governing the restitution of monetary 

gold. Czechoslovakia signed the 

Agreement on May 17, 1946, and it was 

then published as Act No. 150/1947 in 

the Collection of Laws of the 

Czechoslovak Republic. In Article 2 of 

the Agreement, which was considered a 

first step towards solving the questions 

concerning reparations the Signatory 

Governments agreed “that their 

respective shares of reparation, as 

determined by the present Agreement, 

shall be regarded by each of them as 

covering all its claims and those of its 

246 

nationals against the former German 

Government and its Agencies, of a 

governmental or private nature, arising 

out of the war (which are not otherwise 

provided for), including costs of German 

occupation, credits acquired during 

occupation on clearing accounts and 

claims against the Reichskreditkassen”. 

The Agreement did not prejudice “any 

political, territorial or other demands 

which any Signatory Government may 

put forward with respect to the peace 

settlement with Germany.” In connection 

with these adjusted decrees of the 

President of the Republic, Article 6, 

Paragraph A, of the agreement called 

“German external assets” was crucial. 

According to it each of the Signatory 

Governments “shall, under such 

procedures as it may choose, hold or 

dispose of German enemy assets within 

its jurisdiction in manners designed to 

preclude their return to German 

ownership or control and shall charge 

against its reparation share such assets.” 

This was to be net of accrued taxes, liens, 

etc. Under Paragraph B, signatory 

governments then had a duty to provide 

IARA with all the information which it 

may require in this matter. Under Article 6. 

Paragraph D, the share of reparation did 

not include the property of persons who 

were not nationals of Germany at the 

time of the occupation or annexation of 

that country by Germany, or of its entry 

into war. Paragraph E then declared that 

German enemy property must be added 

into the reparations, even if its nominal 

owner was not a German enemy. 

Signatory governments had to issue laws 

or enact other suitable arrangements 

“render null and void all transfers made 

after the occupation of its territory or its 

entry into war for the fraudulent 

purpose of cloaking German enemy 

interests, and thus protecting them 

from the effect of control measures 

regarding German enemy interests.” 

These aspects of reparations were 

covered by Decrees 5/1945 Coll., 

12/1945 Coll. and 108/1945 Coll., (in 

connection with seizure of property and 

determination of the legal and physical 

entities whose property was liable to

confiscation), and Constitutional Decree 

33/1945 Coll., (in connection with 

determination of citizenship of persons 

of German and Hungarian nationality). 

The question of reparations was also 

related to the determination of the size 

of Czechoslovak war damages, and hence 

the size of Czechoslovak reparation 

claims. The United States, Great Britain 

and France requested that 

Czechoslovakia determine, and also at 

the same time express, the value of 

German pre-war property on 

Czechoslovak territory before October 1, 

1945. Among the categories of German 

property assets which the Czechoslovak 

side had to determine were fixed and 

moveable assets, and intangible rights of 

German physical and legal entities. At 

the same time, the Czechoslovak 

Republic was requested to inform the 

Allies of the status of enemy property on 

its territory, and what control local 

administrative institutions had over it. 

The Czechoslovak government 

reacted to this by preparing Presidential 

Decree 54/1945 Coll., on the registration 

and determination of war damage and 

damage done under exceptional 

circumstances issued on August 31, 

1945. From the perspective of 

Czechoslovak law, this decree provided a 

legal basis for establishing a registry of 

war damage, mainly with a view to 

claims for reparations, but also for its 

future compensation. According to its 

provisions, the assessment of war-related 

and other damages caused by the 

German occupation was to be the task of 

the District National Committees. The 

deadline for registering claims ended on 

September 29, 1945, but it was possible 

to take into account later claims if the 

delay was caused by serious 

circumstances. After carrying out the 

appropriate investigation, the District 

National Committees passed on the files 

to the Provincial National Committees 

where special commissions were created 

made up of a representative of the 

Provincial National Committees, a 

representative of the provincial financial 

directorate and a specialist, and these 

commissions evaluated the registered 


247 

Chapter VII 

damages. Because of the tight deadline 

fixed by the major powers, only 

preliminary statements of damages 

caused by Germany were prepared in the 

year 1945. As a result Czechoslovakia 

only claimed 11,583.5 million US dollars 

(at the 1938 value) at the Paris reparation 

conference. Furthermore, the total 

amount of Czechoslovak claims for 

reparations was set at 19,471.6 million 

USD, disregarding any possible future 

claims of the Czechoslovak Republic 

against the Federal Republic of 

Germany, for example, in connection 

with the Munich Agreement. In total 

Czechoslovakia obtained 91,300,000 

USD from the International Allied 

Reparation Agency in Brussels (IARA) 

and through direct restitution of 

Czechoslovak property. Attacks on the 

so-called “Beneš Decrees” as a way of 

calling into question what the 

Czechoslovak state received from enemy 

assets, must of necessity be seen in the 

light of reparations and “inclusion” of 

unrecovered Czechoslovak war damages. 

Presidential Decree 54/1945 Coll., 

concerning the registration and 

confirmation of war damages and 

damages created by exceptional 

circumstances, issued on August 31, 

1945, as well as listing damages for the 

purposes of claims and reparation also 

declared the intention of issuing special 

regulations for providing compensation. 

By September 1945, it was already 

obvious to the government that the 

question of precise damage evaluation 

and the determination of the exact share 

of Czechoslovak reparation, out of which 

these specifically registered damages 

should have been compensated, was 

going to be a matter of “longer duration”, 

and so the government started working 

on a decree allowing for down payments 

for compensation of war damage. It was 

during the undertaking of reconstruction 

work (for example, removing bomb 

damage) that the lack of financial means 

was felt. The relevant Presidential 

Decree “concerning down payments as 

compensation for some property war 

damage” was passed on September 28, 

1945. This decree made it possible to


provide Czechoslovak citizens with 

deposits from the state allocations for 

damages caused to fixed and moveable 

assets which were suffered in direct 

connection with “any act of war of any 

side, of their fighting units or members 

thereof.” Deposits were provided only for 

registered and proved damages by 

Provincial National Committees 

according to the appropriate decree, and 

only to socially disadvantaged persons. 

RETRIBUTION DECREES 

The Presidential Decrees adjusting state 

citizenship, and confiscating or 

nationalising property, operated with 

retribution concepts already established by 

the London Retribution Decree. This 

decree was, with minor adjustments, 

replaced in the liberated Republic by 

Decree 16/1945 Coll. of June 19, 1945 

(the so-called Major Retribution Decree). 

In Slovakia, for political reasons which 

arose from the different nature of the 

retribution representatives of the wartime 

Slovak State, Directive SNR33 on the 

punishment of Fascist criminals, 

occupying forces and collaborators, and 

the creation of a public legal system, 

remained valid. On October 27, 1945, 

Decree 38/1945 Coll., concerning crimes 

against national honour (the so-called 

Minor Retribution Decree) was passed. 

The Major Retribution Decree ordered 

the severest penalties for the criminal acts 

listed in the decree, committed during the 

time of increased danger to the Republic, 

i.e. from May 28, 1938 to December 31, 

1946, except for a few exceptions also 

punishable under pre-Munich law. 

According to the Czechoslovak Major 

Retribution Decree, among the new 

punishable acts were, for example, 

membership of, and acting in leadership 

positions in, Nazi or Fascist organisations 

(not only German, but also Czech, Slovak, 

Hungarian and Polish such as Vlajka (The 

Flag), Český svaz pro spolupráci s Němcy 

(The Czech Union for Co-operation with 

the Germans), Hlinkova garda (The 

Hlinka Guard), Svatoplukova garda (The 

Svatopluk Guard) and so on), propagation 

of Fascist or Nazi movements, and 

disruption of activities in foreign lands 

248 

aimed at the liberation of the Republic. 

Property dealings of benefit to the 

Germans was seen as an exceptionally 

punishable act, as was being an informer, 

which was punishable by death if a loss of 

human life resulted. Besides incarceration, 

the courts could sentence people to lose 

their citizenship rights, or assign them to 

special forced labour units. Property could 

also be confiscated in favour of the state. 

For the most serious crimes, the special 

people’s courts could impose the death 

sentence. The decree provided for special 

people’s courts to sit in the District 

Courts, and also made changes to existing 

trial law which were aimed mainly at 

speeding up proceedings while 

maintaining at least some of the basic 

rights of the accused. In practice, the 

biggest impact of the whole process was 

on the investigations carried out by the 

security forces and the Security 

Commissions of the District National 

Committees, whose determinations 

greatly influenced the final verdicts of the 

special people’s courts. It was these 

commissions that examined the thousands 

of denunciations, gathered evidence, 

arrested suspects and then decided which 

cases should go to trial. The activities of 

these Investigative Commissions of the 

District National Committees were to be 

supervised by Commissions of the 

Provincial National Committee, and from 

June, even by the Commission for Internal 

National Security of the Provincial 

National Committee in Prague. 

The Czechoslovak understanding of 

the punishment of war criminals and 

domestic collaborators, even the 

retroactive nature of the punishments, was 

not so different from French, Dutch, 

Belgian, Polish or Norwegian 

retributions. There, too, extraordinary 

courts were used to shorten and accelerate 

criminal trials, and criminal acts were 

similarly defined. A common 

characteristic of retribution in the 

European states was also a marked 

harshness of criminal sanctions, including 

frequent use of the death penalty. In a 

number of states, the accused were 

interned and after sentencing used as 

forced labour for regenerating

the war-damaged economy. In the same 

way, in international comparison of 

retributions, we find special courts for 

judging the most important domestic 

collaborators (for example, the trials of 

representatives of “Vichy” in France), or 

the use of such punishments as the loss of 

citizenship 

or loss of citizenship rights. Nor was it 

exceptional even to connect retributions 

with “purges” of public life and state 

administration, or with economic and 

social changes made, for example, 

through confiscation of property and 

nationalisation. 

According to the Czechoslovak Major 

Retribution Decree, even the important 

representatives of the Nazi occupying 

administration were to be judged in the 

Prague Public Court, such as the Deputy 

Mayor of Prague, Josef Pfitzner, the 

Representative of the Reich Protectorate, 

Kurt Daluege, and above all SS 

Obergruppenführer and Minister of State 

for Bohemia and Moravia, K.H. Frank. 

All three were sentenced to death. Among 

other important cases was the trial of the 

Commander of the Malá Pevnost (Small 

Fortress) in Terezín, Heinrich Jöckel, and 

his Deputy, W. Schmidt, before an special 

people’s court in Litoměřice, and also the 

trials of Terezín guards, including the case 

of Anton Malloth currently in the media. 

In such major trials, a total of 778 death 

penalties and 741 sentences of life 

imprisonment were handed down. Most 

of the cases before the special people’s 

courts consisted of less serious cases, such 

as membership of Nazi organisations, or 

evidence of domestic collaboration. Each 

of the courts investigated to date displays 

regional differences, for example, such as 

in the character of indictments and the 

punishments given. Different, too, were 

the sort of offences committed by 

Germans and Czechs; membership of 

Nazi organisations such as 

Sudetendeutscher Freikorps was mainly a 

German offence, while with the Czechs 

most of the cases were of informers. 

Under the terms of the Major 

Retribution Decree, in cases where deeds 

were committed by leading 

representatives of the Protectorate, such 


249 

Chapter VII 

as Protectorate President Emil Hácha, or 

members of the Protectorate 

government, members of the central 

leadership of The Flag, the Youth 

Education Board or activists of the 

Czech Anti-Bolshevist League, leaders 

of the National Trade Union Centre, or 

important newspapermen, 

administrators and industrialists –Decree 

17/1945 Coll., of June 19, 1945, created 

the so-called National Court. This court 

functioned as a Criminal Court and also 

as a Court of Honour. When it 

functioned as a Court of Honour, it 

could declare that, after May 28, 1938, 

the above mentioned persons “failed to 

behave as befits true and brave citizens of 

Czechoslovakia.” After this they were 

stripped of their active and passive rights 

to vote and several other political rights. 

The Prosecution was represented by the 

National Prosecutor, named by the 

government, who decided which persons 

identified by the decree concerning the 

National Court would actually go to on 

trial. The National Court tried brought 

altogether in total thirty-six prosecutions 

against eighty persons, and only in three 

cases acted as a Court of Honour. 

Because the most prominent 

collaborators – were Emil Hácha, 

Emanuel Moravec and František 

Chvalkovský, who died or committed 

suicide before the establishment of the 

National Court, the most prominent 

cases before the National Court were the 

cases against members of the 

Protectorate Government, namely, 

Jaroslav Krejčí, Richard Bienert, Adolf 

Hrubý, Jindřich Kamenický and Josef 

Kalfus, as well as the Minister of the 

Interior and General of Police, Jan Ježek, 

and the Protectorate Government 

Ministers, Jan Kapras and Dominik 

Čipera. In a special trial important 

representatives of the government of the 

Second Republic, Jiří Havelka, Rudolf 

Beran and Jan Syrový, were tried. These 

aforementioned proceedings of the 

National Court took place in a tense 

atmosphere and with notable pressure 

from the Communist Party. In spite of 

government pressure, the Court in the 

end decided not to give even one death


sentence to the members of 

the Protectorate Government. (The most 

severe sentences, those of life and twentyfive 

years hard labour, were given to Adolf 

Hrubý and Jan Jaroslav Krejčí, while 

Rudolf Beran and Jan Syrový each got 

twenty years hard labour.) The efforts of 

the Communists to force a retrial, and 

therefore stricter sentences for the 

members of the Protectorate 

Government, did not succeed. Among 

the other accused who came before the 

National Court were representatives of 

Národní souručenství (National 

Partnership, Vlajka, the Youth Education 

Board, Czech Anti-Bolshevist League, 

and also the industrialist Jan Baťa, 

sentenced in absentia to fifteen years hard 

labour. In the end eighteen people were 

given the death sentence, among them 

the representatives of Vlajka, Jan Rys- 

Rozsévač, J. Burda, J. Čermák, and 

O. Polívka, of Youth Education Board, 

J. Svoboda and I. Chalupa (for both of 

these the death sentences were commuted 

to life sentences by Presidential 

Clemency), K. Michaliček and F. Teuner, 

and the son of Emanuel Moravec, Igor, 

who was an SS officer. In a special trial, 

exceptionally severe sentences were given 

by the National Court to militant 

journalists. Seven of those were sentenced 

to the supreme penalty, among them 

Vladimír Krychtálek, and Emanuel 

Vajtauer, sentenced in absentia. 

Retribution trials before special people’s 

courts ended after several changes to the 

original Presidential Decrees on May 4, 

1947. Unfinished cases, of which there was 

a very small percentage, were to be passed 

on to the regular courts, who were to apply 

the substantive law regulations of the 

Major Retribution Decree. Other cases 

which were reported after May 4, 1947, 

were to be similarly dealt with. On May 29, 

1947, the Minister of Justice, Prokop 

Drtina, gave the National Assembly a final 

report on the progress of retributions. In 

Czech lands there were more than 132,000 

criminal complaints (241,845 in total 

throughout the entire Czechoslovak 

Republic), and of those 38,316 ended up 

as prosecutions. In total in the 

Czechoslovak Republic 30,142 people 

250 

were sentenced, 778 to death and 741 to 

life imprisonment. 24,673 persons were 

given jail sentences by the special people’s 

courts. In 802 cases the sentence was 

suspended. According to Presidential 

Decree No. 126/1945 Coll., the majority 

of the retribution prisoners, in total 

11,654, were assigned to forced labour 

detachments. 

Not only Drtina’s report, but also the 

latest investigations into the activities of 

the special people’s courts in Ostrava, 

Opava, Litoměřice, Cheb and Liberec, 

show that the majority of the criminals 

from the German side who committed 

less serious crimes were not sentenced at 

all, or their sentence was suspended 

because they became part of the transfer. 

A great many criminals among them, 

including the main leaders of the 

repressive Nazi occupation regime, had 

already fled Czechoslovak territory 

before the end of the war. 

In Slovakia the punishment of war 

criminals and domestic collaborators was 

carried out according to the directives of 

the Slovak National Council. In this the 

distinction was made between “Fascist 

occupiers”, “domestic traitors”, 

“collaborators”, and “offenders of the 

Fascist regime”. The primary punishments 

were the death sentence, confiscation of 

property, and incarceration. Further it was 

also possible, but only in cases of 

“offenders of the Fascist regime”, to 

sentence someone to loss of citizenship 

rights and public chastisement. It was 

possible to work off part of the prison 

sentence in special work detachments. 

Active participation in the Slovak 

National Uprising was considered a 

mitigating factor. The people’s courts 

included the National Court sitting in 

Bratislava, the Provincial People’s Court 

sitting in provincial towns, and local 

people’s courts sitting in each borough 

which were to try the local activists of the 

Hlinka Slovak People’s Party. Into the 

competence of the National Court fell 

decisions about the criminal acts of the 

President of the war-time Slovak 

Republic, members of Slovak 

governments, Deputies of the Slovak 

parliament, members of the Slovak

Advisory Council, diplomats of the Slovak 

state, the most important members of the 

Hlinka Guard, and other exponents of the 

regime after March 14, 1939. Among the 

most important cases are the trial of the 

leader of the Riot Police of the Hlinka 

Guard, O. Kubala, and the leader of 

Central State Security, P. Starinský, and 

the Prime Minister, Vojtěch Tuka, who 

were sentenced to death, and specifically 

the key trial of the President of the Slovak 

State, Msgr. Josef Tiso, with A. Mach and 

Ferdinand Ďurčanský who was sentenced 

in absentia. Tiso, as a war criminal, was 

handed over to Czechoslovakia by the 

American authorities for punishment, but 

part of public opinion in Slovakia 

demanded his release from prison, and 

used the trial to stir up anti-Czech 

feelings. The Senate of the National Court 

chaired by Dr. Ivo Draxler, opened the 

trial on December 2, 1946. Tiso and 

Ďurčanský were sentenced to death by 

hanging on April 15, 1947, and Mach to 

thirty years’ imprisonment. By May 1947, 

during the retributions in Slovakia there 

had been 20,500 complaints, and 8,058 

persons sentenced. The National Court in 

Bratislava and the people’s courts handed 

down the death penalty in 55 cases, of 

which the sentence was carried out in 29 

cases. Prison sentences ranging from 

twenty to thirty years were handed down 

on 127 people, while 202 people were 

imprisoned for from five to ten years. The 

convicted comprised 3,722 Hungarians, 

1,609 Slovaks, 559 Germans and 77 

members of other nationalities. 

In accordance with the Minor 

Retribution Decree, the Provincial 

National Committee handed down 

prison sentences of up to one year and 

fines of up to one million crowns and/or 

public chastisement for “unsuitable 

behaviour offending the national feelings 

of the Czech and Slovak people” at the 

time of increased danger to the Republic. 

The above-mentioned unsuitable 

behaviour had to cause “public outrage”. 

To the framework of this decree were 

added detailed directives of the Ministry 

of the Interior of November 26, 1945, 

with three further additions: May 7 and 

November 28, 1946, and January 7, 


251 

Chapter VII 

1947. The directives were binding on the 

National Committees. It was these 

directives that provided instances of 

“unsuitable behaviour offending the 

national feelings of the Czech and 

Slovak people” and in addition they 

included a list of Fascist organisations 

for the purpose of retribution decrees. 

“Unsuitable behaviour” could be 

conscious support of German and 

Hungarian efforts at denationalisation, 

voluntary adoption of German or 

Hungarian nationality, political cooperation 

with Germans or Hungarians, 

also membership in Fascist organisations 

“in cases where the offender behaved 

with exceptional enthusiasm, over and 

above the normal bounds of his 

membership duties”, propagation, 

defence, praise or support of Nazism, 

Fascism or anti-Semitism, endorsement, 

support and defence of enemy speeches 

or acts of Nazis, Fascists, Czech or 

Slovak traitors, and specialist cooperation 

with Germans and 

Hungarians and with Czech and Slovak 

traitors overstepping the bounds of 

average performance, trying for 

advancement, decoration, reward, 

services and other advances from 

German or Hungarian offices or 

functionaries, or giving bribes and other 

advantages to occupying forces, misuse 

of positions of authority which were 

obtained with help of the occupying 

forces for gain, or the securing of 

personal advantage by serving the 

occupying forces to the detriment of 

subordinates, or torturing or terrorising 

of Czechs or Slovaks done in the 

interests of the occupying forces or with 

the desire to gain their approval. The 

recommendation of the directive of the 

Ministry of the Interior also to punish 

“fraternising with Germans or Hungarians 

to a greater degree than absolutely 

necessary and also economic contacts with 

Germans or Hungarians for the purpose 

of achieving above average enrichment 

and directed at the conscious support of 

the occupying forces” was especially made 

use of in the case of public trials of certain 

actors, artists and entrepreneurs accused of 

collaboration with the Germans.


Like the Major Retribution Decree, 

the Minor Retribution Decree had 

several amendments. During the 

implementation of Ministry of the 

Interior directives, for example, more 

grounds were added whereby, in 

accordance with the Minor Retribution 

Decree, a person could be convicted for 

even “consciously or through major 

negligence makes false statements about 

the risk to state or national security of a 

person who has committed crimes 

against the Czechoslovak Republic, or 

the Czech or Slovak nations, where the 

individual who made this statement 

could fully expect that the statement 

could be used for official purposes.” 

Decree 126/1945 Coll., concerning 

special forced labour detachments, 

decreed that forced labour detachments or 

sometimes labour camps should be 

created in the prisons and penitentiaries 

of the District Courts. In these it was 

possible to serve part of a sentence as 

handed down by an extraordinary people’s 

court in accordance with the Major 

Retribution Decree. The goal of this 

decree was also to contribute towards 

“regeneration of economic life and 

towards other works done in the public 

interest, such as removal of war material 

and ruins, and the repair and construction 

of public buildings and other public 

institutions.” Prisoners in these 

detachments had no right to 

compensation for their work. Their wages 

were forfeit to the state. Work camps for 

retribution prisoners were also precursors 

to the Communist regime’s system of 

forced labour. Besides these, camps also 

existed specifically as “centres” for those 

German citizens selected to be resettled. 

It is necessary to differentiate between the 

work in camps ordered by retribution 

regulations, and the work done under 

Presidential Decree No. 71/1945 Coll., of 

September 19, 1945, concerning 

compulsory labour for persons who had 

lost their Czechoslovak citizenship. This 

decree imposed compulsory labour for 

men aged 14-60 and for women aged 

15-50, in accordance with legislative 

Presidential Decree 33 Coll. Compulsory 

labour was imposed “for the removal and 

252 

rectification of damage done by war and 

bombing, and also for the regeneration of 

economic life disturbed by war” (this also 

applied to Czechs). Exempt from this 

compulsory labour were “physically or 

mentally incapable” persons, pregnant 

women and mothers for up to six weeks 

after childbirth, and women who had 

children in their care younger than six 

years. The appropriate Provincial 

National Committee decided on the 

allocation of the work, and this activity 

was considered to be in the public 

interest. The work was remunerated at a 

rate fixed by the Provincial National 

Committee, which could also allocate an 

additional contribution for food for 

families with children. Twenty percent of 

the gross wages (remuneration) paid by 

the employer was levied by the District 

National Committee. According to the 

directives of the Ministry of the Interior, 

the workforce was to be allocated only 

temporarily, at the very latest until they 

were due to be transferred. Persons to 

whom the decree applied who infringed 

work discipline, fell under the disciplinary 

jurisdiction of the Provincial National 

Committees, which also acted on more 

serious transgressions, and could give 

prison sentences of up to one year. For 

Czechoslovak citizens, so-called “general 

compulsory labour” was established by 

Presidential Decree No. 88/1945 Coll., of 

October 1, 1945, issued on request of the 

government and after agreement with 

Slovak National Council and applied to 

the whole territory of the State. 

RATIHABITIO 

Finally, it is necessary to note that the 

decrees of the President of the Republic 

were given the promised constitutional 

ratification (ratihabitio ) after the setting 

up of the Provisional National Assembly, 

and became constitutional laws and laws 

of the Czechoslovak Republic. This act 

conferring legality and also legitimacy on 

the Presidential Decrees presents a 

fundamental argument with far-reaching 

implications for attacks on the “Beneš 

Decrees” by German and Austrian critics. 

On August 25, 1945, Edvard Beneš 

signed Constitutional Decree


Provisional National Assembly, which 

had its roots in the London Presidential 

Decree of December 4, 1944, on the 

establishment of the National 

Committees and the Provisional 

National Assembly. According to 

Article I of the Constitutional Decree, 

legislative authority “for the whole 

territory of the Czechoslovak Republic” 

was to be exercised by the Provisional 

National Assembly until the convening 

of a “National Assembly”, elected on 

the basis of general, equal, direct and 

secret ballot and proportional 

representation. The legislative activity 

of the Provisional National Assembly 

continued until July 18, 1946, when on 

the basis of the results of the elections of 

May 26, 1946, the Constituent National 

Assembly was convened. The Provisional 

National Assembly consisted of a single 

chamber of deputies with three hundred 

members. The Provisional National 

Assembly’s remit was to: 

1) confirm that President Edvard 

Beneš would remain in office until new 

elections for the President of the 

Republic. 

2) exercise appropriately the legislative 

power of the National Assembly according 

to constitutional and other laws. The 

constitution could be altered only 

exceptionally and “only when absolutely 

necessary.” In matters concerning 

Slovakia, it was necessary to gain the 

approval of a majority of Slovak members 

of the Provisional National Assembly. The 

Provisional National Assembly was 

governed by the appropriate provisions of 

the Constitutional Charter in respect of 

the Chamber of Deputies of the National 

Assembly. 

Elections to the Provisional National 

Assembly took place on the basis of 

Government Order 48/1945 Coll., 

concerning the election of the 

Provisional National Assembly by means 

of delegates from National Committees 

and Administrative Commissions to 

Provincial Congresses. The Czech, 

Moravian and Silesian provinces formed 

a single electoral district that had two 

hundred deputies. Slovakia formed the 


253 

Chapter VII 

second election district with one 

hundred deputies. Lists of candidates for 

election to the Provisional National 

Assembly could be submitted only by the 

parties of the National Front of Czechs 

and Slovaks, and by the community 

organisations connected with it, such as 

the Ústřední rada odborů (Trade Union 

Central Council), Jednotný svaz 

zemědělců (United Organisation of 

Agricultural Workers), special interest 

groups, churches, the Svaz mládeže 

(Union of Youth), universities, colleges 

and academies of art and science. 

Government Order 49/1945 Coll., 

concerning the first elections to the 

District and Provincial National 

Committees in Czech provinces was 

issued on October 25, 1945. Elections to 

District National Committees in 

Slovakia were regulated by the 

appropriate directives of the Slovak 

National Council. Politically the creation 

of the National Committees was 

governed by the “agreement on the joint 

common procedure of parties of the 

national bloc of the urban and rural 

working people” which was signed on 

June 8, 1945, by Petr Zenkl for behalf 

the National Socialists, Klement 

Gottwald for the Communists, and 

Zdeňek Fierlinger for the Social 

Democrats. According to this agreement 

all local, District and Provincial National 

Committees were to be created by the 

consensus of all four ruling parties with, 

in addition, an appropriate number of 

representatives of interest groups. On 

this same principle a uniform slate was 

created for the elections to the 

Provisional National Assembly. Later, 

during the congresses that took place on 

October 14, 1945, the delegates of the 

National Committees elected 

representatives to the Provisional 

National Assembly. 

The establishment of the Provisional 

National Assembly – the first post-war 

parliament – marked the end of the 

immediate post-war decretal period. The 

Provisional National Assembly gathered 

for its first meeting on October 28, 1945. 

It confirmed Edvard Beneš in his office 

as President of the Republic, and also his


legitimate right to take part in the 

passage of the Decrees of the President 

of the Republic. Beneš opened the first 

session of the Provisional National 

Assembly with a comprehensive Address 

of the President of the Republic. In this 

address, Beneš recapped, among other 

things, the most important changes in the 

legal code, and called on parliament to 

confirm the basic Presidential Decrees. 

Retrospective ratification of the acts, not 

only of the provisional state authorities 

but also the first post-war government, 

was important, not only in strictly legal 

terms, but also politically and morally. By 

this, the Deputies were to show their 

approval of the basic measures of the 

Czechoslovak government in exile during 

World War II, and also of the post-war 

orientation of the restored state. From a 

purely legal viewpoint, ratihabitio was 

necessary so that the Decrees of the 

President of the Republic could become 

an irrefutable part of the legal code. 

Ratihabitio was dealt with by the 

Constitutional Law Committee of the 

Provisional National Assembly, which 

created a special ratihabitio subcommittee 

to handle this matter. The first 

draft of the relevant constitutional law 

had been tabled by Professor Z. Pešek on 

December 4, 1945. According to his 

proposal, all that was required was the 

passage of a skeletal constitutional law 

which would allow the Provisional 

National Assembly to pass special 

resolutions proposed by the government 

as to the decree or the group of decrees 

which it wanted to be ratified or not. The 

issue of ratihabitio was then discussed by 

the government as a whole. The 

government then proposed that during 

the made during the period of ratihabitio, 

valid decrees would be proclaimed as law, 

with the provision that ratified decrees 

which were not yet included in the 

Collection of Laws would be later 

incorporated by the Ministry of the 

Interior. Decrees of the President of the 

Republic passed after April 4, 1945, were 

to be passed en bloc by the Provisional 

National Assembly, while, of the London 

Decrees, the Constitutional Decrees 

about the renewal of the legal order, about 

254 

National Committees and the Provisional 

National Assembly, UNRRA, and decrees 

dealing with wartime issues, were to be 

explicitly ratified. Ratihabitio was not to 

be applied, however, to the Constitutional 

Decree on the Provisional Exercise of 

Legislative Authority, which was 

designated in the government’s preamble 

– in the spirit of normative theory – “the 

source” or starting point for all London 

and post-war decrees. The Provisional 

National Assembly made some changes 

to the government’s recommendation, 

however. These mainly concerned the 

explicit passage of the decrees into law 

from their very beginning, and their 

ultimate ratification by constitutional law 

of the Provisional National Assembly, and 

that it was done “manifestly and 

explicitly”. The Constitutional Decree 

concerning the Provisional Exercise of 

Legislative Authority was also to be 

ratified and proclaimed law. The validity 

of the decree as to time and territory was 

to remain unchanged. This change to the 

constitutional law which enabled and 

changed Article V of the Constitutional 

Decree of the President of the Republic 

concerning the renewal of the legal order, 

was passed by the Provisional National 

Assembly on February 28, 1946. 

However, the Office of the President of 

the Republic became involved in the final 

stages of the passage of this key 

constitutional law. The Chancellor, 

Smutný, in a letter on March 13, 1946, 

to the Prime Minister, protested against 

the version of the ratihabitio law that had 

been passed. He demanded that the law, 

in contrast to the accepted proposal, 

specify that Constitutional Decree 2 of 

the Czechoslovak Official Gazette, 

concerning the Provisional Exercise of 

Legislative Authority, be declared 

constitutional from the day of its issue. 

This was because the version of the 

constitutional law on ratihabitio of 

February 28, 1946, did not allow for such 

an interpretation. The Constitutional 

Law Committee agreed to these changes, 

as did the National Assembly in plenary 

session, and so on March 28, 1946, the 

definitive version of Constitutional Law 

57/1946 Coll., was passed, which is used

to confirm and declare as laws the 

Decrees of the President of the Republic. 

Article I of this law declared that the 

Provisional National Assembly confirmed 

in law the Constitutional Decrees and 


issued on the basis of the Constitutional 

Decree of October 15, 1940, concerning 

Provisional Exercise of Legislative 

Authority, and including this decree. All 

the Decrees of the President of the 

Republic should be considered as law 

from their beginning, and constitutional 

decrees as constitutional laws. All the 

decrees that had been ratified were to be 

incorporated in the Collection of Laws 

and Directives of the Czechoslovak 

Republic if they had not already been 

promulgated. This was done in the 

Appendix to the Collection of Laws and 

Directives of the Year 1947 called Decrees 

Issued in Exile. In this albeit somewhat 

cumbersome way reflecting the 

exceptional post-war circumstances, the 

process of insertion of the Presidential 

Decrees into the post-war Czechoslovak 

legal system was completed. 

LAW No. 115/1946 COLL., AND 

ACTS OF ANTI-GERMAN 

RESISTANCE 

Litigation concerning 

the “amnesty” law 

Law No. 115/1946 Coll., of May 8, 

1946, “concerning the legality of acts 

connected to the fight for restoration of 

freedom for Czechs and Slovaks” is 

frequently designated “the amnesty law”. 

It was related to the Decrees of the 

President of the Republic in terms of 

both time and subject. It took care of 

some of the results of the active 

resistance of Czechoslovak citizens 

against the German occupying forces. 

This activity was not taken into account 

by domestic (Czechoslovak) or 

international law. These aspects of the 

resistance of the population (the 

Czechoslovak people) took place at a 

time and in circumstances in which the 

institutions of the Czechoslovak state 

could not guarantee security and peace 

because of the German aggression, and 

therefore this task had to be assumed by 


255 

Chapter VII 

units and individuals in the context of 

citizens’ self-defence, or necessary 

defence against aggression. 

The law dealt with some of the legal 

implications of Decree 11 of 1944 

concerning renewal of the legal order. It 

was based on the right of resistance (and 

acts of resistance), and the right of every 

citizen to fight against the German 

occupying forces, on the illegality of this 

occupation and the regime it imposed, 

and on the right of any nation to defend 

its own state and establish the security of 

its own statehood for the future. It applied 

to the period when legal directives issued 

on the territory of Czechoslovakia did not 

come from the free will of the 

Czechoslovak people, a period whose end 

coincided with the end of the 

revolutionary jurisdiction which was 

expressed in the normative decrees of the 

President of the Republic. This law and 

the decrees were identical in other areas. 

Frequently in these discussions the 

activities of the aggressors and of their 

victims are put on a par. The law 

expressed the natural right of resistance 

against a more powerful aggressor who 

tried not only to exile people, but to 

exterminate entire nations and races, 

populations living on the historic 

territory of the Czech state – the Czechs 

as a nation, Jews designated according to 

German law (the law of German blood) 

as an inferior race, and Czech gypsies 

also destined for the “final solution”. 

Conceptually this law was not 

exceptional in Europe. Other states as 

well (France, Italy and so on) passed laws 

and measures which took a similar 

approach to acts of legitimate resistance 

against Fascists, Nazis or Germans as 

occupying forces. Nor was the period 

covered by these measures unusual or 

especially long. It was mainly a reaction 

to the preceding war of terror waged by 

the German Reich against the civilian 

populations of different countries which 

stood in opposition to it. This resistance 

could be successful only if the measures 

used were sufficiently effective and 

decisive. It defied the laws of the enemy, 

the occupation regime and sought to 

destroy and crush it. The occupation


regime and its legal code were criminal, 

the very antithesis of European 

civilisation based on freedom and 

equality. Opposition to this regime and 

its authority was, therefore, resistance to 

a crime which endured and was still 

threatening; resistance was the defence 

of Judaeo-Christian civilisation. 

The case of Austria can provide a 

detailed demonstration of how countries 

took a similar approach to the legal 

consequences of the fight against Fascism 

and Nazism. The Federal Law of 

December 21, 1945, on the abandonment 

of criminal proceedings and the 

remission of prison sentences in the case 

of fighters against National Socialism 

and Fascism represented a legal revision. 

The National Assembly of the Austrian 

Republic decided that criminal charges 

against people who had committed 

criminal acts in the fight against National 

Socialism or Fascism, or in support of the 

Austrian fight for freedom, or with the 

intent to create again an independent, 

self-sufficient and democratic Austria, 

should be dropped and those sentenced 

for such activity should be pardoned and 

the conviction should be struck from the 

record. An amnesty applied to all the 

people who had committed such acts 

from March 5, 1933, up to the day the 

law was enacted. The law was published 

in the State Law Gazette on January 19, 

1946, and the amnesty covered the acts of 

all people who had committed such acts, 

which in other circumstances would be 

criminal acts, from 1933 till 1946. The 

important reason for this amnesty was, 

therefore, the noble motives for these 

otherwise criminal acts, which were listed 

in the law. This law is still part of the 

Austrian Legal Code. 

Independent Judicial Authority 

and the Amnesty 

Laws usually apply to the future, while 

clemency and amnesty refer to the past. 

Laws are enacted to provide rules for 

people’s future actions, and therefore they 

should not be retroactive; clemency and 

amnesty, on the other hand, deal with the 

results of previous acts of persons which 

were contrary to the law. The use of 

256 

clemency or amnesty usually interferes 

with judicial authority, which ought to be 

independent and should guarantee the 

rights of, and justice for, the offender. 

With acts of clemency and amnesty, it is 

not possible to use correctional measures 

as it is with judicial sentences. They are 

final and irrevocable. They can be issued 

only in favour of the accused, and are the 

unilateral act of the one who has the right 

to do so according to the constitution. 

None of these theoretical postulates was 

or is in practice without exceptions. 

The consequences of the war and the 

revolutionary events connected with them, 

the transfer of power from previous regime 

to the institutions of the Czechoslovak 

state, and legal uncertainty and confusion 

all created the need to use these 

exceptional means to resolve this situation. 

Such problems faced the 

Czechoslovak government in 1945. The 

terror of the German occupying forces 

and the fight against them and against 

their accomplices, the activities of 

partisan groups, the Slovak National 

Uprising and its suppression, battles 

during the Prague uprising, the 

genocide of the Jews, the activities and 

punishment of informers during the 

occupation, the settling of accounts 

with the perpetrators of Nazi crimes 

(and sometimes with the innocent) after 

the war, the “uncontrolled transfer” of 

Germans and only gradual reestablishment 

of the instruments of 

state authority, mainly in border lands, 

and other realities connected with the 

Nazi rule and its direct results, created 

the need to renew the legal order. The 

Presidential Decree concerning the 

renewal of the legal order and other 

standards was inadequate for the 

purpose, and it became necessary to 

enact a group of extraordinary 

measures. The idea of amnesty 

suggested itself just as it had after the 

birth of Czechoslovakia – in spite of the 

fact that the situation was different in 

many ways. It was intended to 

distinguish between those cases which 

would be appropriate for compassion, 

and those to which the criteria did not 

apply.

Disregarding the partial amnesties 

already issued (the amnesty of the 

President of the Republic in the matter 

of the military judicature of August 29, 

1945, and the government resolution 

concerning a general amnesty in the 

matter of administrative crimes – 

Interior Ministry Ordinance 296 of 

October 2, 1945), Constitutional Decree 

No. 11 of the President of the Republic 

of 1944, from the Central Czechoslovak 

Gazette, concerning the renewal of the 

legal order, resolved some issues 

concerning the general nature of 

amnesty. From this point of view, 

Article 10 of this decree was important. 

In it, it states: “If someone was convicted 

during the time of loss of freedom by a 

criminal court or an official body for an 

act which was criminal according to 

Czechoslovak law, then the conviction is 

revoked if the act was committed with 

the intention of promoting the liberation 

of the Czechoslovak Republic.” This 

proposal was to be decided on by a court 

or appropriate authority, while being 

directed by the corresponding regulation 

on the re-opening of proceedings. 

In his commentary on that decree the 

leading German anti-Nazi and member 

of the Legal Council of the exile 

government, E. Schwelb, characterised 

acts of this kind as “criminal acts 

committed out of patriotism.” He 

elaborated on this: “In reality, Article 10 

provides a ruling on amnesty by the 

legislature, which, of course, means that, 

where the guilty party fulfils the legal 

requirements, he has a legal right to 

revocation of the sentence. ...For the 

sentence to be revoked according to 

Article 10, it is enough that it was 

committed with the intention of 

assisting the liberation of the 

Czechoslovak Republic. It was not 

necessary that patriotism be the only 

motive for committing this criminal act.” 

The motive for the criminal act to 

which amnesty was to be applied was to be 

taken into consideration. The appropriate 

institution, usually the court, was to decide 

on its application in specific cases. 

Motive as a reason for impunity was 

therefore nothing new in the 


257 

Chapter VII 

Czechoslovak criminal code. It had been 

a justification for amnesty since the 

beginning of the Czechoslovak State. 

The Genesis 

of Law No. 115/1946 Coll. 

On September 6, 1945, the government 

decided that an amnesty should be 

drafted that would apply to those acts 

committed during the “revolutionary 

period” against a defined group of 

persons (Germans, Hungarians, and 

those who were guilty according to the 

Retribution Decree). The “revolutionary 

period” was specified as the period from 

May 5, 1945, to July 9, 1945, i.e. to the 

day of the enactment of the Retribution 

Decree. Excluded from benefit of 

amnesty were acts that had been 

committed out of greed or for the 

purpose of debauchery, or enabling or 

concealing another criminal act. 

However, in the end the Government 

decided on December 20, 1945, to tackle 

the entire issue by means of a law, and 

then gradually crystallised its ideas in a 

government proposal. 

The bill discussed in the government 

on February 5, 1946, was entitled 

“impunity for acts connected with the 

fight to liberate the Czechs and Slovaks.” 

Paragraph I contained the provision that 

any act, which would have been deemed 

a criminal act according to valid 

regulations, “would not be punishable if 

it was committed in the period from 

September 30, 1938 to October 20, 

1945, for the purposes of the struggle to 

restore the freedom of the Czechs and 

Slovaks, or was the expression of a desire 

for just retribution for the acts of the 

occupying forces or their accomplices”. 

The next resolution in Paragraph II was 

mainly of a procedural character. 

In the preamble to the bill signed by 

Zdeněk Fierlinger and Jan Stránský, it 

states: “During the occupation and in the 

revolutionary period after restoration of 

the freedom of Czechs and Slovaks, it 

frequently happened that those who stood 

intransigently behind the idea of the 

freedom of the Czech and Slovak nations 

and the Czechoslovak Republic, acted 

against the enemies of the state and


nation in ways that would, under strict 

interpretation of the law, form the corpus 

delicti of a criminal act. If we take into 

consideration the motivations and 

circumstances during which it happened, 

punishment of these acts would be 

inconsistent with general legal opinion.” 

It also stated that the provisions of the 

Presidential Decree about the renewal of 

the legal order and the Directive of the 

Slovak National Assembly No. 53 of 

June 6, 1945, applied to some acts from 

the time of war. Neither of these 

directives covered all acts. As far as the 

proposed law was concerned: “the 

provisions are to apply to those acts that 

lie outside the frame of the struggle itself, 

but for which the battle for the restoration 

of freedom of the Czechs and Slovaks and 

the desire for just retribution, was the 

motive. This would also include, for 

example, requisitions made by partisans 

without a legal warrant, revolutionary 

courts, and so on. Impunity provisions are 

also not restricted to acts during the time 

of loss of freedom, but also apply to acts 

committed in the period after October 28, 

1945, when the Provisional National 

Assembly began its activities, which may 

realistically be considered the end of the 

revolutionary period.” According to the 

preamble, the bill assumed that, where the 

person had also committed acts that were 

not covered by the impunity provisions, 

the court would revise the sentence. 

Discussions continued both inside 

parliament and outside concerning the 

content and the wording of this law, 

partly influenced by the different state 

of affairs in Slovakia and in the Czech 

provinces. The controversy concerned 

the very concept of impunity, yet again 

recalling the decision about amnesties. 

Besides politicians, legal theorists also 

helped prepare the legislation. Opinion 

was sought from Professor Vladimír 

Solnař of the Law Faculty of Charles 

University, an internationally recognised 

expert in the area of criminal law from the 

pre-war period. Speaking on March 30, 

1946, he stated that: “acts that were the 

means of the fight for restoration of the 

freedom of Czechs and Slovaks, and led 

to just retribution for the acts of the 

258 

occupying forces or their accomplices, 

replace, in the time of loss of freedom, 

acts of public authorities in the struggle 

against the criminal government of 

occupation, and if they happened in this 

time, they were not, from the point of 

view of jurisprudence of Czechoslovak 

law, illegal and therefore they are not 

criminal. The proposed legal statement 

has only declaratory meaning for the 

period of loss of freedom.” 

Vladimír Solnař gave as the time of 

loss of freedom the period which began 

(according to Decree 11 of August 3, 

1944 on the renewal of the legal order) 

on September 30, 1938, and lasted until 

May 4, 1945, the time determined by 

Government Directive 31/1945 Coll., 

(of May 27, 1945), and he declared these 

acts to be covered by existing law. He 

himself did not say when the first stage 

ended for which he considered the law 

declaratory, but it can be deduced from 

the above regulations. 

Regarding the later period, he stated: 

“The proposition has constituent 

significance (as long as it is just 

retribution), if it extends impunity to 

include the later period to October 28, 

1945. An argument in favour of this limit, 

is fact that liberation was achieved by that 

date, and it is possible to leave retribution 

for the period after October 28, 1945, to 

the public authorities. For the exceptional 

cases when it possibly was not the case, it 

is enough even here to apply the common 

rules of criminal law concerning reasons 

for impunity. This statement without the 

temporal and other criteria would allow 

for autonomous acts of retribution in the 

future, and could be alarming in its 

results.” 

Among the different functions of 

punishment for this case Vladimír Solnař 

emphasised retribution, which, of course, 

had to be just. In his judgement he left 

out the issue of acts after May 4, 1945, if 

their motive was to help in the struggle 

for the restoration of freedom for Czechs 

and Slovaks. In his argument, however, 

he specifically accepts, in view of the 

time limits of the applicability of these 

exceptional rulings, that the struggle 

carried on even afterwards, and therefore

it was possible, even at that time, to 

apply this legal argument. The 

constitutive character of the law is 

mentioned only in respect of cases of just 

retribution after May 4, 1945. 

Regarding the overall concept of this 

legislation, he requirement was that: 

“in every case it is necessary to specify that 

the act quoted in Article I is legal: it is not 

enough to say that it is not criminal (see, 

for example, Article I of Constitutional 

Decree 137/1945 Coll.) because then the 

positive value of these commendable acts 

would not be correctly characterised: they 

also have to have expression in the legal 

code, and specifically in the criminal law. 

The analogy with amnesty does not get to 

the root of the matter. In that case it 

would really be necessary to change the 

name of the law.” 

The interpretation based on the 

legitimacy of these acts was used verbatim 

in the wording of the law. The author also 

dealt with the proposals of Deputy Burian 

(National Socialist) and with the 

proposed amendment of the Club of 

Deputies of the Democratic Party which 

demanded the omission of the exact time 

limits as were proposed in the law. Solnař 

recommended that Article I of the law be 

worded so: “An act that occurred during 

the period from September 30, 1938, to 

October 28, 1945, and whose purpose was 

to contribute to the fight to restore the 

freedom of Czechs and Slovaks, or which 

was aimed at just retribution for the acts 

of the occupying forces and their 

accomplices, is not unlawful, even if it 

would be criminal under present 

legislation.” 

In the next part of his opinion he 

proposed a new wording of Article II of 

the law, so that the connection with the 

common provisions of the criminal 

Legal Directives and Constitutional 

Decrees concerning the renewal of the 

legal order would be specifically 

expressed. His proposed wording was 

accepted. The law in its final version was 

therefore created by the representative of 

jurisprudence of the First Republic, a 

recognised expert even in German law, 

and was not the fruit of political party 

debate. In the conclusion of his opinion 


259 

Chapter VII 

the author expressed the view that “acts 

listed in Article I substituted for 

insufficient public authority, and 

therefore, for restitution for any potential 

damages to the persons affected by these 

acts, similar principles as those for wardamage 

restitution should apply.” 

Vladimír Solnař’s contribution to the 

final wording of the law was praised by 

the Committee on Constitutional Law 

for Government Legal Proposals and 

was referred to by other politicians 

during the proceedings subsequently, for 

example, Minister Prokop Drtina, and 

the rapporteur for the bill, Deputy John. 

Concerning the genesis of the law, it is 

interesting to consider the sources on 

which the authors drew. They were 

undoubtedly influenced by laws similar 

to those passed in other states. Their 

formulation, even in the stated time of 

legality and indemnity, reflects the time 

of the struggle against Fascism and 

Nazism. 

The proposal of Vladimír Solnař was 

possibly also an answer to Hitler’s decree 

of June 7, 1939 (RGBl I. p.1023), 

“concerning impunity”. This decree was 

printed by Professors Miřička and Solnař 

in the year 1939, in New Regulations of 

the Criminal Law in the Czech and 

Moravian Protectorate. The book 

contained German criminal directives 

with regard to the fact that, according to 

the instructions of the Reich’s Ministers 

of Justice and Interior from April 14, 

1939, some German criminal laws were 

also made binding on those persons who 

were not German subjects (therefore also 

for subjects of the Protectorate), and 

these persons came under the jurisdiction 

of German courts. This subjection to 

German law corresponded to the model 

of the legal relationship of colonial 

powers with their native inhabitants. 

Later, the power of German law and 

German courts over the inhabitants of 

the Protectorate spread even further. The 

above mentioned decree “of the Führer 

and Chancellor of the Reich” declared: 

“On the occasion of the return of 

Sudeten German territory into the 

jurisdiction of the Reich and the taking 

of the Protectorate of the Czech lands


and Bohemia, I allow the pardoning of 

sentences according to the directives 

stated later.” These directives distinguish 

between where this regulation applies 

“for the parts of the Sudetenland which 

were returned to the Reich in October 

1938. . . and for the Protectorate of 

Bohemia and Moravia.” 

For acts committed on the thus 

defined “Sudeten-German territory”, the 

decree stated that the activities of the 

NSDAP or the organs of this party, of 

the Sudeten-German Party, and other 

and similar parties and organisations, 

supporting them and helping them, if 

these activities are forbidden and 

criminal according to Czechoslovak law, 

are “also legal in the time before the 

return of the Sudetenland to the 

German Reich, and the sentences for 

these acts are considered unpronounced.” 

There was also indemnity “for criminal 

acts and misdemeanours which were 

committed before December 1, 1938, 

during the fight to preserve Germanness 

in Sudeten German lands, and for the 

return of this territory to the Reich.” 

In other provisions the principles listed 

were made concrete. In factual terms 

“the return of this territory to the Reich” 

was a fictional concept, because this 

territory never was a part of Germany, 

and was always belonged to the Crown 

of Bohemia. 

It also declared impunity for other acts 

and misdemeanours which were 

committed “for political motives” by 

German subjects and subjects of the 

German nation before December 1, 

1938. The “legal” motive of these crimes 

was the “interests” of Germany. Even 

when it concerned the territory of the 

Protectorate, they qualified for impunity 

for similar reasons, as long as these acts 

came under German jurisdiction. 

In contrast to the widespread amnesty 

declared by the decision of the 

government of the Czechoslovak 

Republic (led by General Syrový), dated 

October 7, 1938, towards Czechoslovak 

and foreign citizens of German 

nationality for criminal political acts 

after the Munich diktat, which as a result 

granted these acts indemnity, this decree 

260 

of Hitler’s differed mainly in that it 

considered these acts legal, and therefore 

legitimate. According to this, for 

example, crimes committed by the 

members of the Freikorps against 

Czechs, democratic Germans and Jews 

from September, 1938, including the 

burning of synagogues and the post- 

“Munich” stoning and tormenting of the 

ex-Mayor of Ústí nad Labem, a German 

Social Democrat, by disorderly 

Henleinites, became legal. 

This broad amnesty of the Czechoslovak 

government applied to criminal political 

acts which were punishable according to 

the Law for Defence of the Republic 

(No. 50/1923 Coll.), according to the Law 

for Defence of the State No. 31/1936 

Coll., according to the Armed Forces 

Law No. 193/1920 Coll., according to 

the law concerning on the requisition 

of transport for military purposes 

17/1924 Coll., according to the law on 

the right of association and assembly 

(Laws 134/1867 and 135/1867). The 

amnesty also applied to any criminal act 

committed in connection with national 

or political struggles, etc. It pardoned all 

attacks on Czechoslovak state officials 

and on persons defending the 

sovereignty and the territorial integrity 

of the Czechoslovak state, when attacked 

by armed units of German organisations. 

Although the government considered 

these acts criminal because they led to 

the breaking up of the state, nonetheless, 

as a result of the Munich diktat, it 

pardoned them, while the German 

government considered them lawful and 

legitimate exactly because they led to the 

breaking up of the Czechoslovak state. 

The Czechoslovak state had previously 

already pardoned many political crimes 

committed by German citizens against 

the Czechoslovak state – after the start 

of Czechoslovakia, and in the middle of 

the 1930s. Many Germans considered 

this a sign of weakness of the 

Czechoslovak state rather than broadmindedness. 

At the beginning of loss of freedom, 

there were already two different 

legitimacies in conflict here – the 

legitimacy of Czechoslovak statehood,

and legitimacy based on the requirement 

of breaking up that statehood. They were 

mutually exclusive. The victory of one 

meant the submission and criminality of 

the other. One came out of the 

sovereignty of the Czechoslovak people 

and their state, and the other from the 

sovereignty of the German Reich and of 

the German nation over the territory of 

the Crown of Bohemia and its subjects. 

The Sense and Explanation of the Law 

The concern of the legislators as it was 

expressed during the passage of the law 

was mainly to prevent its possible misuse. 

In the report of the Constitutional Law 

Committee of May 7, 1946, it is reasoned 

that the legality of the deeds arises from 

the fact that they replace acts of public 

authorities against the forces of 

occupation, even when the act was 

committed “during the time of 

revolution which is actually still the time 

of the active continuation of the fight 

against the occupying forces, traitors and 

their accomplices, which even in this 

time had mainly to be carried on, and 

was carried on, by the revolutionary 

powers.” At the same time the report 

emphasised that “the Constitutional Law 

Committee certainly did not intend to 

declare as legal, and thereby indemnify, 

those criminal acts that were committed 

at this time for base and dishonest 

motives.” 

The crucial perspective in judging the 

legality of these acts was to be the 

motives and circumstances in which they 

were committed. The bill’s rapporteur, 

Deputy John, at the 51 st session of the 

Provisional National Assembly of May 8, 

1946, declared that the bill’s provisions 

were to apply to “whoever 

uncompromisingly and firmly joined the 

open struggle against the occupying 

forces, and because of this struggle had 

to commit acts which, according to the 

norms adopted from the previous legal 

system, and if strictly interpreted, it 

would be possible and maybe even 

necessary to judge as illegal, and 

therefore criminal, acts. But according to 

the general legal opinion of all our 

people, these persons committed acts 


261 

Chapter VII 

against the enemy authorities, 

endangering their lives and the lives of 

their loved ones which, if it were not for 

the tragic events of the years 1938 and 

1939, ought to have been carried out by 

the Czechoslovak Army and all the other 

authorities of our Republic. These 

persons, therefore, did of their own will, 

against the occupying forces and their 

accomplices, all that would otherwise be 

the duty of an entire state.” 

The rapporteur ruled out too broad an 

interpretation of this law, because it 

would enable impunity for those acts 

that were not covered by the law, and 

stated: “it is our clear intention in no way 

to protect those who, at a crucial time, 

committed their acts for base and 

dishonourable motives and seek to 

associate them with our fight against the 

occupying forces, traitors and their 

accomplices.” He also drew attention to 

the great responsibility of the State 

Prosecutors and courts during the 

application of this law. 

During the discussion, Deputies 

mainly cited examples from Slovakia 

which demanded the use of such a law, 

and which ran parallel with the 

repressions after the suppression of the 

Slovak National Uprising. The activity 

of specifically Slovak courts in 

connection with the fight for liberation 

was also criticised by the Czech 

Deputies. One of them quoted an 

example from a Czech participant in the 

Slovak National Uprising, and stated in 

his argument: “Courts completely 

overlooked the reality that during a 

revolutionary struggle which was 

working to free the nation and secure its 

future, people could commit acts that 

nobody intended or anticipated, but 

which happened inadvertently. Was it 

not commendable, necessary and 

required by the national honour that a 

partisan was organised, for instance. This 

movement, of course, had to survive. 

There were thousands of those who were 

willing to give the partisans everything. 

There were, of course, those individuals 

who stayed loyal to the old legal order, 

and frequently served the Germans and 

refused to help. It was completely


understandable that, in these cases, they 

were dealt with according to the laws of 

revolution. And in spite of this, some of 

these acts have been dug up, and 

deserving fighters for the freedom of the 

nation are now made to suffer.” 

The theorists and the jurists 

emphasised the importance of motives 

and circumstances in the law. In one of 

the published articles, the law was 

explained as making a new case for 

ruling out illegality beside the reasons 

already in Paragraph II (error, defence or 

emergency). The validity of this law was 

temporary, and had a time limit. 

The criterion for whether an act was 

punishable or not was its motive. 

The law stated in a detailed list two 

causes: the fight for the liberation of the 

Republic, and just retribution. It did not 

refer to acts that took place during 

fighting between the regularly warring 

armies. These acts were already exempt 

from punishment, on the grounds that 

they were carried out in the context of 

duty properly allocated by law 

(compulsory military service). This law 

was to apply to the acts of volunteers, 

mainly partisans, members of the 

resistance, saboteurs, etc., who had 

committed acts which would be criminal 

in other circumstances, such as the 

destruction of bridges, warehouses and 

factories, and also the sabotage of 

production, etc., not as a military or 

other legal duty, but individually and 

voluntarily. The noble motive for these 

acts (fighting for the mother country) 

rendered them irreproachable. 

The second condition was concerned 

with just retribution. This provision was 

added to Constitutional Decree 

137/1945 Coll., of October 27, 1945, by 

which the arrest of persons considered a 

security risk, or extension of their 

temporary custody (incarceration) 

beyond the time allowed by law, was 

declared legal. This provision was in 

response to the reality that, during the 

revolutionary period people were being 

arrested by persons who were not, 

according to the existing regulations, 

authorised to do so (for example, 

members of local National Committees, 

262 

or other official representatives of the 

Republic), and “police custody” lasted 

longer than the law allowed, and was 

approved even in cases where there was 

no justification in law. Until then these 

cases contravened the existing legal code. 

Constitutional Decree 137/1945 Coll., 

resolved this issue by defining these as 

legal if they took place before the 

enactment of this decree. The result of 

this measure was that those arrested did 

not have a right to compensation. 

All other cases where the previous 

legal code was contravened in the process 

of retribution were given impunity 

according to Law No. 115/1946 Coll. 

This applied only in cases where the 

motive for the act was just retribution, 

and therefore a motive deemed noble. 

If the act was committed for immoral or 

base reasons, such as from the desire to 

settle personal scores, revenge, greed, 

etc., it was not possible to speak of just 

retribution. 

The law did not want to declare 

impunity for acts whose motivations were 

base, dishonourable or immoral. That is 

why it selected only two motives which it 

regarded as comparable. In contrast to the 

motive for legality and impunity expressed 

in Hitler’s “Amnesty Decree”, which was 

intended to justify aggression against 

Czechoslovakia, Law No. 115/1946 Coll., 

put forward another motive – just 

retribution for crimes committed by an 

aggressor. The retribution had to be just, 

and could not be based on low and 

dishonourable motives. This provision was 

also exceptional in that it precluded 

extensive interpretation. 

Application of the Law 

We can read about the application of the 

law at that time in parliamentary 

records, in published court proceedings 

and in the daily press. These reports give 

us a picture of the degree to which it was 

possible to maintain successfully the 

intentions of the legislature and the 

intended limits of the law. 

Justice Minister Prokop Drtina dealt 

with this law in detail during his 

speeches in parliament in connection 

with retribution. The cases which he

listed bore witness to the legal and 

human difficulties involved in the 

solutions. 

The law was used, for example, in 

connection with the acts of Radomír 

Luža, who was the leader of a partisan 

group in 1944, and as such forced entry 

into the police station in Přibyslav so 

that he could avenge the death of his 

father, General Luža, and his aide-decamp. 

Four policemen were shot dead 

and one seriously injured. Among those 

shot was a policeman who had had 

nothing to do with the death of General 

Luža, and was killed to prevent his 

calling for German reinforcements 

against those carrying out the 

retribution. In accordance with the 

provisions of Law No. 115/1946 Coll., 

criminal proceedings against Radomír 

Luža and his fellow partisan were halted. 

On the other hand, Prokop Drtina 

promised in Parliament that acts 

identified as “Gestapoism” would be 

punished. Among these were the 

murders committed at an internment 

camp in Kolín on August 22, 1945, when 

two persons were first tormented and 

then beaten to death, and property 

confiscated from the internees was 

stolen. Originally it was agreed to stop 

criminal proceedings on the grounds that 

the perpetrators included people who 

had for years been victims of similar 

mistreatment in German concentration 

camps, and therefore committed this acts 

in an extreme state of mind which was 

the result of the harm suffered. 

Subsequent investigation showed that 

the requirements of the law were not 

fulfilled. Similar acts also took place 

elsewhere, and Czechoslovak state 

institutions faced a dilemma as to how to 

punish them. The brutal treatment of 

internees in the camp in Kolín gave rise 

to harsh criticism from the Deputies and 

the Minister of Justice, Drtina, who 

promised to take action “against the 

perpetrators of these inhuman brutalities 

. . . in the interests of the unsullied 

reputation of Czechoslovak democracy 

and in the interests of the reputation of 

our national revolution.” 

(There was similar condemnation and 


263 

Chapter VII 

punishment for the killing of Slovak 

Germans near Přerov carried out by a 

Czechoslovak Army officer by the name 

of Pazúr, who was amnestied, however, 

after February, 1948. Similar cases of 

punishment are still being sought out.) 

That promise was not the end of the 

matter. Prokop Drtina said in parliament 

that with his regulation he required the 

public prosecutors to provide detailed 

reports on the mistreatment of people 

under arrest, and that he called this act 

“Gestapoism” in accordance with the 

decision of the government of May 20, 

1947, because the government “neither 

wishes nor intends to protect 

Gestapoism of any kind, regardless of 

who commits it.” At the time, 104 such 

cases were reported to the Ministry of 

Justice. Of the reports investigated, two 

were cases of the rape of imprisoned 

women, and one was a case of restriction 

of personal freedom. Other cases were 

still under review, or were found without 

foundation. 

The daily and specialist press 

published stories of the trials of the 

perpetrators of criminal acts according to 

Law No. 115/1946 Coll. The will of the 

state to punish such acts was shown by 

the acts of the Ministry of Justice, and 

also by the measures of the Public 

Prosecutor. The courts decided on the 

actual guilt and punishment. 

The Constituent National Assembly 

decided on July 10, 1947, to confirm the 

decision of the Security Committee and 

Army Committee concerning the 

establishment of an Investigative 

Commission for the investigation of all 

cases of group actions taken against 

Germans, Hungarians and other persons 

after May 5, 1945. A whole series of 

perpetrators of criminal acts were 

brought before this commission and were 

convicted after being handed over to the 

prosecuting authorities. 

The judicature of the Supreme Court 

directed the courts to apply the law most 

strictly. Under No. 47 published in the 

Collection of Decisions from the year 

1949, it states: “The provisions of 

Paragraph I, Law No. 115/1946 Coll., 

suppose that the perpetrator was acting


for the benefit and interest of the group 

in the sense there given. These are 

therefore illegal acts in the sense of the 

above provisions in that the perpetrators 

of theft were prompted in their acts 

solely by concern for their own benefit 

and by a motiveless desire to enrich 

themselves.” The perpetrators were 

convicted in spite of their defence that 

they had assisted partisans, fugitives and 

political prisoners from stolen German 

parcels, and the court stated: “that the 

extent of that assistance did not 

correspond to the extent of thefts 

committed, so therefore there was no 

support for the conclusion that the 

motive for the thefts was to obtain 

resources needed for that assistance.” 

In another case published under 

No. 200/1947, in the Collection of the 

Decisions of the Supreme Court, it was 

stated that: “as just retribution for the 

acts of the occupying forces and their 

accomplices in the sense of Paragraph I, 

Law No. 115/1946 Coll., it is not 

possible to recognise such acts which in 

themselves helped the occupation forces 

– and which therefore, judged from the 

higher perspective of justifying the 

institution of just retribution, are also 

despicable.” In the reasoning it was 

stated that: “the accused could not be 

absolved of guilt, not even subjective 

guilt, by the circumstance which he uses 

in his defence, namely that he informed 

with the intention of preventing 

exploitation of the people by economic 

extortion.” 

In Decision 186/1947 of the 

Collection of Decisions it states: “An act 

whose motives were low and dishonest 

(embezzlement for greed) cannot have 

legality even from the point of view of 

the provisions of Paragraph I, second 

case, Law No. 115/1946 Coll.” 

From all these published decisions it is 

clear that the courts judged the moral 

motives and circumstances of cases very 

diligently during the application of the 

law, and by their published judgements 

they directed the deliberations of the 

courts towards strict interpretation of the 

legal provisions. Democratic justice had 

to face many political attacks which 

264 

claimed that it protected Germans and 

collaborators. Prokop Drtina, then 

Minister of Justice, defended the 

independence of the judiciary by 

recalling Masaryk’s campaign over the 

“Hilsner Case”. 

Conclusion 

Law No. 115/1946 Coll., was provoked 

by the exceptional circumstances created 

by the previous acts of the German 

occupying forces. Even non-military 

persons, whose actions were not 

completely protected by domestic or 

international law, answered the appeal 

from the foreign resistance, particularly 

from President Beneš, even non-military 

persons, whose actions were not 

completely protected by domestic or 

international law, and joined the fight 

against the occupying forces and their 

accomplices. Prokop Drtina said in 

parliament in reference to this aspect of 

the law: “For partisans to be recognised 

as army units and therefore have 

immunity according to international law, 

it would be necessary for them to be 

under the command of someone 

responsible for his subordinates, to wear 

a badge visible from a distance, to carry 

their arms openly, and they would have 

to conduct the action in accord with the 

laws and customs of war. From the 

nature of things it is natural that these 

prerequisites could not be fulfilled, so 

partisans would normally bear full 

criminal liability in terms of the general 

provisions of criminal law for the 

killing of the enemy during a battle, for 

summary courts and for requisitions. 

This would, of course, run completely 

counter to our sense of the spirit and 

aims of our mutual struggle, and would 

be unjust to brave and daring patriots.” 

These active fighters against the 

occupying forces needed to be 

protected in the interests of justice 

from the criminal and civil 

consequences of their acts. This applied 

not only to partisans, but to other 

resistance groups, whether they acted 

singly or if they were helping 

parachutists, as in the case of the 

assassination of Heydrich, and so on.

Broad civilian resistance came into 

existence in response to the total war 

declared by Germany which aimed to 

enslave or completely exterminate some 

nations. It could not be governed by 

standards that were not relevant to that 

exceptional situation. The question may 

be posed whether, in the case of nations 

and other groups of citizens, the 

principle of reasonable defence against 

violence and aggression applies. 

Essentially, the intensity and the form of 

defence was determined by the aggressor 

by the goals and means employed. 

Indeed it is entirely possible that the 

value of the fight for freedom legitimises 

overstepping these declared limits of 

defence against an aggressor. However, 

not even in these cases are torture and 

similar practices legitimate. This was 

politically condemned in the post-war 

period, being described as “Gestapoism” 

in parliament and in public, and was 

subject to criminal prosecution. 

The state of conflict lasted for a 

certain period after the war because there 

was resistance to the legal Czechoslovak 

government not only on the part of 

military forces, mainly SS units, which 

did not accept surrender, but also other 

armed groups (groups mentioned 

included Werwolf, Guttenberg, Zeppelin, 

Vernichtungsbrigade Egerland, etc.), and 

the legitimate institutions of the 

Czechoslovak state only gradually 

reconstituted themselves on formerly 

occupied territory. In their place, at this 

time, the work of the state was done by 

citizens whose acts were not always in 

accord with the law. However, criminal 

acts were also committed by specifically 

anti-social individuals. This criminal 

activity was only partially dealt with. 

Rulings which aimed to distinguish 

between these two kinds of act, and secure 

the law and justice, also included Decrees 

of the President of the Republic – e.g. 


concerning severe punishment for 

looting. Even though many criminal acts 

were not punished, what was crucial was 

the will of the Czechoslovak state to 

punish them. While German law was 

based on an inequality of people, where 


265 

Chapter VII 

those who did not belong to the master 

race were to serve it, or were to be 

liquidated so that they can make room 

for the superior race, the Czechoslovak 

legal code passed laws intended to 

prevent acts of that kind in future. Each 

of these legal systems was incompatible 

with the other. The controversy over the 

legitimacy of the act of resistance against 

Germany, and the demands to cancel 

Law No. 115/1946 Coll., is also a 

controversy over the values which both of 

these legal systems expressed. 

Because of their temporary nature, the 

extraordinary measures expressed in Law 

No. 115/1946 Coll., had to be restricted 

in time. The Legislature decided that the 

final time limit would be the end of the 

decretal authority of the President of the 

Republic, i.e. the end of the 

revolutionary period of legislation. 

From the perspective of today, the 

extenuating plea of “just retribution” for 

the time just after the war appears 

contentious, especially when there were 

already proper state instruments in place. 

Even the punishment is understood as 

retribution for a crime. For that period 

and for those motives, the law gave 

bodies other than the courts the right to 

decide on punishment. Just retribution 

was also understood to include the 

punishment carried out by the 

revolutionary bodies. Misuse of this 

provision was counteracted by the 

judiciary through interpretation of the 

concept of “just retribution”, which 

excluded base and dishonourable 

motives. The published adjudications of 

the court show that this significant 

distinction was genuinely enforced by the 

state in these cases, in spite of the 

objective problems caused by the postwar 

period. The notion of “just 

retribution” is, of course, also determined 

by the factor of time. It was perceived 

differently by participants in the events 

of the period covered by the law, 

somewhat differently at the time of its 

passage and during its application, and 

differently again after fifty or sixty years. 

From the legal standpoint, it needs to be 

explained in terms of the will of the 

legislator, the conditions and


circumstances of the period, and the 

legal context of those days. 

Not even the transfer of Germans was 

considered simply as retribution by the 

Czechoslovak government and the 

Czech nation. It was understood as a 

consequence of their free choice to 

withdraw from the Czech nation and the 

joint state within the historic borders of 

the Crown of Bohemia. The choices they 

took at the time of the end of the First 

Republic had been expressed even 

earlier. The transfer was also understood 

by the Allies and the Czechs as a 

preventive measure against another 

flashpoint for political conflicts and wars 

in the future. 

From the political perspective of 

Czechoslovakia and the Allies, it was not 

a question of “ethnic cleansing” of the 

Germans as the terminology is currently 

used. On the contrary, any ethnic and 

racial cleansing was carried out by the 

Germans with their policy of genocide, 

in respect of the Jews and Gypsies, 

including on Czechoslovak territory, and 

also in preparation for, and in part 

carried out against, the Czechs. In 

contradistinction, the intention of the 

Czechoslovak legislator was to allow all 

those who up to that point had met their 

obligations as Czechoslovak citizens to 

retain their citizenship and the right to 

live in the Czechoslovak state, even 

though this intention was not fulfilled in 

all cases. 

Besides political and legal reasons, 

there were also moral aspects to the 

arguments for transfer used by the anti- 

Nazi forces. In connection with the 

negative influence of the war on the 

moral state of Czechoslovak society and 

reverberations abroad, Message II of the 

Regular Assembly of the Czechoslovak 

Church which took place from January 8 

to 10, 1946, dealt with this aspect. It 

declared, among other things, that: “we 

fully and without reservation support the 

demand for transfer of the German 

minority. We do not do so from national 

prejudice, passion, or for motives of 

revenge, but in the cause of the moral 

and spiritual health of our nation. We 

know that after the crimes which the 

266 

Germans as a nation have on their 

conscience, the existence of a German 

minority in our lands necessarily creates 

feelings of distrust and hate in our 

people. 

“It is not possible to build a life in this 

atmosphere of distrust and hate. The 

sooner the Germans leave our lands, the 

sooner it will be possible to rectify the 

biggest moral crime of Fascist Germany 

against our nation – that that they taught 

us to hate another nation; the sooner will 

it be possible for our people to resume an 

anger-free, calm and peaceful posture 

towards the German nation . . . It is for 

this reason that the departure of the 

Germans is not only a political solution, 

but also morally necessary and selfpreserving.” 

Some representatives of 

Czech catholics also made similar 

statements. 

In the course of the transfer of the 

Germans, criminal acts occurred that were 

dealt with according to Czechoslovak law. 

The differentiating criteria explicit in Law 

No. 115/1946 Coll., and in other legal 

regulations also applied to these cases, 

and any such procedure that was 

criminal was not, and could not have 

been, carried on with impunity, as 

follows from the interpretation of the 

law. Crimes could not be confused with 

the measures which were in accord with 

this law, and were taken according to 

the law. 

The demands to cancel Law 

No. 115/1946 Coll., or to distance 

oneself from it, are an expression of 

disagreement about its legitimacy and 

about the legitimacy of the 

Czechoslovak and Czech Republics. 

There can be no doubt that 

Czechoslovak institutions (the courts 

and parliament) also through this law, 

condemned the brutality and inhumanity 

which took place even after the war. At 

the same time, the law defended the 

protectors of Czechoslovak statehood 

from those who dismantled and 

threatened this statehood during and 

after the war. According to 

Czechoslovak law, any act connected 

with the struggle to restore freedom for 

Czechs and Slovaks was legitimate

(justifiable). According to German 

concepts, it was legitimate (justifiable) to 

break up this state. This was specifically 

stated in the legal codes of both of these 

countries. It is difficult to find any 

compromise between these mutually 

exclusive concepts. 

THE QUESTION OF THE 

LEGALITY AND LEGITIMACY 


The transfer of German citizens from 

three European states to Germany took 

place as an act of international, not 

domestic, law. But this international law 

had deep-reaching effects 

on domestic law. 

The transfer of the Germans is 

therefore not a two-sided issue – 

Czechoslovak-German or Czech- 

German – but part of a complete postwar 

settlement which laid the 

foundations for international peace in 

Europe. Representatives of the victorious 

powers decided on the transfer according 

to the law, and with conviction about the 

justice of this act. About this decision and 

their stand on the transfer of the German 

citizenry, signatories to the transfer 

agreement would change nothing today, 

as the governments of USA, Russia and 

Great Britain repeatedly declare. The 

legitimacy and legality of the transfer of 

German citizens from Czechoslovakia 

and other states to Germany and Austria 

therefore remains a matter of 

international law and international 

relations after World War II. 

“Potsdam” 

According to the Communique of the 

tripartite conference in Berlin, published 

on August 2, 1945, the leaders of the 

USA, the Soviet Union and Great 

Britain decided on the transfer of 

Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia 

and Hungary. 

In the communique it was stated that, 

“the Three Governments, having 

considered the question in all its aspects, 

recognise that the transfer to Germany 

of German populations or elements 

thereof, remaining in Poland, 

Czechoslovakia and Hungary, will have 


267 

Chapter VII 

to be undertaken. They agree that any 

transfers that take place should be 

effected in an orderly and humane 

manner.” 

Representatives of these governments 

empowered the Control Council in 

Germany to establish how many such 

persons had already come to Germany 

from these states, and to make an 

estimate of when and how speedily 

further transfers could be made with 

regard to the situation in Germany. The 

Czechoslovak Government, the Polish 

provisional government and the Control 

Commission in Hungary were informed 

of that decision and requested to stop 

further transfers until the tasks imposed 

on the Control Council had been 

completed. 

The issue of the transfers of German 

nationals was first brought up at the 

Potsdam conference by Winston 

Churchill on July 25, 1945. Churchill 

said that it would be necessary to resettle 

a large number of German nationals 

from Czechoslovakia to Germany. He 

mentioned a total of approximately 

2,500,000 people. On the basis of his 

declaration and information as to the 

views of Edvard Beneš, obtained from 

the British Foreign Minister, Eden, the 

question was studied by the Ministers of 

Foreign Affairs. The final decision of the 

“Big Three” came on July 31, 1945 under 

the Chairmanship of Harry Truman who 

replaced the deceased President 

Roosevelt. The Czechoslovak position 

was therefore presented to the 

conference by the British delegation. 

The communique about the 

conclusions of the Allied Control 

Council dated November 20, 1945, in 

Berlin, was delivered to the 

Czechoslovak government by the 

representatives of the Allied Powers, the 

Soviet, American and British 

ambassadors, in the form of special 

diplomatic notes on November 28, and 

December 3 and 7, 1945, respectively. 

From then on, Czechoslovakia 

proceeded according to the demands 

contained in those notes. 

The documents of the Potsdam 

Conference represent an important step


in international political and legal 

negotiations. They created the 

foundations for the establishment of 

international law in the post-war world. 

Furthermore, they confirmed decisions 

taken at the Yalta conference and other 

previous Allied negotiations, beginning 

with the Atlantic Charter. The 

participants at the Potsdam conference 

adopted the decision in the name of 

Czechoslovakia and other signatories of 

the Declaration of the United Nations 

dated January 1, 1942, i.e. all the 

members of the anti-Nazi coalition who 

had declared war on Germany. The 

representatives of the three powers acted 

in their interests and reacted to their 

proposals, especially to the proposals of 

the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile 

of November, 1944. The transfer of the 

German population from 

Czechoslovakia, the principles of which 

had already been accepted by the 

superpowers during the war, was 

confirmed shortly thereafter in other 

international agreements, mainly in the 

Paris agreement on German reparations, 

signed on December 21, 1945, which 

established the Inter-Allied Reparation 

Agency and dealt with the return of 

monetary gold. Czechoslovakia 

published this agreement as 

No. 150/1947 Coll. The agreement 

specifically referred to the transfer of 

former Czechoslovak subjects. 

The Transfer and International Law at 

the End of World War II 

The transfer of German nationals was 

not unique in international law and 

international relations at that time as a 

means of resolving conflicts. It is true 

that between the wars, international law 

considered mass transfers to be an 

extreme measure leading, without 

exception, to the violation of individual 

rights, as in the case of the exchange of 

populations between Greece and Turkey 

agreed upon at the Lausanne Conference 

(1922-1923). Transfer was also seen as a 

means of renewing the integrity of a 

state. As an act of international law, a 

transfer could not be executed 

unilaterally: there had to be assurance 

268 

that the state to which the people were 

transferred would accept them. In his 

day Tomáš G. Masaryk had described 

the frequent proposals to repatriate, in 

some cases, very large minorities as 

attempts by pan-Germans to weaken 

non-German minorities, and expressed 

doubt that the transfers would be just 

and uncoerced. 

The status of the authorities of the 

states involved in the transfer of German 

population varied enormously, as is 

reflected in the documents of the 

Potsdam Conference. Czechoslovakia 

was fully accepted due to the existence 

of its internationally recognised 

government and President. The 

Czechoslovak government represented 

all the relevant components of the 

Czechoslovak anti-Nazi resistance, and 

was able to maintain the principles of 

continuity of its activities as the 

expression of continuity of the 

Czechoslovak state. On other hand, 

Poland was represented only by a 

provisional government whose members 

and whose international recognition 

were the subject of negotiations, 

especially during the Yalta Conference. 

The Potsdam Conference accepted the 

representatives of this provisional 

government, and noted the process of 

continuing unification of the elements 

of Polish resistance. Hungary, as a 

former German ally, was represented by 

its Control Commission. The Allied 

Control Council for Germany legally 

and legitimately represented Germany. 

The three powers made their decision 

about the transfer of German nationals 

on several levels. Under the conditions 

of the surrender, and especially according 

to the declaration regarding the defeat 

of Germany and the assumption of 

supreme authority with respect to 

Germany by the Governments of the 

United States of America, the Union of 

Soviet Socialist Republics, the United 

Kingdom and the Provisional 

Government of the French Republic, 

these governments assumed “supreme 

authority with respect to Germany, 

including all the powers possessed by the 

German Government, the High

Command and any state, municipal, or 

local government or authority.” The 

Allied governments agreed to, and 

accepted in the name of Germany, the 

transfer of German populations to 

German territory. Apart from the 

Control Commission, there was no other 

government in Germany at that time. 

The representatives of the three powers 

made their decision primarily as 

guarantors of a future peace settlement 

in the world, because it became clear that 

the Versailles system that included the 

protection of minorities had failed in 

relation to Germany and the German 

minorities in other countries. At that 

time the victorious powers overruled the 

principle of state sovereignty in its 

relation to minorities in the case of socalled 

successor states and defeated 

states. Germany was accorded an 

exclusive position. The protection of 

minorities was not required, even though 

there were non-German minorities on 

German territory, and there were no 

reasons for denying them protection. 

Later, the German “Weimar” 

constitution suppressed minorities 

through its Article 113, which limited 

them to “fremdsprachige Volksteile”, and 

did not recognise these people as 

minorities. Although the German 

government did not support the attempt 

of the German minority in 

Czechoslovakia to secede in 1918, it later 

actively pursued the complaints and 

petitions of German minorities in 

different states against the governments 

of those states. These were addressed to 

the League of Nations. After Hitler’s rise 

to power, the German minorities in 

Czechoslovakia and other states became 

the direct instrument of the policies of 

the German government towards the 

destabilisation of these countries, and 

the start of global war. The German 

minorities were not loyal to their own 

states, but only to Germany and its 

regime in accordance with the then 

ruling ideology in Germany. They 

therefore denied the basic principle on 

which the defence of minorities after 

World War I was based. They 

demonstrated its weaknesses. The policy 


269 

Chapter VII 

of the governments of Czechoslovakia 

and Poland towards Germany and their 

minorities was very different, but this did 

not prevent Germany continuing its 

drive to destroy them as states. 

It should be noted that the present 

Federal German constitution – “the basic 

law” – does not contain any provisions 

with regard to the protection of 

minorities, but the Federal government 

continued to insist on safeguarding the 

protection of German minorities in 

other countries through international 

agreements offering greater privileges 

than other minorities and without 

reciprocity. The Czechoslovak-German 

agreement from 1992 could serve as an 

example. 

Germany’s Policy of Resettlement 

The circumstances and the roots of the 

German policies that culminated in 

World War II were deeper and wider. It 

was in many ways a continuous effort, 

regardless of what form of state or 

political regime happened to apply in 

Germany. It did not consist only of using 

the German minorities in other 

countries for territorial expansion. 

German legal theory also looked for 

arguments to justify policies of 

aggression. Tomáš G. Masaryk drew 

attention to those attempts during 

World War I. 

At the very beginning of World War I, 

German international legal theorists 

were claiming a “right (state) of 

necessity”. This theory was used as 

justification for the attack on Belgium, 

for instance, as soon as it became 

necessary for the security of Germany. 

The occupation of Belgium was in fact a 

just punishment for the fact that it tried 

to defend itself. It was entirely up to the 

German government to decide whether 

the “security of Germany” was in danger. 

Furthermore, Germany did not hesitate 

to undermine the internal unity of the 

state in question. In the case of Belgium, 

it supported Flemish claims against the 

government of Belgium with the aim of 

disrupting its unity. This German theory 

of “the right of necessity” was further 

developed in 1934 by Heinrich Rogge


with the support of von Papen who was 

at that time German Vice Chancellor, to 

serve as the ideological and legal 

justification for the new aggressive 

politics of the German state. 

Some German theorists advanced the 

idea of waging aggressive wars and 

substituting the politics of force for valid 

norms of international law by claims of 

“Vollkulturvolk” – claims that a fully 

cultural nation, such as Germany was 

according to them, has complete rights 

over other, less cultured nations. 

Added to this was the theory of the 

necessity to acquire extensive Lebensraum 

for this special “racially pure nation”. But 

even this theory was not a brainchild of 

Nazism. It derived from the German 

milieu, such as from the claims of F.M. 

Arndt who, in two pamphlets (dating 

from 1814 and1815), stressed the 

importance of the purity of German 

blood and declared the right of a racially 

pure nation to rule the world. According 

to Arndt, the state had to rid the nation 

of all racially foreign elements in order to 

realise its historical role. The Nazi 

ideology developed this idea to such an 

extent that, according to Hitler, “race 

became the central point of life as a 

whole.” The idea of racially pure national 

community (Volksgemeinschaft) served as 

the rationale for demands to unite all 

Germans, without regard to existing 

borders. Aside from Germans living in 

the German Reich, this national unity 

included Germans living in enclaves in 

foreign lands bordering the German 

Reich (Austrians and Sudeten Germans). 

Another group were Germans who lived 

in enclaves in foreign lands that did not 

adjoin Germany (Transylvania, the Volga 

valley), and a last group were Germans 

living separately all over the world. 

It was the duty of all Germans, no 

matter where they lived, to subscribe to 

the idea of national unity and to obey it. 

In the spirit of old German concepts, the 

areas bordering with Germany and 

inhabited by Germans were to be 

annexed to Germany. The Germans 

living in the German enclaves not 

bordering with Germany were to be 

resettled in the German Reich. 

270 

The German nation was, according to 

this theory, the nation of the master race 

with a right to rule over all the nations 

and states of the world, or over the 

majority of them. According to the Nazi 

theorist Schmitt, the German Reich was 

based on the German nation and was 

entitled to interfere in the life of other 

nations whenever Germany decided that 

such interference was necessary to 

maintain international order. The idea of 

the German Reich presumed huge 

economic regions without the existence 

of foreign powers capable of interfering 

with political life in the area under the 

Reich. The idea of these huge economic 

regions was fully consonant with the 

Nazi theory of living space for the 

German nation – the master race. 

At first, Nazi Germany pursued this 

aim with success. After the annexation of 

Austria and the occupation of 

Czechoslovakia’s border territories, 

Germany again applied the World War I 

tactics used in Belgium to destroy the 

internal unity of Czechoslovakia. Adolf 

Hitler proclaimed in his speech to the 

German nation on March 15, 1939, that 

Bohemia and Moravia had always been 

an integral part of German living space, 

and for that reason he had ordered 

German troops to march into them. The 

subsequent notorious statements by 

Reinhard Heydrich and K.H. Frank that 

the Czechs no longer had any business to 

be there, simply repeated Hitler's basic 

idea of a final solution for the Czech 

population of Bohemia and Moravia, 

after achieving the “final solution of the 

Jewish question”, and victory in the war. 

Less well known are the German acts 

of voluntary or forced resettlement of 

Germans to Germany . We have already 

written about them, so the following is 

simply a recapitulation. 

The initial agreement regarding the 

transfer of Germans from the South 

Tyrol was signed with Italy in Berlin on 

June 23, 1939. As a follow-up, in August 

1939, the Prefect of the Province of 

Bolzano issued a decree threatening 

those not willing to obey the 

resettlement decree with up to 20 years 

of imprisonment and confiscation of all

property. Approximately 75,000 people 

left Northern Italy at that time, but the 

results of the agreement were still not 

considered successful. 

A large number of Germans were 

resettled from the Baltic states, Romania 

and other countries. According to a 1940 

report, 434,000 Germans “returned” to 

Germany that year. Germans living in 

“allied states” – like Bulgaria or Croatia – 

were also resettled. These people were 

resettled in the areas designated for 

Germanisation, including the 

Protectorate. Under various excuses, 

Czech inhabitants were moved out of 

certain areas of the Protectorate in order 

to create space for gradual and full 

Germanisation of the Czech lands. 

Before the beginning of the war, large 

numbers of Jewish inhabitants of 

Germany, Austria and other countries 

were stripped of their property and 

forced to emigrate. And even greater 

numbers of other foreign nationals were 

“resettled” by Germany in the 

extermination and concentration camps. 

The number of Jews alone murdered as a 

result of German policies is estimated at 

4,851,000. Other victims of the German 

policies were the prisoners and 

inhabitants of various countries sent to 

Germany as forced labour. 

THE CRIMES OF HITLER'S 

GERMANY AND THEIR 

BOOMERANG EFFECT 

The uncompromising individual and 

collective declarations by leaders of the 

anti-Nazi coalition in reaction to the 

revelation of crimes by Germany which 

contravened all existing principles of 

warfare, grew in number and intensity, as 

in the course of the liberation of lands 

occupied by Germany world opinion 

came to learn of the extent of German 

crimes and atrocities. 

In Declaration of the Four Nations on 

General Security, issued on November 1, 

1943, Austria was accused of sharing 

responsibility for the war together with 

Nazi Germany. The section entitled 

“Statement on Atrocities” voiced the 

determination to punish German 

officers, soldiers and members of the 


271 

Chapter VII 

Nazi party for atrocities, massacres and 

executions in which they participated. 

However, it gradually became clear that 

it was not possible to limit responsibility 

to those groups alone. 

The Joint Communiqué on the 

Crimea Conference of February 12, 1945 

stated: “Nazi Germany is doomed. The 

German people will only make the cost 

of their defeat heavier to themselves by 

attempting to continue a hopeless 

resistance.” Coordinated administration 

and control over Germany would be 

achieved through a central control 

commission consisting of the supreme 

commanders of the three powers with 

headquarters in Berlin. A programme 

of liquidation of the German army, 

punishment of war criminals, and 

enforced reparations for the damage 

caused by the Germans was announced. 

It was their stated purpose to: “wipe 

out the Nazi Party, Nazi laws, 

organisations and institutions, remove all 

Nazi and militarist influences from 

public office and from the cultural and 

economic life of the German people; and 

take in harmony such other measures in 

Germany as may be necessary to the 

future peace and safety of the world. It is 

not our purpose to destroy the people of 

Germany, but only when Nazism and 

militarism have been extirpated will 

there be hope for a decent life for 

Germans, and a place for them in the 

comity of nations.” 

It was also agreed at the Yalta 

Conference that reparation should be in 

the form of confiscation of German 

property, shipments of German 

merchandise and use of German labour. 

Forced labour of the German population 

had to offset, at least partially, the 

enormous damage caused by the 

Germans in the occupied or invaded 

lands. 

The Potsdam Conference took the 

above-mentioned Yalta conclusions 

further. According to one of its 

statements about Germany: “The allied 

armies are in occupation of the whole of 

Germany and the German people have 

begun to atone for the terrible crimes 

committed under the leadership of those


whom, in the hour of their success, they 

openly approved and blindly obeyed.” 

The political principles agreed on 

included rules of the occupation regime 

and the role of the Control Council of 

Control in Germany. The members of 

the Council exercised supreme authority 

in Germany each in his own zone of 

occupation, and also jointly. All political 

and military groups were to be abolished 

in order to prevent a resurgence of 

German militarism and Nazism. In 

addition to individual responsibilities, 

the established political aims included: 

“To convince the German people that 

they have suffered a total military defeat 

and that they cannot escape 

responsibility for what they have brought 

upon themselves, since their own 

ruthless warfare and the fanatical Nazi 

resistance have destroyed German 

economy and made chaos and suffering 

inevitable.” 

It was also decided to control German 

education : “so as completely to eliminate 

Nazi and militarist doctrines and to 

make possible the successful 

development of democratic ideas.” 

The Allies were convinced that it was 

necessary to eradicate not only Nazism, 

but also the militaristic and other 

theories that led to the development of 

Nazism, in order to prevent a resurgence 

of German aggressiveness which had 

already exposed the world several times 

to great danger. 

As to reparations, aside from Poland 

whose reparation demands were to be 

satisfied from its own share by the Soviet 

Union, the reparation demands of the 

United States, Great Britain and other 

countries were to be satisfied from the 

Western zones of occupation and 

through the confiscation of German 

foreign property. States who had claims 

to this share met in December, 1945, at a 

Reparation Conference in Paris. The 

confiscation of German property in 

Czechoslovakia was in accord with the 

conclusions of the Paris conference and 

with preceding documents issued by the 

Allies. 

The rules for the forced transfer of the 

German population of Czechoslovakia 

272 

were set at the Potsdam Conference, 

taking all this into account. The 

legitimacy of the transfer was never 

questioned. The delaying of further 

transfers was justified by the enormous 

workload of the occupation authorities at 

that time. The Control Council was to 

evaluate further transfers to ensure: “that 

those Germans were shared fairly among 

the individual occupation zones.” From 

the speeches of Churchill and Stalin, as 

well as from other materials, it is clear 

that the legitimacy of the transfer was 

never doubted. While Stalin claimed at 

first that the transfers were already 

concluded, Churchill was saying that in 

reality they had not yet started, and the 

US Secretary of State Byrnes demanded 

a halt to the forced transfers, requesting 

closer co-operation during further 

transfers in order to distribute the 

burden equally among the occupying 

powers, all the occupation zones. After 

the Potsdam Conference, the transfer of 

the German population of 

Czechoslovakia proceeded in accordance 

with the above-mentioned note of the 

Three Powers. 

It was up to the states from which the 

forced transfers took place to set their 

own criteria for the selection of groups of 

their German population that would be 

subject to transfer, and the groups that 

would be allowed to remain. 

Czechoslovakia selected as one of its 

criteria the previous attitude of each 

individual towards the democratic 

Czechoslovak state, and expressed this 

criterion in the Constitutional Decree 

No. 33 Coll., of August 2, 1945, 

concerning the withdrawal of 

Czechoslovak state citizenship from 


nationality, based on the government 

proposal and issued by the President of 

the Republic with the agreement of the 

Slovak National Council. 

Constitutional Decree No. 33/1945 

Coll., took into account all previous 

unilateral and bilateral acts pertaining to 

state citizenship, including the 

Czechoslovak-German agreement on 

state citizenship and options of 

November 20, 1938, and considered

them in connection with the valid 

constitutional decrees which established 

the principle of a single state citizenship. 

The above-mentioned Constitutional 

Decree represented, among other things, 

the solution to the continuity of the 

Czechoslovak state in the area of state 

citizenship, and in this way, it was an 

extension of Constitutional Decree 


reestablishment of the legal order. 

As it was an act of international law 

the Czechoslovak authorities proceeded 

with the transfer in such a way that they 

were able to make decisions based on the 

attitude of individuals towards the 

Czechoslovak state and democracy, or, 

on the contrary, towards Nazi principles. 

German anti-Fascists were also invited 

to participate in the decision-making 

process. 

SUMMARY 

From the decisions of the Potsdam 

Conference and other documents, it is 

clear that the transfer of the German 

population carried out before the 

Conference was accepted and consented 

to by the Great Powers. The subsequent 

transfers proceeded in accordance with 

the conclusions of the Conference. The 

transfer of the German population was 

an act of international law, and it was 

completely legal from the perspective of 

international law. In the majority of 

cases, departures of Germans that took 

place later were at their the request of 

members of that minority, such as for the 

purpose of reuniting families, etc. 

In their declarations, the Great 

Powers stressed the responsibility of the 

German nation and of the German state 

for the crimes it had committed. This 

was in accordance with the standards of 

international law because the subjects 

responsible were mainly states and 

nations. Germans and Germany were 

subject to sanctions, including 

reparations and the obligation to 


273 

Chapter VII 

compensate for damages through labour 

and property. 

Under Section B, point 18 of the 

Potsdam Agreement, for instance, 

control was to be obtained over foreign 

property owned by Germans, should 

such property not already be under the 

control of the Allied Powers who had 

participated in the war against Germany. 

Czechoslovakia followed suit with some 

of its decrees that became laws. 

Individuals and groups were 

considered responsible for war crimes as 

well. Some of the organisations of that 

population were found guilty of war 

crimes by the Nuremberg Tribunal. 

However, the main reason for the 

transfer was preventive, in order to 

eliminate the danger of formation of new 

hotbeds of unrest and conflicts. Another 

purpose of this measure was to repair 

some of the flaws of the Versailles 

system. 

The transfer of German minorities to 

Germany was a consequence of German 

policies over many years that were adopted 

and developed further by Nazism. For 

several generations, German ideology 

stressed the need to unite all Germans in 

one state, and the existence of German 

minorities abroad served as an excuse for 

the further expansion of Germany. After 

the war, the negative experiences with this 

German policy had an undesired effect on 

some aspects of international law. For 

instance, the “Universal Declaration on 

Human Rights” did not include the rights 

of minorities. 


population living in Czechoslovakia 

that took place after World War II was 

agreed to and supported by all classes of 

society and by the political and religious 

groups that took part in the anti-Nazi 

resistance movement. They considered 

the transfer legitimate in the interests of 

lasting peace and good future 

neighbourly relations between Germany 

and Czechoslovakia.

INTERPRETATION 


274

Chapter VIII Interpretation of the Transfer 


population from Czechoslovakia was the 

result of “Munich” and the Nazi 

occupation policy. It was not until the 

war and the German occupation that the 

idea of a total transfer was engendered it 

gradually took root. It was part of the 

overall thinking of the Great Powers and 

the political representatives of the 

individual central European states about 

how to solve the tricky problem of 

national minorities. At the same time the 

issue of the German minorities in 

particular was incorporated into plans for 

a post-war European settlement and 

Germany’s place therein. It is impossible 

to interpret the transfer properly without 

reference to that unique historical 

context. It is impossible in the space of 

a few pages to rehearse all the various 

interpretations of the transfer that have 

been formulated over the years; many of 

them have already been mentioned 

anyway. We are therefore obliged to 

simply refer to them as part of an 

outline survey. 

If we leave aside the discussions that 

took place when the idea of the transfer 

of the German population from the 

central European countries was mooted 

and subsequently implemented – 

a period preceded by the flight and 

expulsions of Czechs, Jews and antifascist 

Sudeten Germans from the 

border areas in 1938 – the first 

interpretations of the transfer and the 

events of 1938 occurred in the memoirs 

of those who initiated the transfer or 

who were part of it, both Czechs and 

Germans. There have been numerous 

memoirs, diaries, letters or other written 

or recorded documents, as well as family 

narratives ever since 1938. They 

represent a distinctive form of source 

material for the historian as their authors 

are mostly people who have personal 

experience of “Munich”, the war or the 

transfer. Therefore they sometimes 

provide the historian with valuable 

factual details. However, those events 

affected the lives of the authors of those 

reports – sometimes very gravely – and 

their interpretation of the events of those 

days is thus part of their personal 

276 

experience and their personal 

convictions. Their information is 

therefore marked by a subjective vision 

of the events and the period as a whole 

and must therefore be treated with 

critical detachment. Nonetheless the 

subjectivity of those testimonials is 

valuable for historical research; it 

provides a way of gauging the moods and 

attitudes that accompanied and 

sometimes determined events during the 

war and after it, as well as later attitudes, 

including current ones. In this context, 

present-day historical scholarship speaks 

in terms of “mentalities” or “stereotypes” 

of collective or social memory. All these 

categories conceal efforts by historians to 

uncover unconscious or only slightly 

conscious human reasoning and 

simplification, as well as manners of 

behaviour and perception of reality. The 

first interpretations of that kind from the 

Czech side emerged from such 

organisations as the Kruh občanů ČR 

vyhnaných v roce 1938 z pohraničí (Circle 

of Czechoslovak Citizens Expelled from 

the Border Areas in 1938) or the more 

radically minded Klub českého pohraničí 

(Club of the Czech Border Areas). 

The first discussions and historical 

research (as well as “politological” 

research in today’s terminology) 

connected with the transfer of the 

German minority from Czechoslovakia 

were conducted on the initiative of direct 

participants and eyewitnesses. Jaroslav 

Stránský organised a number of 

discussions in London in the 

1950s between Czechoslovak exile 

politicians and ex-servicemen on the one 

hand, and representatives of the Sudeten 

Germans, on the other. According to one 

of the participants, J.W.Brügel, those 

who attended maintained their ground 

and did not budge from the attitudes and 

opinions they had arrived with. Brügel 

summed up the outcome of those talks in 

the categorical sentence: “We came to no 

agreement.” Such an outcome is hardly 

surprising. The war was still too vivid 

a memory. The views of the Czech side 

were summarised by two studies by 

distinguished Czechoslovak exile 

politicians – Jaroslav Stránský in Odsun

Němců z ČSR z hlediska národního 

a mezinárodního (The transfer of the 

Germans from the Czechoslovak 

Republic from a national and 

international perspective, London, 

1953) and Jaromír Smutný’s Němci 

v Československu a jejich odsun z republiky 

(Germans in Czechoslovakia and their 

transfer from the Republic, London, 

1956), which were among the first books 

on the question. 

In the Czechoslovak Republic, the 

transfer became a political tool. Its 

official interpretation was subordinate to 

preconceived, politically expedient 

fabrications. Nonetheless, in 1958 the 

first expert historical study on the issue 

was published. Its author was Milan 

Hübl, who was to return to the topic in 

later years with serious comments. 

However, the first comprehensive 

specialised monograph on the transfer 

was published in Czechoslovak émigré 

circles. It was written by Radomír Luža 

and published in London in 1964 under 

the title The Transfer of the Sudeten 

Germans. 

The political thaw in Czechoslovakia 

in the 1960s also allowed a more indepth 

analysis of the problem, which was 

not – and still is not – “a mere dead 

historical event”, as Jan Křen wrote in 

1967 in his study Odsun Němců ve světle 

nových pramenů (The transfer of the 

Germans in the light of new material). 

Křen’s study (now available in the “Češi – 

Němci – odsun” anthology) was the first 

home-grown study to be based on source 

research and an assessment of existing 

Czech and foreign writings about the 

question. It not only highlighted the 

wartime context of the transfer, it also 

stressed that the transfer of the Germans 

from Czechoslovak was not solely 

a Czech-German issue but had wider 

international ramifications and was part 

of various international processes. For 

that reason it required broader, 

comparative research. In cultural circles, 

“Trialogue about 1945”, a three-way 

discussion between Vratislav Blažek, 

Milan Hübl and Jan Procházka in the 

literary magazine Host do domu in 1968 

caused a stir. The increased interest in 

Interpretation of the Transfer 

277 

Chapter VIII 

wartime and immediate post-war events 

(“the year 1945 is the key to the modern 

history of Czechoslovakia”, Blažek had 

declared in the opening sentence of the 

“Trialogue) culminated in the “maquette” 

of the trilogy Odboj a revoluce (Resistance 

and revolution) and a monographic 

synthesis of the years 1938-1948 

prepared for a major work on 

Czechoslovak history. They were never 

printed, however, due to the occupation 

of the Republic in August 1968 and the 

subsequent period of totalitarian 

“normalisation”. 

During the twenty years of 

“normalisation”, efforts were made by 

official circles to revive ideologicallybiased 

attitudes to the transfer and to 

politically instrumentalise the problem 

once more. Nevertheless a number of 

studies were written as early as the 

1980s which represented a contribution 

to research (e.g. S. Biman, R. Cílek). The 

topic of the transfer in the context of the 

overall development of Czech-German 

relations was also to be taken up again 

wholeheartedly by historians expelled 

from historiography by “normalisation” – 

again Jan Křen in his seminal book 

Konfliktní společenství (Conflict society), 

to which V. Kural, V. Vrabec and others 

would react. The most substantial 

discussions about the transfer took place 

in Czechoslovak dissident circles at the 

end of the seventies in connection with 

an article published in the Paris-based 

exile magazine Svědectví under the title 

Téze o vysídlení československých Nemcov 

(Theses on the expulsion of the 

Czechoslovak Germans) and signed 

“Danubius” (pseudonym of the dissident 

Slovak historian Vladimír Mlynárik, 

trans.). Danubius’ interpretation of the 

transfer gave rise to a fairly heated 

discussion (published in 1990, again in 

the “Češi – Němci – odsun” anthology). It 

involved not only independent 

journalists and thinkers but also 

historians “excluded” by the regime, who 

had dealt with the issue previously 

(M. Hübl, J. Křen, V. Kural, J. Opat, 

M. Hájek, R. Luža, plus an anonymous 

group signing themselves Bohemus). The 

discussion was also motivated by the


immediate reality of those times, 

summed up by Zdeněk Mlynář when he 

wrote: “Czechoslovak society has 

a political and moral need to analyse the 

past in order to identify the real causes of 

the moral collapse of central values, 

which normalisation represents.” 

That intellectual background hid both 

its greatest strength and its main 

weakness. The discussion was 

a responsible attempt to define the 

spiritual marasmus of “normalisation” by 

means of its possible historical roots. 

Thus it necessarily focused on the 

transfer of the Germans from the 

Czechoslovak Republic before 

broadening out to encompass the key 

factors and open wounds of modern 

Czech history, as evidenced by the 

collective monograph Češi v dějinách 

nové doby (The Czechs in recent history) 

issued by a group concealed behind the 

pseudonym Podiven and harshly 

criticised by many historians, or other 

essays and articles by members of that 

group, namely, Petr Pithart, Petr Příhoda 

and Milan Otáhal. It was more ethicallyoriented 

examination of the period than 

historical research. Besides it lacked an 

appropriate institutional base or available 

sources. That lack was also felt in the 

part of the discussion involving 

professional specialist historians. 

Indeed the argument is still latent 

today. However, the context is now quite 

different; historical research no longer 

suffers from political restrictions and the 

archives have been opened. The two 

sides of the debate – for ease of 

identification we will label them 

simplistically “ethically-oriented” and 

“specialised historical” – have therefore 

drawn even further apart in the interim. 

The search for some kind of universally 

moral, “suprahistorical”, eternally valid 

meaning and characterisation of 

historical events, processes and 

phenomena is part and parcel of certain 

interpretations of historical reality, 

particularly of the philosophical variety, 

as well as of many historical essays. It is 

also typical of the treatment by 

journalism, although there it often 

involves oversimplification, with 

278 

particular historical periods being 

perceived solely as “open sores”, which 

must be come to terms with and 

“healed”, not only for the benefit of the 

present day and present circumstances, 

but also of the future. The past is 

therefore “updated” and viewed and 

assessed through the prism of present 

needs and legal standards, or simply in 

terms of personal or narrowly communal 

attitudes, as a result of which historical 

facts and circumstances often go by the 

board. We would mention in this 

connection the frequent articles by 

Emanuel Mandler and Bohumil 

Doležal. The most recent contribution of 

that variety was M.Churaň’s book 

Postupim a Československo (Potsdam and 

Czechoslovakia, 2001) and 

Mandler’s Benešovy dekrety. Proč vznikaly 

a co jsou (The Beneš Decrees, why they 

were issued and what they are, 2002). 

As we pointed out in the introduction 

to this booklet, the transfer is becoming 

the subject of all sorts of frequently 

contradictory assessments and 

interpretations. We have therefore tried 

to give some idea why this is so. In this 

final chapter, we must point out again 

that in much of the writing, the transfer 

and its interpretation consciously 

become a political argument – on both 

the Czech and the German sides. This 

applies to much of the earlier Czech 

historiography and recent journalism of 

a Communist persuasion. It applies also 

to most of the so-called “Sudeten- 

German” historiography and journalism. 

The latter presents the fate of the 

Sudeten “ethnic group” simply as an 

object of great-power games and as 

a “dual victim”: firstly of Czechoslovak 

ethnic policies, including the creation of 

the Czechoslovak Republic, and 

secondly, of Hitler’s policies. It focuses 

above all on the transfer itself and its 

development and outcome; the 

suggestion is that the rift between the 

Czechs and Germans dates from May 

1945. It ignores or distorts its wider 

historical context and causes. It generally 

makes no reference to the involvement of 

the Sudeten Germans in the occupation 

regime and side-steps the question of the

identification – albeit gradual and 

gradated – of the overwhelming majority 

of the Sudeten Germans with the Nazi 

regime. After all, the shift to Nazism 

within the framework of a democratic 

Czechoslovak Republic – in spite of all 

the negative features of its ethnic policy 

– was a free choice. And as it turned out, 

it was a choice that had disastrous 

consequences. 

The disappearance of political, 

ideological and administrative barriers 

enabled a broad and abundant 

development of much needed specialised 

historical research in the 1990s. At the 

very beginning of the decade, Staněk 

published a major monograph Odsun 

Němců z Československa (The transfer of 

the Germans from Czechoslovakia”. The 

author had started work on it back in the 

eighties and his aim was, in his own 

words: “to amass and collate knowledge, 

which, as a conglomerate, could provide 

at least a basic guide”. It remains the 

chief Czech source work on the topic, 

although more recent research work has 

served to revise certain details. 

Research into the transfer received 

major impetus particularly from the 

Czechoslovak-German Commission of 

Historians. The latter subsequently 

divided into two commissions, Czech- 

German and Slovak-German, which, 

however, generally meet jointly and also 

generally work in concert. Over the past 

decade, a whole series of studies has been 

published, partly on the commissions’ 

initiative, as well as several books, which 

have gradually revealed, step by step, the 

various aspects, by-products and 

ramifications of the transfer. Apart from 

writings by Kaplan, Křen, Jaroslav 

Kučera, Kural and Staněk on the Czech 

side, we should mention the German 

publications on the subject, particularly 

books by Detlef Brandes, Ferdinand 

Seibt, Hans-Franzen Karl Lemberg and 

others, or the wide-ranging and wellresearched 

works of the younger 

generation of German historians, such as 

Volker Zimmermann and Ralf Gabel, 

some of which has already been 

translated into Czech and further 

translations are expected soon. 


279 

Chapter VIII 

The Czech-German Commission has 

also produced an outline exposition of 

19 th -and 20 th -century Czech-German 

history entitled Konfliktní společenství, 

katastrofa, uvolnění (Confrontational 

community, disaster, détente), first 

published in 1996. It is not a synthesis of 

the modern history of Czech-German 

relations but rather an analysis and digest 

of the results of research conducted and 

thus reflects the state of scholarship and 

also the varying interpretations and 

attitudes. Chapter fifteen of the book 

deals with the expulsion and resettlement 

of the Germans and in it the 

Commission reached the conclusion that 

“without doubt any expulsion and 

compulsory resettlement runs contrary to 

the basic tenets of human rights. Fifty 

years ago, however, it was part of the 

outcome of the war caused by the 

German political leadership; it was the 

result of resettlement operations and the 

liquidation of entire communities carried 

out in connection with it.” 

The Commission also issued a special 

statement in connection with the 

discussion about the transfer that 

resurfaced in the spring of 2002, when 

the issue of Czech-German relations was 

narrowed down to that of the “Beneš 

Decrees”. 

THE HISTORIANS’ 

COMMISSION AGAINST THE 

RESTRICTION OF CZECH- 

GERMAN RELATIONS TO THE 

ISSUE OF THE “BENEŠ 

DECREES” 

“The members of the Czech-German 

Historians’ Commission attending 

a working meeting in Berlin on March 16, 

2002 are concerned at the misuse of 

historical arguments in the present 

political debate. Above all, this concerns 

the Beneš Decrees, some of which 

affected the expulsion of Germans from 

Czechoslovakia and their resettlement 

after World War II. At the same time, 

the following facts should be borne in 

mind: 

“The underlying reality that directly 

determined post-war events was the 

cruel world war and Nazi crimes. In that


context, a legal framework was 

established in Czechoslovakia in 1945, 

partly by the ‘Beneš Decrees’, by virtue of 

which the German minority lost some of 

its basic rights, was expropriated and 

expelled from the country. That was 

justified by the political developments 

that led in 1938 to the Munich 

Agreement and, in 1939, the destruction 

of Czechoslovakia by the Third Reich, as 

well as the swelling agreement of the 

Sudeten-German population with Nazi 

policies in the second half of the 

1930s and the violence of the German 

occupation regime. Those legal 

provisions did not apply to opponents of 

the Nazi regime and those citizens who, 

in the years 1938-45 proved their loyalty 

to the Republic, albeit that stipulation 

was not always consistently observed. 

“As a result of that development, the 

three allied powers and the 

Czechoslovak authorities in exile under 

the leadership of Edvard Beneš to the 

conclusion that it was necessary to 

prevent a repeat of ‘Munich’. The 

conviction prevailed that a peaceful 

settlement in central and eastern Europe 

was possible only by the creation of 

ethnically homogeneous states. 

According to that attitude, ethnic 

minorities should no longer exist. From 

the end of 1938, that idea seemed to 

a section of the Czechoslovak exiles and 

the home resistance feasible by ceding 

the areas settled by Germans beyond the 

line of military fortifications; the 

remainder of the population would be 

resettled. That idea changed as the 

willingness to make territorial 

concessions declined in the course of the 

war. Consequently Czechoslovakia was 

to be restored within its 1937 frontiers 

and the overwhelming majority of the 

Germans were to be resettled. This also 

involved abandoning the original view 

that the Germans should be judged in 

accordance with individual guilt and 

responsibility. 

“Since the Allies were essentially 

agreed that their goal was the creation of 

states that were as ethnically 

homogeneous as possible, the expulsion 

of the Germans from Czechoslovakia – 

280 

as well as from Poland and Hungary – 

played only a minor role at the Potsdam 

Conference in 1945; discussion focused 

essentially on the modalities of 

resettlement. 

“Hatred of the Germans which had 

spread among the populations of 

Czechoslovakia and other countries 

reinforced the call for reprisals for Lidice 

and other atrocities committed by the 

German occupation regime and opened 

the way for acts of violence. In the 

immediate post-war months above all, 

sections of the German population were 

expelled from Czechoslovakia often in 

inhuman conditions. After the Potsdam 

Conference, particularly in 1946, most of 

the Germans were resettled out of 

Czechoslovakia. 

“The events of the 1938-1948 decade 

should not be allowed to efface the fact 

that Czechs and Germans lived in the 

Czech lands for centuries in peace and 

that prior to 1935 the majority of 

German voters gave their votes to 

democratic German parties that were 

loyal to the state. 

“Regarding the principle of collective 

guilt, the commission holds to the 

[previously quoted] position which it had 

already agreed on in 1996 in its outline 

exposition of Czech-German history 

since the 19 th century, ‘Confrontational 

Community, Disaster, Détente’, namely, 

‘without doubt any expulsion and 

compulsory resettlement runs contrary to 

the basic tenets of human rights. Fifty 

years ago, however, it was part of the 

outcome of the war caused by the 

German political leadership; it was the 

result of resettlement operations and the 

liquidation of entire communities carried 

out in connection with it.’ 

“The Commission welcomed and 

continues to approve the position of the 

Czech-German Declaration of 1977 that 

German-Czech mutual relations ought 

not to be burdened by the past. This 

makes it easier for both societies to 

reflect critically on their own past. 

“We appeal for the careful weighing of 

words when sensitive issues such as 

Czech-German relations are being 

negotiated. History is not a weapon.”

Our own book is written in that same 

spirit . For inasmuch as we are striving 

for a deeper understanding of the 

“anatomy” and “physiology” of the 

“wholesale barbarisation” engendered by 

World War II we do not wish thereby to 

extenuate the events and actions; we seek 

neither to excuse or defend them. On the 

contrary, we want a deeper understanding 

of them. We seek to understand them not 

only in terms of the major collective 

political, economic, social or cultural 

events, processes and phenomena, but 

also to appreciate their “microdimension”. 

We are striving to detect behind the 

major events – which means within them 

also – the simple everyday, private nature 

of human lives that none of us can 

escape. This direction of our research and 

our interpretation of the transfer is, 

moreover, in keeping with the overall 

intentions of present-day historical 

research. 

*** 

At the very end it necessary to make 

two marginal comments. 

The first concerns the overall 

character of Czech-German relations in 

the light of their historical development. 

At periods of intense national struggle 

the prevailing mood was of bombastic 

nationalist euphoria, which regarded 

them as worthless or almost worthless. 

That applied to the period of the 

struggle to achieve a Czech 

(Czechoslovak) state, the “Munich” 

period and the resistance during World 

War II and the immediate post-war 

period, as well as the so-called 

“normalisation” years. November 1989 

opened the doors to a thoroughgoing 

study of those relations and the 

opportunity to formulate the results of 

that research and publish them freely. In 

co-operation with its German 

counterpart within the framework of the 

joint historical commissions, Czech 

historiography made use of those 

opportunities – with success, one might 


281 

Chapter VIII 

say. Over these twelve years a whole 

number of papers have appeared on both 

the Czech and German sides that 

sensitively trace and assess various 

aspects, positive as well as negative, of 

the rich and complex history of Czech- 

German relations. 

On the other hand there has also been 

confirmation of the negative character of 

the “shield” of the Habsburg monarchy 

that not only protected but also 

oppressed the Czechs, and in particular 

the utterly negative character of the Nazi 

occupation and the Nazi war, which by 

and large was the cause of the rift 

between the Czechs and the Sudeten 

Germans achieved by the resettlement of 

the Sudeten Germans, following the 

failure of the Germans’ plans for 

draining the lifeblood from the Czech 

nation. 

The second comment is connected 

with that. In the recent period a group 

has come into existence in the Czech 

Republic – one having more in common 

with journalism than historiography – 

which seeks to enforce on the Czech 

consciousness, as part of national selfcriticism, 

a position that does not so 

much copy the “German” concept – 

which is more objective these days – but 

instead one which could be termed “selfflagellation” 

(albeit well-intentioned on 

occasions), that takes no account of 

historical circumstances. As 

a consequence, there is a prevailing 

nervousness here that gives rise to 

political controversy about resettlement 

(“transfer”, “expulsion”) in connection 

with the Czech Republic’s imminent 

entry into the European Union. 

The texts included in this volume 

were also written in that present context. 

We have striven to write this book, 

which is particularly useful for the 

general public, to the best of our ability 

and in all conscience, seeking as far as 

possible not to be influenced by 

momentary emotions or the tendencies 

to national self-flagellation or radicalism 

that are concomitant with them.

Decrees of the President of the Republic from the Contemporary Perspective 

When examining the decrees of the 

President of the Republic, one needs to 

take into account the historical and legal 

context of their issue as well as their 

relation to the legal system of the Czech 

Republic and to international law, 

including the law of the European 

Communities. 

The Historical and Legal Context of 

the Presidential Decrees 

World War II, started by Nazi Germany, 

later on waged together with its allies 

from the so-called “Axis”, was based on 

the concept of a “total war” focused on 

physical and spiritual liquidation of the 

enemy’s civil population with the aim of 

gaining “living space” (Lebensraum). 

Hitler’s Germany forced a significant 

part of its own population, including 

young people, to become members of 

NSDAP and the associated quasimilitary 

organisations; from the legal 

point of view, these organisations thus 

became de facto bodies of the state. 

Former Czechoslovak citizens of 

German nationality were made German 

citizens, some of whom, under the 

influence of Henlein’s SdP and 

particularly through participation in 

“Henlein’s Free Corps” (known as 

“Sudetendeutscher Freikorps”) became de 

facto bodies of the German state 

operating on Czechoslovak territory 

with the aim of destroying Czechoslovak 

statehood. 

It was Czechoslovakia that became 

the first victim of the total war. The 

Munich Agreement, resulting in the 

cession of part of the Czechoslovak 

Republic’s territory to Germany and in 

subsequent occupation of the rest of the 

Czech and Moravian territory, is 

evidence of Nazi Germany’s intentions. 

Proof of how great was the threat 

underlying the conclusion of the Munich 

Agreement, is also provided by a 

document (No. 2798-PS, USA-118, 

published in the collection of materials 

“Nuremberg Trial”, Volume I, Prague, 

1953, page 386), according to which “If 

Czechoslovakia had not given in autumn 

last year (i.e. in 1938) the Czech nation 

would have been exterminated. Nobody 

282 

could have stopped him (i.e. Hitler) from 

doing so.” 

The decrees issued by the President of 

the Republic were a form of legislative 

activity at a time of constitutional 

emergency when the constitutional 

organs of the Czechoslovak Republic 

were unable to work according to the 

Constitution of the Czechoslovak 

Republic of 1920 (the Constitutional 

Act No. 121/1920 Coll.) or the 

Czechoslovak legal system as a whole. 

The decrees of the President of the 

Republic were being issued following the 

institution of the Provisional State 

System in the United Kingdom in 1940 

when the President of the Republic was 

officially recognised by the British 

government, and subsequently by other 

states of the anti-Nazi coalition, in his 

capacity as a representative of a 

resistance movement abroad. 

According to the Constitutional 


No. 2 of October 15, 1940, on the 

Interim Exercise of Legislative Powers 

(published under No. 20/1945 Coll.), the 


were issued on the government’s 

initiative and usually after a hearing 

before the State Council, an advisory 

political body sui generis, and were cosigned 

by the Prime Minister and the 

Ministers responsible for 

implementation of the decrees. 

The Legal Council, an expert legal 

body, also participated in the drafting of 

the decrees until its dissolution, which 

took place, like the dissolution of the 

State Council, after the government of 

the Czechoslovak Republic had been 

established in Košice on April 4, 1945. 

The decrees continued to be issued until 

the Provisional National Assembly was 

established (October 28, 1945). 


Republic were subdivided into 

constitutional decrees and others 

according to their subject matters. The 

method of approving them was the same; 

only their contents were different. 

The decrees issued by the President of 

the Republic regulated the entire 

constitutional , administrative, social and


economic sphere, i.e. various fields of a 

political, economic, cultural and social 

nature. A total of 143 presidential 

decrees were issued, of which 44 decrees 

were issued abroad prior to March 1945. 

They concerned inter alia the conduct of 

the war, e.g. matters such as military 

courts, the status of soldiers, including 

women, in the armed forces abroad, the 

state budgets, completion of medical 

studies by Czechoslovak students in the 

United Kingdom, etc. One of the most 

important decrees of that period is the 

Constitutional Decree of the President 

of the Republic No. 11 of August 3, 

1944, on Restoration of the Legal Order 

(published under the No. 30/1945 Coll.), 

which expressed the principle of 

continuity of the Czechoslovak legal 

system. Thereafter, further decrees of the 

President of the Republic were issued on 

the territory of Czechoslovakia in 1945. 

These regulated the post-war situation in 

respect of the various spheres of people’s 

everyday lives, for example, Decree 

No. 50 of August 11, 1945, on measures 

related to films (No. 50/1945 Coll.), 

Decree No. 77 of September 21, 1945 

(Certain Measures to Expedite the 

Loading and Unloading of Goods in 

Railway Transport – No. 77/1945 Coll.) 

and Decree No. 38 of July 31, 1945 on 

the severe punishment of looting 

(No. 38/1945 Coll.). 

The Constitutional Act No. 57/1946 

Coll. of March 28, 1946, “Approving the 


and Pronouncing Them Laws”, 

confirmed the validity of all the decrees 

and all the decrees of the President of the 

Republic were declared to be laws and 

the constitutional decrees were declared 

to be constitutional laws from their 

inception. After they were issued, a 

number of the presidential decrees were 

amended or repealed so the current 

legislation in the Czech and Slovak 

Republics includes only nine presidential 

decrees issued abroad and forty-eight 

presidential decrees issued on the 

territory of Czechoslovakia. 


Republic and the later ratihabitio (legal 

confirmation) thereof are a manifestation 

283 

of the continuity of the Czechoslovak 

state and its legal system and, 

consequently, a manifestation of restored 

legal safeguards. 

Other governments in exile and exile 

political representations of other states, 

e.g. the political representations of 

Norway, the Netherlands, Poland and 

Belgium performed legislative functions 

similar to those performed by the 

Czechoslovak government with its 

decrees. Such legislative acts were 

sometimes even labelled as decrees and 

were successfully invoked before courts, 

which recognised them as legitimate 

with regard to the situation of 

constitutional emergency, which the 

constitutions of those states did not 

foresee and which was due to outside 

intervention. 

Some of the decrees of the President 

of the Republic were based on and were 

prepared in the light of the intentions of 

the victorious powers and their allies in 

World War II. 

At the Yalta Conference in February 

1945, the Allies agreed that it was 

necessary to make Germany provide 

maximal possible reparation for the 

suffering it had inflicted on the allied 

nations, responsibility for which it could 

not abdicate. Among the forms of 

redress for the war damage caused by 

Germany would be one-off confiscations 

of German assets in foreign countries. 

At the conference held in Potsdam in 

August 1945, in accordance with the 

conclusions of the Crimean Conference, 

the Allies reached an Agreement on 

Reparations, which, inter alia, provided 

that the reparation claims of the United 

States of America, the United Kingdom 

and other countries entitled to 

reparations would be met from the 

western zones and from the appropriate 

German assets. 

The representatives of the 18 

countries (including Czechoslovakia), 

which were to rely on reparations on the 

western occupation zones in Germany 

according to the conclusions of the 

Potsdam Agreement, met at a reparation 

conference in Paris in 1945, where they 

concluded an Agreement on Reparations


from Germany, on the Establishment of 

Inter-Allied Reparation Agency and on 

the Restitution of the Monetary Gold in 

December 1945. The Agreement came 

into effect on January 24 1946 and the 

Czechoslovak Republic, one of its 

signatories, acceded thereto on May 17, 

1946 (the Agreement was promulgated 

as No. 150/1947 Coll.). This Agreement 

was regarded as the first step towards 

solving the issues connected with 

reparations; it defined the reparation 

claims of each country, which were to be 

met from German reparations. 

The Agreement also defined the 

reparation shares, with the shares 

allocated to the Czechoslovak Republic 

amounting to 3% of the German 

property abroad and to 4.57% of the 

industrial property in the then western 

Germany. Among the most important 

provisions of this Agreement was Article 

6, Paragraphs A and D. According to 

paragraph A, each signatory government 

would under such procedures as it might 

choose, hold or dispose of German 

enemy assets within its jurisdiction, in 

manners designed to preclude their 

return to German ownership or control, 

and would charge such assets against its 

reparation share. 

Paragraph D, which was approved in 

the Agreement on the proposal of 

Czechoslovakia, among other states, also 

contains international legal validation of 

confiscation of the property of Sudeten 

Germans. In this connection, it must be 

pointed out that in terms of the 

jurisprudence of the Federal Republic of 

Germany (FRG), “German property” 

explicitly includes “property of Sudeten 

Germans” because German property was 

defined as the property of German 

citizens and Sudeten Germans were 

German citizens under the Agreement 

between the German Reich and the 

Czechoslovak Republic on the Matters 

of Option and Citizenship, dated 

November 20, 1938; they retained this 

citizenship even after capitulation of 

Germany. For example, the High Land 

Court (Oberlandgericht) in Munich 

declared inadmissible an action taken for 

restitution of property, which had been 

284 

confiscated from a Nazi and assigned to 

a German who was an anti-Nazi and 

who voluntarily moved with this property 

to the US-zone of Germany on the 

grounds that according to Act No. 63 of 

the Allied Control Council of August 31, 

1951 all actions for the clarification of 

the legal status of German assets outside 

the territory of Germany and other assets 

confiscated for the purposes of 

reparations were inadmissible. The 

Austrian Supreme Court also issued a 

number of decisions that confirmed the 

legality and validity of the Czechoslovak 

post-war confiscation measures e.g., 

verdict No. 27 Cg 407/57 of November 19, 

1958 (published in the Austrian 

Collection of Judicial Decisions AWD 

1959, page 128). This was a case, in 

which a Sudeten German – a former 

owner of a woodworking plant in the 

Czechoslovak Republic – sued an 

Austrian company, which purchased the 

wood formerly owned by the plaintiff in 

the Czechoslovak Republic and exported 

the wood to Austria. At the Paris 

Reparation Conference, the USA, the 

United Kingdom and France invited 

Czechoslovakia to determine the extent 

of damages. On the basis of this, 

Presidential Decree of the No. 54 of 

August 31, 1945 on Reporting and 

Assessing f the Damage Caused by the 

War and by Extraordinary 

Circumstances (No. 54/1945 Coll.) was 

issued in Czechoslovakia. In terms of 

Czechoslovak legislation, this decree 

provided the legal basis for drawing up 

lists of war damages for the purpose of 

reparation claims to as well as for the 

future satisfaction of such claims. The 

Inter-Allied Reparation Commission, 

which was established on the basis of the 

Paris Reparation Conference, credited 

the German assets, which were found 

under the jurisdiction of the relevant 

signatory government, to the reparation 

account of each signatory government 

and kept detailed accounting records on 

the disposable assets and on the assets 

actually distributed as part of German 

reparations. Thus, the Czechoslovak 

government and President Edvard Beneš 

did not act arbitrarily or unlawfully; quite


the contrary, they acted in accordance 

with international law. Czechoslovakia, 

just as other states that were parties to 

the Agreement, was entitled to a share of 

the German reparations and this claim 

was to be satisfied from the German 

property left and confiscated on the 

territory of the Czechoslovak Republic 

(i.e. including the property of Sudeten 

Germans). 

The war damage, estimated at 

19,471.6 million USD by the 

Czechoslovak Republic, was 

compensated to a negligible extent, 

namely to a value of 91.3 million USD, 

leaving 19,380.3 million USD to be 

recovered. In other words, approximately 

0.4% was paid. At the final meeting of 

the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency held 

in Brussels in 1959, the Czechoslovak 

delegation made a final declaration, in 

which the government of 

Czechoslovakia reserved the right to 

claim full compensation for all the 

damages caused by the war. 

In 1952, France, the USA, the United 

Kingdom and the FRG signed the Bonn 

Conventions, which also include the 

Convention on the Settlement of 

Matters Arising out of the War and the 

Occupation (also referred to as the 

Settlement Convention). These 

Conventions, in a modified form, 

became a part of the Paris Agreements of 

1954, under which the FRG regained its 

state sovereignty. In Chapter 6, Article 3 

of the Settlement Convention the FRG 

undertook to refrain from raising any 

objections in the future against the 

measures, which had been or would be 

taken against German assets abroad or 

against any other property, which had 

been confiscated for the purposes of 

reparations or restitutions or as a 

consequence of a state of war or under 

the agreements, which had been 

concluded or would be concluded by the 

powers with other states (such as the 

Paris Agreement on Reparations); the 

Settlement Convention also includes the 

obligation of the FRG not to allow any 

German citizens, who are subject to 

jurisdiction of the FRG, to make any 

claims, on the basis of the measures 

285 

taken, because of the existence of a state 

of war in Europe, by the governments of 

the states which signed the Declaration 

of the United Nations of 1 January 1942 

or acceded to this Declaration and/or 

were in a state of war with Germany or 

are specifically stated in the Settlement 

Convention (for example, 

Czechoslovakia), against such states or 

against their citizens. The validity of this 

provision of the Settlement Convention 

was also confirmed for the united 

Germany by an Agreement between the 

Governments of the Republic of France, 

the Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 

the United States of America and the 

FRG on the Final Settlement with 

Germany, signed on September 12, 1990 

(also called the “4+2 Agreement”). 

Comments on Some of the Decrees 

Within the aforementioned context 

of international law, the Czechoslovak 

Republic carried out confiscation of the 

property of German nationals by two 


in 1945. This was done by Presidential 

Decree No. 12 of June 21, 1945 and 

by Presidential Decree No. 108 of 

October 25, 1945. The actual 

confiscation measures were preceded by 

Presidential Decree No. 5 of May 19, 

1945 on Invalidity of Certain 

Transactions Concerning Ownership 

Rights Carried out during the Period of 

Lack of Freedom and on the National 

Administration of the Assets of 

Germans, Hungarians, Traitors and 

Collaborators and Certain Organisations 

and Institutions (No. 5/1945 Coll.), 

which came into force on May 23, 1945; 

on the basis of this decree, any 

assignments of property and any 

transactions concerning ownership 

rights, whether rights to movable or 

immovable assets or rights to public or 

private property, were declared invalid if 

such transactions had been concluded 

under the pressure of occupation or 

national, racial or political persecution 

after September 29, 1939 and, besides 

that, the property of the persons, who 

were unreliable from the point of view of 

the state, was placed under national


administration. Persons considered 

unreliable by the state, consisted chiefly 

of natural persons of German or 

Hungarian nationality as well as persons 

who were pursuing activities aimed 

against the national sovereignty, 

autonomy, integrity, democraticrepublican 

system of government, or the 

security and defence of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, as well as persons who 

instigated such activities or deliberately 

supported German and Hungarian 

occupiers in any kind of way; in the case 

of corporate bodies, those whose 

management deliberately and 

intentionally served the German or 

Hungarian war effort or fascist and Nazi 

purposes, were regarded as unreliable by 

the state. The property of Germans who 

were manual workers, peasants, 

tradesmen, small and medium 

entrepreneurs, office workers and the like 

could be exempted from national 

administration, if they could prove 

reliably that they had been victims of 

political or racial persecution and had 

remained faithful to the idea of the 

democratic-republican political system 

of the Czechoslovak Republic. 

Subsequently, agricultural land was 

confiscated by law as of June 23, 1945, 

under Presidential Decree No. 12 of 

June 21, 1945 on the Confiscation and 

Expeditious Distribution of the 

Agricultural Property of Germans and 

Hungarians as well as Traitors and 

Enemies of the Czech and Slovak 

Nations (No. 12/1945 Coll.), and the 

other kinds of enemy property were 

confiscated in accordance by law as of 

October 30, 1945, under Presidential 

Decree No. 108 of October 25, 1945 on 

Confiscation of Enemy Property and the 

National Regeneration Funds. It needs 

to be said that there was no confiscation 

of property belonging to people who had 

remained faithful to the Czechoslovak 

Republic, who committed nothing 

detrimental to the Czech or Slovak 

nations, or actively participated in the 

fight for liberation of the Czechoslovak 

Republic or suffered under the Nazi or 

fascist terror. The persons concerned 

were provided with the traditional 

286 

procedural rights, including the right to 

appeal; it was possible to contest valid 

declaratory decisions by filing a 

complaint with the Supreme 

Administrative Court. 

Presidential Decree No. 12 of June 21, 

1945 was the basis for Presidential 

Decree No. 28 of July 20, 1945 on 

Redistribution of the Agricultural Land 

of Germans, Hungarians and other 

Enemies of the State to Czech, Slovak 

and Other Slavic Farmers (No. 28/1945 

Coll.). Under this decree preference in 

the allotment of land was to be given to 

those applicants, who had distinguished 

themselves in the struggle for national 

liberation, especially soldiers and 

partisans, former political prisoners, 

members of their families and legal heirs 

as well as farmers who suffered damage 

as a consequence of the war. 

Under Presidential Decree No. 108 of 

October 25, 1945, the confiscated 

property was allotted to the eligible 

candidates for a payment and priority in 

this allocation process was accorded to 

participants in the national resistance 

movement and the surviving members of 

their families, persons who had suffered 

damage as a result of the war or due to 

national, racial or political persecution, 

persons returning to the border areas 

they had been forced to leave or those 

returning to their home country from 

abroad, as well as persons who, as a 

consequence of territorial changes, 

moved to another part of the territory of 

the Czechoslovak Republic. 

The measures taken by 

Czechoslovakia against the enemy 

during World War II and in is aftermath 

were comparable or entirely identical 

with the acts taken by other states of the 

Allied Coalition. All those European 

states, which were in a state of war with 

Germany or its allies, confiscated enemy 

property in various ways during the war 

and afterwards; for instance, as early as 

1944, the exile governments of Belgium, 

Netherlands and Luxembourg issued 

rules of law providing for the 

distrainment of enemy property . 

In the Netherlands there was a decree 

that assigned to the state property owned


by an enemy state or by an “enemy 

subject”. In Belgium, all assets and 

rights, including securities, that were 

directly or indirectly owned, controlled 

or at the disposal of an enemy state or an 

enemy were placed under the 

administration of a governmental 

authority based in Brussels. 

The Luxembourg authorities issued 

similar regulations in the period from 

1944 to 1948. When it came to ratify the 

Convention on the Protection of Human 

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 

Luxembourg expressed its reservations 

about Article I of the Protocol No. 1 

(1951) on the Right of Peaceful 

Enjoyment of Property in respect of the 

continued implementation of the Act of 

April 26, 1951 on the Liquidation of the 

Confiscated Property of a Former 

Enemy. 

In Denmark, an act on confiscation of 

all German property was approved in 

1946, which was preceded by acts 

adopted in 1945, on the revision of 

certain German payments made after 

April 9, 1940, the placement into 

receivership or liquidation of some 

companies and the retrospective refund 

of excessive profits derived from business 

transactions carried out on behalf of 

German interests. 

The Danish Confiscation Act applied 

to all Germany enemy property found in 

Denmark, except for the property 

confiscated by the allied armed forces as 

the spoils of war; the confiscated 

property also included the property of 

natural persons or legal entities of other 

than German nationality, which, in the 

view of the Ministry of Trade, Industry 

and Sea Navigation should be treated as 

Germans in the meaning of the Act. 

Greece approved an Emergency Act 

on Distrainment of Enemy Property as 

early as 1940; in 1941, after the 

declaration of a state of war with 

Germany, the scope of the law was 

extended to include German property. 

The final wording was contained in the 

Legal Regulation on Enemy Property of 

1949. Greece declared all German and 

Bulgarian assets “enemy property” and 

this applied not only to German and 

287 

Bulgarian public and private 

corporations, but also to natural persons, 

who were nationals of an enemy State at 

the critical date, or persons who were 

German nationals at any time from the 

entry of Greece into war against 

Germany until the critical date. In 

Austria, similar regulations were issued 

by the military authorities of the Allies. 

The issue of the transfer of German 

nationals from Czechoslovakia is 

somewhat unrelated to the decrees of the 

President of the Republic; this was a 

measure, which was associated with the 

war and which was approved by the three 

principal powers at the Potsdam 

Conference in August 1945. The 

Potsdam Agreement represents the 

internationally legal basis for the 

transfer. The resettlement of persons of 

German nationality from 

Czechoslovakia was based on 

international law and it was not the 

subject matter of any of the decrees of 

the President of the Republic. None of 

the decrees of the President of the 

Republic dealt with the transfer of the 

German population. Article XII of the 

Potsdam Agreement provided that “the 

transfer to Germany of German 

populations, or elements thereof, 

remaining in Poland, Czechoslovakia, 

and Hungary will have to be 

undertaken”. The actual implementation 

of the transfer, which was to be carried 

out in co-operation with the Control 

Council in Germany and the Allied 

Control Commission in Austria, 

remained within the powers of the 

national authorities of those states. At 

the same time, Article XII of the 

Potsdam Agreement provided that the 

transfer had to be carried out in an 

orderly and humane manner. It is a sad 

reality that excesses sometimes took 

place especially during the initial stage of 

implementation of this measure. 

There is an indirect connection 

between the expulsion of persons of 

German nationality and Constitutional 


No. 33 of August 2, 1945 on the 

Regulation of the Czechoslovak 

Citizenship of German and Hungarian


Nationals (No. 33/1945 Coll.). Under 

this decree, Czechoslovak citizens of 

German or Hungarian nationality, who 

acquired German or Hungarian 

citizenship pursuant to the regulations 

of the foreign occupation power, lost 

their Czechoslovak citizenship by law as 

of August 10, 1945, unless they proved 

that they had remained loyal to the 

Czech Republic, never had done wrong 

to the Czech and Slovak nations and 

either had participated in the struggle 

for liberation of the Czechoslovak 

Republic or had suffered under Nazi or 

Fascist terror. In this decree, the 

principle of continuity of the 

Czechoslovak state was applied and the 

decree meant that the said persons 

would retain German or Hungarian 

citizenship. 

In the sphere of criminal law, mention 

must be made of Presidential Decree 

No. 16 of June 19, 1945 on the 

Punishment of Nazi criminals, Traitors 

and their Accomplices and on Special 

People’s Courts (No. 16/1945 Coll.). 

This decree defined crimes against the 

state, crimes against persons, crimes 

against property, denunciation and the 

terms of sentences for the crimes 

perpetrated during the period of 

heightened peril to the Czechoslovak 

Republic, i.e. from May 21, 1938 to 

October 28, 1945. Where a court had 

convicted someone of a crime defined in 

the decree and the circumstances of the 

case did not allow for the waiver of 

punishment, the court could also rule 

that the convicted person would lose his 

or her “civic honour” for a limited or 

unlimited period of time; loss of civic 

honour could entail loss of the right to 

vote or be elected, disqualification from 

acting as an employer or co-employer, 

disqualification from acting as a press 

owner, publisher or editor or 

participating in any fashion in the 

publication and editing of periodicals, in 

other words, restrictions which would be 

an inadmissible infringement of 

fundamental rights in terms of the 

present legal code. In accordance with 

Act No. 33/1948 Coll., extending the 

effect of the retribution decree and the 

288 

decree on people’s courts and amending 

some of their provisions, this Presidential 

Decree No. 16/1945 Col., as amended, 

became ineffective as of December 31, 

1948 and is no longer part of current 

legislation and is of no significance at the 

present time. 

The Relationship of the Decrees to the 

Legislation of the Czech Republic 

The Presidential Decrees that have 

remained part of the legislation of the 

Czech Republic regulate issues that have 

been subject to numerous legislative 

changes over the past decades, and the 

organisation and activities of public 

institutions, as well as business and other 

relationships are now governed by 

completely different legal regulations. 

These Decrees of the President of the 

Republic, including the ones which have 

become the subject of debate, fulfilled 

their purpose and have not been the basis 

of any legal relationships for more than 

four decades and it would serve no 

purpose in legal terms to investigate 

whether they conflict with the present 

constitutional order; on the contrary, to 

do so would question the principle of 

legal certainty, which is one of the 

fundamental components of present-day 

democratic legal systems (see the 

preamble to the judgement of the 

Constitutional Court on a proposal for 

cancellation of Presidential Decree 

No. 108 of 1945, published as 

No. 55/1995 Coll.). Under the so-called 

“confiscation decrees” of the President of 

the Republic Nos. 12 and 108 of 1945, 

confiscation took place at the moment 

when the decrees came into force and 

their legal effect was thereby exhausted 

and they were no longer applicable; their 

application only comes into question 

when it is a matter of determining 

whether a confiscation took place ex lege 

or not, in cases where a final legal 

decision has not come into force. 

The Relationship of the Decrees to 

International Law 

According to the intertemporal rule, 

facts in dispute are examined according 

to the international law that was in force


at the time when the facts occurred. This 

means, on the one hand, that the decrees 

of the President of the Republic were 

issued legally and legitimately also in 

terms of international law, and on the 

other, that, for example, the confiscation 


and the Presidential Decree regulating 

the Czechoslovak citizenship of persons 

of German or Hungarian nationality 

cannot be cancelled on the grounds that 

they do not comply with the conventions 

on human rights because these 

conventions were approved at a later date 

and do not have retroactive effect. This is 

also respected by the European Court of 

Human Rights in Strasbourg in its 

decision-making (see, for example, the 

ruling of the European Court of Human 

Rights on the case Malhous versus the 

Czech Republic, adopted unanimously 

by the Grand Chamber; or the ruling of 

the European Court of Human Rights 

on the case of Prince Hans-Adam II of 

Liechtenstein versus Germany, adopted 

unanimously by the Grand Chamber). 

As concerns the transfer of the 

majority of persons of German 

nationality in 1945, this was, with 

respect to international law, a part of 

sanctions and security measures, in other 

words, it was enforcement of the law. 

In the Czech-German Declaration on 

Mutual Relations and Their Future 

Development of January 21, 1997, the 

Czech party expressed its regret over any 

possible excesses that occurred during 

the transfer. If proven crimes against 

humanity, which are not subject to the 

statute of limitations, were perpetrated 

in connection with the transfer, there is 

no doubt that the prosecuting authorities 

in the Czech Republic are ready to 

investigate any notifications made in this 

respect and to punish the perpetrators of 

such crimes should they be found guilty. 

The Relationship of the Decrees to the 

Law of the European Communities 

The Treaty Establishing the European 

Community or the Treaty on European 

Union is subject to the principle of the 

Vienna Convention on the Law of 

Treaties of 1969 (promulgated under 

289 

Law No. 15/1988 Coll.), which states 

that “unless a different intention appears 

from the treaty or is otherwise 

established, its provisions do not bind a 

party in relation to any act or fact which 

took place or any situation which ceased 

to exist before the date of the entry into 

force of the treaty with respect to that 

party.”. The European Union Treaties do 

provide for retroactive effect of 

Community law; the principle of nonretroactivity 

applies to all acts of the 

European Communities. It follows from 

this that assumption of the obligations 

arising from the Treaty Establishing the 

European Community or the Treaty on 

European Union by the Czech Republic 

after its accession to the European Union 

will not have the effect of repealing the 


or the administrative measures 

concerning the transfer of persons of 

German nationality carried out in 1945. 

The Treaty Establishing the European 

Community and the Treaty on European 

Union do not regulate question of 

property expropriation, or the 

consequences of invalidity of regulations 

on the duration of property rights, or 

matters of restitution and privatisation, 

but leaves this sphere of legal relations 

within the sole competence of the 

individual member states. The law of the 

European Communities does not affect 

the regulation of ownership in the 

member states in any kind of way 

(Article 295 of the Treaty Establishing 

the European Community) because such 

regulation is – according to wellestablished 

jurisprudence of the 

European Court of Justice – 

fundamentally perceived as an inherent 

part of the member states’ economic and 

social systems as well as national 

identities. The law of the European 

Communities also does not affect the 

national rules governing nationality and 

citizenship; the citizenship of the 

European Union is complementary to 

the citizenship of a Member State. 

The requirement is that the national 

regulations must not jeopardise 

attainment of the objectives of the Treaty 

Establishing the European Community


or the Treaty on European Union, based 

on principles such as the prohibition of 

discrimination, the freedom of 

establishment, the freedom of movement 

and residence in the territories of the 

member states. The principle applies that 

if there is a substantive conflict between 

the provisions of the law of a Member 

State and the law of the European 

Communities, the law of the European 

Communities will prevail over the 

provisions of the domestic law of the 

Member State, notwithstanding the date 

it came into force. This principle is 

consequently only applied to those 

national regulations which were 

applicable (i.e. had constitutive effect) 

until the adoption of the relevant acts of 

the European Communities, and not to 

those national regulations which had 

become ineffective for any reason before 

that date. On the contrary, in accordance 

with the principle of legal certainty, 

which is one of the fundamental 

principles of the law of the European 

Communities, the supremacy of 

Community law must apply without 

prejudice to legal relationships entered 

into or terminated before the adoption of 

Community law by the internal law of a 

Member State. It also follows from the 

above-mentioned principles of 

Community law that the assumption of 

obligations arising out of the Treaty 

Establishing the European Community, 

and the Treaty on European Union 

respectively, will not oblige the Czech 

Republic to revise the decrees of the 

President of the Republic. 

It is also necessary to mention the 

European Convention on the Protection 

of Human Rights and Fundamental 

Freedoms, which is not a source of the law 

of the European Communities in the 

290 

formal sense but which has become a 

material source of the law of the European 

Communities pursuant to Article 6 of the 

Treaty on European Union. Even in this 

case, the convention does not have any 

retroactive effects and an amendment 

reversing this would require unanimous 

consent of all member states, which is 

virtually out of the question. 

Conclusion 


Republic issued during World War II 

and shortly thereafter and in the context 

of the related international agreements, 

fulfilled their purpose; a considerable 

part of them were later repealed and the 

remaining ones do not have any effect 

on the constitution of new legal facts 

because there is now a completely 

different legal environment in the Czech 

Republic, corresponding to the efforts of 

the Czech Republic to build a fully 

democratic system based on the rule of 

law, in the context of the developments 

in other developed democratic 

countries. On the other hand, this does 

not mean forgetting about the 

consequences of World War II and the 

legitimate measures taken by the 

victorious powers and their allies, which 

included Czechoslovakia, which 

followed after the end of World War II 

and which were based on the principle 

of rejection of war as an instrument of 

national policy. Some decrees of the 

President of the Republic and some 

other provisions related thereto were 

also based on this principle of 

international law; questioning these 

decrees and these provisions ultimately 

means questioning the results of World 

War II as well as the said principle of 

international law. 

Pavel Rychetský

There is already an extensive and diverse literature 

devoted to the transfer, as well as to the circumstances 

that preceded it and to its consquences. It is therefore 

impossible to list it here exhaustively, or even relatively 

so. We are therefore restricting ourselves to the the 

most recent publications. Earlier studies are to be found 

in the bibliographies of the more recent publications 

and are therefore easy to locate. The only exception are 

titles of published documents or books containing 

a large number of documents (which are marked 

with an asterix). 

Published documents: 

Beneš, Edvard: Šest let exilu a druhé světové války. 

Praha 1946. 

Beneš, Edvard: Paměti. Od Mnichova k nové válce 

a k novému vítězství. Praha 1947. 

Beneš, Edvard: Odsun Němců z Československa. 

Výbor z pamětí, projevů a dokumentů 1940 - 1947. 

Ed. K. Novotný. Praha 1996, 2002. 

Cesta ke květnu. Vznik lidové demokracie 

v Československu, 2 vols.. Edd. M. Klimeš, P. Lesjuk, 

I. Malá, V. Prečan. Praha 1965. 

Cestou května. Dokumenty k počátkům naší národní 

a demokratické revoluce. Ed. J. Soukup. Praha 1975. 

Československo-sovětské vztahy v diplomatických 

jednáních 1939 - 1945. Edd. J. Němeček, H. Nováčková, 

I. Šťovíček, M. Teichmann. Praha 1998. 

Češi a sudetoněmecká otázka. Ed. J. Vondrová. 

Praha 1994. 

Intolerance. Češi, Němci a Židé na Ústecku 1938 - 

1948, Ústí nad Labem 1998. 

Jech, Karel - Kaplan, Karel: Dekrety prezidenta 

republiky 1940 - 1945, Brno 1995 (2 vols.), 2002 (1. vol.) 

Komu sluší omluva? Češi a Sudetští Němci. Praha 1992. 

Mejdrová, Hana: Trpký úděl. Výbor dokumentů 

k dějinám německé sociální demokracie v Československu 

v letech 1937 - 1948. Praha 1997. 

Odsun. Die Vertreibung der Sudetendeutschen. 

Vyhnání sudetských Němců. Dokumentation zu 

Ursachen, Planung und Realisierung einer “ethnischen 

Säuberung” in der Mitte Europas. Bd. 1 - Vom 

Völkerfrühling und Völkerzwist 1848/49 bis zum 

Münchener Abkommen 1938 und zur Errichtung des 

„Protektorats Böhmen und Mähren“ 1939. 

Edd. R. J. Hoffmann u. A. Harasko. München 2000. 

Pithart, Petr - Příhoda, Petr: Čítanka odsunutých dějin. 

Praha 1998. 

Zapomenuté pohraničí. Šumvald u Uničova 1938 - 

1945. Comp. J. Čajová. Praha 1999. 

Schwierige Nachbarschaften. Deutsche und Polen - 

Deutsche und Tschechen im 20. Jahrhundert. 

Eine Darstellung in Dokumenten. Stuttgart u. a. 1990. 

Německý nacionalismus a fašismus na Chomutovsku. 

Dokumenty z let 1932 - 1945. Praha 1990. 

Němci ven - Die Deutsche raus! Edd. H. Hertl - 

U. Schmider - K. W. Ziegler. Praha 2001. 

Literature: 

Auerhan, Jan: Jazykové menšiny v Evropě. Praha 1924. 

Baxa, Bohumil: Zákon o zřízení župním a jeho 

nedostatky. Praha 1922. 

Bayerns viertes Stamm: Die Integration der Flüchtlinge 

und Heimatvetriebenen nach 1945. Wien u. a. 1998. 

Beer, Ferdinand et al.: Odboj a revoluce 1938 - 1945. 

Praha 1965. 

Begegnung und Konflikt. Schlaglichter auf das 

Verhältnis von Tschechen, Slowaken und Deutschen 1815 

- 1989. Edd. J. Hoensch u. H. Lemberg, Essen 2001. 

Benčík, Antonín et al.: Partyzánské hnutí 

v Československu. Praha 1958. 

291 

Bibliography 

Beneš, Zdeněk: Pojmy vlast a národ v díle Daniela 

Adama z Veleslavína, in: Problémy dějin historiografie 

IV. AUC - Phil. et. hist. 1, 1988. 

Benešovy dekrety. Sborník textů. Edd. V. Pavlíček, 

J. Dejmek, J. Weigl. Praha 2002. 

Bobák, Jan: Maďarská otázka v Česko-Slovensku 

(1944 - 1948). Bratislava 1996. 

Boyer, Christoph: Nationale Kontrahenten oder 

Partner? Studien zu den Beziehungen zwischen 

Tschechen und Deutschen in der Wirtschaft der ČSR. 

München 1999. 

Brandes, Detlef: Velmoci a vyhnání a vysídlení Němců 

z Československa, in: K pětašedesátinám V. Prečana. 

Praha 1998. 

Brandes, Detlef: Češi v protektorátu. Praha 2000. 

Brandes, Detlef: Cesta k vyhnání 1938 - 1945. 

Praha 2002. 

Broklová, Eva: Politická kultura německých 

aktivistických stran v Československu 1918 - 1938. 

Praha 1999. 

Cesta do katastrofy. Ed. D. Brandes, V. Kural, 

I. Řezanková, Praha 1993. 

Cesta ke smíření. Sest. F. Olbert. Praha 1991. 

Čelovský, Bořivoj: So, oder so. Ostrava - Šenov 1995, 

1997. 

Čelovský, Bořivoj: Mnichovská dohoda 1938. 

Ostrava - Šenov 1999. 

Čelovský, Bořivoj: Konec tisku v Čechách? 


Češi, Němci, odsun. Diskuse nezávislých historiků. 

Edd. B. Černý, J. Křen, V. Kural a M. Otáhal. 

Praha 1990. 

Češi a Němci. Dějiny, kultura, politika. 

Praha - Litomyšl 2001. 

Češi a Němci - historická tabu. Praha 1995. 

Češi a Němci na Vysočině. Havl. Brod 1998. 

Čornej, Petr: Cizí, cizozemec a Němec, in: Nový Mars 

Moravicus, Brno 1999, pp.95 - 109. 

Čvančara Jaroslav: Někomu život, někomu smrt. 

Československý odboj a nacistická okupační moc 1941 - 

1943. Praha 1997. 

Das Scheitern der Verständigung. Tschechen, Deutsche 

und Slowaken in der Ersten Republik (1918 - 1938). 

Edd. J. K. Hoensch - D. Kováč. Esssen 1994. 

Dejmek, Jindřich - Kuklík, Jan - Němeček, Jan: Kauza: 

tzv. Benešovy dekrety. Historické kořeny a souvislosti. 

(Tři české hlasy v diskusi). Praha 1999. 

Emancipácia Židov - antisemitismus - prenasledovanie 

v Nemecku, Rakúsko-Uhorsku, v českých zemiach a na 

Slovensku. Edd. J. K. Hoensch - S. Biman - L. Lipták. 

Bratislava 1999. 

Gebel, Ralf: “Heim ins Reich!” K. Henlein und der 

Reichsgau Sudetenland 1938 - 1945. München 1999. 

Gütermann, Christoph: Das 

Minderheitenschutzverfahren des Völkerbundes. 

Berlin 1979. 

Habel, Fritz Peter: Die Sudetendeutschen. 


*Hahnová, Eva: Sudetoněmecký problém: Obtížné 

loučení s minulostí. Praha 1996, Ústí n. L. 1999. 

Hahnová, Eva - Hahn, Hans Henning: Sudetoněmecká 

vzpomínání a zapomínání. Praha 2002. 

Hajn, Alois (usp.): Problém ochrany menšin. 

Praha 1923. 

*Hlušičková, Růžena: Kladsko a Československo 

v letech 1945 - 1947, in Kladský sb. - supplementum 1. 

Hradec Králové 1999. 

Hobsbawm, Eric J.: Národy a nacionalismus od roku 

1780. Praha 2000. 

Hodrová, Daniela et al.: Poetika míst. Praha 1997. 

Horáček, Cyril ml.: Jazykové právo československé 

republiky. Praha 1928

Bibliography 

Hořejš, Miloš: Národní jednota severočeská. 

Organizace, vývoj a činnost v letech 1885 - 1939. Dipl. 

práce Ústavu hosp. a soc. dějin FF UK, Praha 2001. 

Houžvička,V. et al.: Reflexe sudetoněmecké otázky 

a postoje obyvatelstva českého pohraničí k Německu. 

Ústí n. L. 1997. 

Hrabovec, Emilia: Vertreibung und Abschub. Deutsche 

in Mähren 1945 - 1947. Frankfurt a. M. 1995. 

Hroch, Miroslav: V národním zájmu. Praha 1996, 1999. 

Hruška, Emil: Pohoří divočáků aneb sudetoněmecké 

kapitoly. Praha 2002. 

*Churaň, Milan: Postupim a Československo. 

Praha 2001. 

Jaksch, Wenzel: Cesta Evropy do Postupimi. Vina 

a osud v podunajském prostoru. Praha 2000. 

Jančík, Drahomír - Kubů, Eduard: T. G. Masaryk, 

hospodářství a hospodářská politika, in: T. G. Masaryk, 

idea demokracie a současné evropanství, Sborník 

mezinárodní vědecké konference konané v Praze 2. - 4. 

března 2000, Part I. Ed. Emil Voráček, Praha 2001, 

pp.413 - 450. 

Jančík, Drahomír - Kubů, Eduard - Novotný, Jiří - 

Šouša, Jiří: Zrůdný monopol “Hadega” a její obchod 

drahými kovy a drahokamy za druhé světové války, in: 

Terezínské studie a dokumenty 2001. Edd. M. Kárný, 

J. Milotová, E. Lorencová. Praha 2001, pp. 249 - 307. 

Jaworski, Rudolf: Vorposten oder Minderheit? Der 

sudetendeutsche Volkstumskampf in den Beziehungen 

zwischen der Weimarer Republik und der ČSR. 

Stuttgart 1977. 

Jindra, Zdeněk: Úvahy o česko-německých 

hospodářských vztazích na přelomu 19. a 20. století, 

in: Hospodářské dějiny 20. Praha 1992, pp.63 - 74. 

Jiřík, Václav: Nedaleko od Norimberku. Z dějin 

retribučních soudů v západních Čechách. Cheb 2000. 

Kaplan, Karel: Pravda o Československu 1945 - 1948. 

Praha 1990. 

Kaplan, Karel: Poválečné Československo. 

Československo 1945 - 1948. Národy a hranice. 


Kárník, Zdeněk: České země v éře První republiky 

(1918 - 1938), Part I. Praha 2000, Parts II and III in 

course of printing. 

Kárný, Miroslav: „Konečné řešení“. Genocida českých 

židů v německé protektorátní politice. Praha 1991. 

Karpaš, Roman - Kvaček, Robert: Stalo se na severu 

Čech 1900 / 2000. Liberec 2001. 

Kastner, Quido: Osidlování českého pohraničí od 

května 1945 I - II. Ústí nad Labem 1999. 

Kolize, řevnivost a pragmatismus. Československorakouské 

hospodářské vztahy 1918 - 1938, in: Acta 

Universitatis Carolinae, Philosophica et historica 1 - 1997, 

Studia historica XLV. Praha 1999. 

Konkurence i partnerství. Německé a československé 

hospodářství v letech 1918 - 1945. Edd. Boris Barth, 

Josef Faltus, Jan Křen a Eduard Kubů, Česko-německá 

a Slovensko-německá komise historiků. Praha 1999. 

Konfliktní společenství, katastrofa, uvolnění. Náčrt 

výkladu německo-českých dějin od 19. století. Praha 1997. 

Korálová, Luba: Svět je plný dobrých lidí. 

Ústí nad Labem 1997. 

Krajanské organisace sudetských Němců v SRN. 

Ed. V. Kural. Praha 1998. 

Král, Václav: Otázky hospodářského a sociálního vývoje 

v českých zemích 1938 - 1945, vols. 1 - 3. Praha 1958. 

Krofta, Kamil: Z dob naší první republiky. Praha 1939. 

Křen, Jan: Konfliktní společenství. Toronto 1989, 

Praha 1990. 

Křen, Jan: Do emigrace. Západní zahraniční odboj 

1938 - 1939. Praha 1963, 1969. 

Křen, Jan: V emigraci. Západní zahraniční odboj 

1939 - 1940. Praha 1969. 

292 

Kubů, Eduard: Die Kreditanstalt der Deutschen 1911 - 

1945. Ein Beitrag zum Wirtschaftsnationalismus der 

Deutschen in den böhmischen Ländern und ihrem 

Verhältnis zum Deutschland, in: Zeitschrift für 

Unternehmensgeschichte 45. Jg. (2000), Nr. 1, pp. 3 - 29. 

Kučera, Jaroslav: Odsun nebo vyhnání? Sudetští Němci 

v ČSR v letech 1945 - 1947. Praha 1992. 

Kučera, Jaroslav: Česká historiografie a odsun Němců . 

Pokus o bilanci čtyř let, in: Soudobé dějiny 1994/2 - 3, 

pp.365 - 373. 

Kučera, Jaroslav: “Der Hai wird nie wieder so stark 

sein”. Tschechoslowakische Deutschlandspolitik 1945 - 

1948. Dresden 2001. 

Kuklík, Jan sr. - Gebhart, Jan: Dramatické i všední dny 

protektorátu. Praha 1996. 

Kuklík, Jan jr.: Londýnský exil a obnova 

československého státu 1938 - 1945. Praha 1998. 

Kuklík, Jan jr.: Mýty a realita takzvaných Benešových 

dekretů. Praha 2002. 

Kural, Václav: Konflikt anebo společenství? Praha 1993. 

Kural, Václav: Místo společenství - konflikt! 

Praha 1994. 

*Kural, Václav: Češi, Němci a mnichovská křižovatka. 

Praha 2002 (v tisku). 

Kural, Václav: Vlastenci proti okupaci. Ústřední 

vedení odboje domácího 1940 - 1943. Praha 1995. 

Kušal, Václav - Radvanský Zdeněk et al.: “Sudety” 

pod hákovým křížem. Ústí nad Labem 2002. 

Lacina, Vlastislav - Slezák, Lubomír: Státní 

hospodářská politika v ekonomickém vývoji první ČSR. 

Praha 1994. 

Lemberg, Hans -Franzen, Karl.: Die Vetriebenen. 

Hitlers letzte Opfer. Berlin - München 2001. 

Macura, Vladimír: Znamení zrodu. Praha 1983. 

Malíř, Jiří: Od spolků k moderním politickým 

stranám. Brno 1996. 

Mandler, Emanuel: Benešovy dekrety, proč vznikaly 

a co jsou. Praha 2002. 

Maršálek, Pavel: Veřejná správa Protektorátu Čechy 

a Morava v letech 1939 - 1945. Praha 1999. 

Maur, Eduard: Pojetí národa ve starší české 

historiografii jako východisko koncepce českého národa 

v první polovině 19. století, in: Národní obrození a rok 

1848 v evropském kontextu. Litomyšl 1988, pp.7 - 20. 

Migration. Lernchancen für den historischpolitischen 

Unterricht. Hrsg. K. Pellens. 

Schwalbach 1998. 

Milotová, Jaroslava et al.: Židovské zlato, ostatní 

drahé kovy, drahé kameny a předměty z nich v českých 

zemích 1939 - 1945. Praha 1999. 

Mosný, Peter: Československý menšinový problém 

v medzinárodných zmluvách po prvej svetovej vojne, 

in: Právněhistorické studie 31, 1990, pp.151 - 168. 

Mýtus a realita hospodářské vyspělosti 

Československa mezi světovými válkami. Edd. Eduard 

Kubů a Jaroslav Pátek. Praha 2000. 

Nečas, Ctibor: Holocaust českých Romů. Praha 1999. 

Nováček, Silvestr: Vystěhování Němců z Brna a odsun 

z jihomoravského pohraničí. Brno 1996. 

Novotný, Jiří - Šouša, Jiří: K úsilí o podporu české 

menšiny na severu naší země. Severočeská banka 

v Litoměřicích 1920 - 1923, part I, Vlastivědný sborník 

Litoměřicko XXVI (1990), pp.153 - 178, part II, ibid., 

XXVII - XXIX (1991 - 1993), pp.101 - 130. 

Obraz Němců, Rakouska a Německa v české 

společnosti 19. a 20. století. Edd. J. Křen a E. Broklová 

Praha 1998. 

Österreich und die Tschechoslowakei (1918 - 1938). 

Die wirtschaftliche Neuordnung in Zentraleuropa in 

der Zwischenkriegszeit. Edd. Alice Teichová u. Herbert 

Matis Hg., Studien zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte und 

Wirtschaftspolitik, Bd. 4, Hrsg. von Herbert Matis und

Roman Sandgruber, Böhlau Verlag, Wien - Köln - 

Weimar 1996. 

Osvobození československa Rudou armádou I - II. 

Praha 1965. 

Pavlíček, Václav: O dekretech prezidenta republiky, 

in: Právní aspekty odsunu Sudetských Němců, Ed. D. 

Matějka, Praha 1996. 

Pavlíček, Václav: Über die Dekrete des Präsidenten der 

Republik in der Kontinuität von Staat und Recht. 

in: Normdurchsetzung in osteuropäischen 

Nachkriegsgesellschaften (1944 - 1989). B d. t. 

Tschechoslowakei (1944 - 1989) Hrsg. H. Mohnhaupt 

und H.-A. Schönfeldt. Frankfurt am Main 1998. 

Pavlíček, Václav: O české státnosti I. Praha 2002. 

Peška, Zdeněk: Národní menšiny a Československo. 

Bratislava 1932. 

Polonczarz, M.: Internační tábor pro německé 

obyvatelstvo Malá pevnost Terezín 1945 - 1948. 

Terezín 1997. 

Průcha, Václav et al.: Hospodářské dějiny 

Československa v 19. a 20. století. Praha 1974. 

Průcha, Václav: Hospodářský vývoj českých zemí 

v letech 1918 - 1945, in: Studie o technice v českých 

zemích 1918 - 1945 V. Praha 1995, pp.35 - 46. 

Purš, Jaroslav: Průmyslová revoluce. Vývoj pojmu 

a koncepce. Praha 1973. 

Rádl, Emanuel: Válka Čechů s Němci. Praha 1928, 

re-edited Praha 1993. 

Radvanovský, Zdeněk: Konec česko-německého soužití 

v ústecké oblasti. Ústí nad Labem 1997. 

Rok 1945 na Chomutovsku. Chomutov 1995. 

Seibt, Ferdinand: Německo a Češi. Praha 1996. 

Schelle, Karel: Vývoj správy v předválečném 

Československu I., II. Praha 1991. 

Slezák, Lubomír: Sudetští Němci a hospodářství první 

republiky, in: Moderní dějiny. Sborník k dějinám 19. a 20. 

století, vol. 2. Praha 1994, pp.123 - 139. 

Šmahel, František: Idea národa v husitských Čechách. 

České Budějovice 1971, Praha 2000. 

Sobota, Emil: Národnostní právo v Československu. 

Praha 1938. 

Sobota, Emil: Das tschechoslowakische 

Nationalitätenrecht. Praha 1931. 

Sobota, Emil: Jazykové právo v evropských státech. 

Praha 1934. 

293 

Bibliography 

Sobota, Emil: Co to byl protektorát. Praha 1946. 

Staněk, Tomáš: Odsun Němců z Československa. 

Praha 1991. 

Staněk, Tomáš: Persekuce 1945. Persekuce tzv. státně 

nespolehlivého obyvatelstva v českých zemích (mimo 

tábory a věznice). Praha 1996. 

Staněk, Tomáš: Tábory v českých zemích 1945 - 1948. 


Studie o sudetoněmecké otázce. Ed. V. Kural, 

Praha 1996. 

Teichová, Alice: Německá hospodářská politika 

v českých zemích v letech 1939 - 1945. Praha 1998. 

Teichová, Alice: Die Tschechen in der NS- 

Kriegswirtschaft, in: Edvard Beneš und die 

tschechoslowakische Außenpolitik 1918 - 1948. Hrsg. 

A. Suppan, E. Vyslounzil. Frankfurt a. M. 2002, 

pp.165 - 178. 

Tschechen, Slowaken und Deutschen. Nachbarschaft in 

Europa. Bonn 1995. 

Temperley, Harold W.V. (ed.): A History of the Peace 

Conference of Paris. London 1921. 

Thornberry, Patrick: International Law and the Rights 

of Minorities. Oxford 1992. 

Třeštík, Dušan: Kosmova kronika. Studie k počátkům 

českého dějepisectví a politického myšlení. Praha 1968. 

Ungleiche Nachbarn. Demokratische und nationale 

Emanzipation bei Deutschen, Tschechen und Slowaken 

(1815 - 1914). Edd. H. Mommsen - J. Kořalka. 

Essen 1993. 

Urban, Otto: Česká společnost 1848 - 1918. 

Praha 1982. 

V rozdelenej Európe. Česi, Slováci, Nemci a ich štáty 

v rokoch 1948 - 1989. Edd. D. Kováč - J. Křen - 

H. Lemberg. Bratislava 1998. 

Vynútený rozchod. Vyhnanie a vysídlenie 

z Československa 1938 - 1947 v porovnaní s Poĺskom, 

Maďarskom a Juhosláviou. Edd. D. Brandes, 

E. Ivaničková a J. Pešek. Bratislava 1999. 

Vencovský, František et al.: Dějiny bankovnictví 

v českých zemích. Praha 1999. 

Z druhé republiky. Praha 1993. 

Zimmermann, Volker: Die Sudetendeutschen im 

NS- Staat. Politik und Stimmung der Bevölkerung im 

Reichsgau Sudetenland 1938 - 1945. Essen 1999. 

Ztracené dějiny. Praha 1992.

Documents 

1. The Treaty between the Allied Powers and Czechoslovakia on the Protection of Minorities. 

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919. 

2. Law No. 122 of February 29, 1920, Establishing the Principles of Language Rights in the 

Czechoslovak Republic in Accordance with Article 129 of the Constitution. 

3. Policy Statement by the Czechoslovak Government on its Nationality Policy, February 20, 1937. 

4. Principles of the "Nationality Status" prepared by the Hodža Government, April 12, 1938. 

5. Minutes of Meeting between Adolf Hitler and Dr. Emil Hácha on the Abolition of the Independence 

of the Czechoslovak Republic. 

6. Decree issued by the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich No. 75/1939 Establishing the Protectorate 

of Bohemia and Moravia, March 16, 1939. 

7. Memorandum on the exchange of the population, drawn up by Prof. Zdeněk Peška. August-October, 1939. 

8. Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic No. 2/1940 in the Czechoslovak Official 

Gazette, on the Interim Exercise of Legislative Power. October 15, 1940. 

9. Declaration of a State of War Between the Czechoslovak Republic and the States that are in a State 

of War with Great Britain, the USSR and the USA. December 16, 1941. 

10. Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic No. 11, Czechoslovak Official Gazette, on 

the Renewal of Legal Order, August 3, 1944. 

11. Decree of the President of the Republic No. 5/1945 on the Invalidity of Certain Property 

Transactions at the Time of Loss of Freedom and on the National Administration of the Property 

Assets of Germans, Hungarians, Traitors and Other Collaborators and Certain Organisations and 

Institutions, May 19, 1945. 

12. Decree of the President of the Republic No. 16/1945 on the Punishment of Nazi criminals, Traitors 

and their Accomplices and on Special People’s Courts, June 19, 1945. 

13. Decree of the President of the Republic 12/1945 Coll., Concerning the Confiscation and 

Expeditious Redistribution of the Agricultural Property of Germans, Hungarians, and also Traitors and 

Enemies of the Czech and Slovak Nations, June 21, 1945. 

14. Decree of the President of the Republic 27/1945 Coll., Concerning the Integrated Administration of 

Internal Relocation, July 17, 1945. 

15. Decree of the President of the Republic 28/1945 Coll., Concerning the Settlement of the 

Agricultural Property of Germans, Hungarians and other Enemies of the State by Czech, Slovak and 

Other Slavic farmers, July 20, 1945. 

16. Decree of the President of the Republic 38/1945 Coll., Concerning Strict Punishment for Looting, 

July 31, 1945. 

17. Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic 33/1945 Coll., Concerning the Regulation of 

Czechoslovak State Citizenship of persons of German and Hungarian Nationality, August 2, 1945. 

18. Decree of the President of the Republic 108/1945 Coll., Concerning Confiscation of Enemy 

Property and Funds of National Renewal, October 25, 1945. 

19. Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic 137/1945 Coll., Concerning the Arrest of 

Persons Who Were Considered Unreliable by the State During the Revolutionary Period, October 27, 1945. 

20. Decree of the President of the Republic 138/1945 Coll., Concerning the Punishment of Some 

Transgressions against National Honour, October 27, 1945. 

21. Agreement on Reparation from Germany, on the Establishment of an Inter-Allied Reparation 

Agency and on the Restitution of Monetary Gold, concluded in Paris, December 21, 1945 (Decree 

No. 150/1947 Coll.). 

294

22. Constitutional Law 57/1946 Coll., by which the Decrees of the President of the Republic are 

Confirmed and Enacted, March 28, 1946. 

23. Law 115/1946 Coll., on the Legality of Actions Connected with the Struggle for Restoration 

of the Freedom of Czechs and Slovaks, May 8, 1946. 

1 

1919, September 10, Saint-Germain-en-Laye: The Treaty between the Allied Powers and Czechoslovakia 

on the Protection of Minorities. 

Chapter 1 

Article 1. Czecho-Slovakia undertakes that the stipulations contained in Articles 2 to 8 of this Chapter 

shall be recognised as fundamental laws and that no law, regulation or official action shall conflict or 

interfere with these stipulations, nor shall any law, regulation or official action prevail over them. 

Article 2. Czecho-Slovakia undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all 

inhabitants of Czecho-Slovakia without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion. 

All inhabitants of Czecho-Slovakia shall be entitled to the free exercise, whether public or private, of 

any creed, religion or belief, whose practice is inconsistent with public order or public morals. 

Article 3. Subject to the special provisions of the Treaties mentioned below, Czecho-Slovakia admits and 

declares to be Czecho-Slovak nationals ipso facto and without the requirement of any further formality 

German, Austrian or Hungarian nationals habitually resident or possessing rights of citizenship (pertinenza- 

Heimatsrecht) as the case may be at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty in territory which 

is or may be recognised as forming part of Czecho-Slovakia under the Treaties with Germany, Austria or 

Hungary respectively, or under any Treaties which may be concluded for the purpose of completing the 

present settlement. 

Nevertheless, the persons referred to above who are over eighteen years of age will be entitled under the 

conditions contained in the said Treaties to opt for any other nationality which may be open to them. 

Option by a husband will cover his wife, and option by parents will cover their children under eighteen 

years of age. 

Persons who have exercised the above right to opt must within the succeeding twelve months transfer 

their place of residence to the State for which they have opted. They will be entitled to retain their 

immovable property in Czecho-Slovak territory. They may carry with them their movable property of 

every description. No export duties may be imposed upon them in connection with the removal of such 

property. 

Article 4. Czecho-Slovakia admits and declares to be Czecho-Slovak nation also ipso facto and without the 

requirement of any formality persons of German, Austrian or Hungarian nationality who were born in the 

territory referred to above of parents habitually resident or possessing rights of citizenship (pertinenza- 

Heimatsrecht) as the case may be there, even if at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty they 

are not themselves habitually resident or did not possess rights of citizenship there. 

Nevertheless, within two years after the coming into force of the present Treaty, these persons may make 

a declaration before the competent Czecho-Slovak authorities in the country in which they are resident, 

stating that they abandon Czecho-Slovak nationality, and they will then cease to be considered as Czecho- 

Slovak nationals. In this connection a declaration by a husband will cover his wife, and a declaration by 

parents will cover their children under eighteen years of age. 

Article 5. Czecho-Slovakia undertakes to put no hindrance in the way of the exercise of the right which the 

persons concerned have under the Treaties concluded or to be concluded by the Allied and Associated 

Powers with Germany, Austria or Hungary to choose whether or not they will acquire Czecho-Slovak 

nationality. 

Article 6. All persons born in Czecho-Slovak territory who are not born nationals of another State shall ipso 

facto become Czecho-Slovak nationals. 

Article 7. All Czecho-Slovak nationals shall be equal before the law and shall enjoy the same civil and 

political rights without distinction as to race, language or religion. 

Differences of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Czecho-Slovak national in matters relating 

to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, as for instance admission to public employments, functions and 

honours, or the exercise of professions and industries. 

No restriction shall be imposed on the free use by any Czecho-Slovak national of any language in private 

intercourse, in commerce, in religion, in the press or publications of any kind, or at public meetings. 

Notwithstanding any establishment by the Czecho-Slovak Government of an official language, adequate 

facilities shall be given to Czecho-Slovak nationals of non-Czech speech for the use of their language, either 

orally or in writing, before the courts. 

Article 8. Czecho-Slovak nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same 

treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Czecho-Slovak nationals. In particular they shall have 

an equal right to establish, manage and control at their own expense charitable, religious and social 

295 

Documents

Documents 

institutions, schools and other educational establishments, with the right to use their own language and to 

exercise their religion freely t herein. 

Article 9. Czecho-Slovakia will provide in the public educational system in towns and districts in which 

a considerable proportion of Czecho-Slovak nationals of other than Czech speech are residents, adequate 

facilities for ensuring that instruction shall be given to the children of such Czecho-Slovak nationals through 

the medium of their own language. This provision shall not prevent the Czecho-Slovak Government from 

making the teaching of the Czech language obligatory. 

In towns and districts where there is a considerable proportion of Czecho-Slovak nationals belonging to 

racial, religious or linguistic minorities, these minorities shall be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment 

and application of the sums which may be provided out of public funds under the State, municipal or other 

budget, for educational, religious or charitable purposes. 

[...]a) 

Article14. Czecho-Slovakia agrees that the stipulations of Chapters I and II so far as they affect persons 

belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities constitute obligations of international concern and shall 

be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. They shall not be modified without the assent of 

a majority of the Council of the League of Nations. The United States, the British Empire, France, Italy and 

Japan hereby agree not to withhold their assent from any modification in these Articles which is in due form 

assented to by a majority of the Council of the League of Nations. 

Czecho-Slovakia agrees that any Member of the Council of the League of Nations shall have the right to 

bring to the attention of the Council any infraction, or any danger of infraction, of any of these obligations, 

and that the Council may thereupon take such action and give such direction as it may deem proper and 

effective in the circumstances. 

Czecho-Slovakia further agrees that any difference of opinion as to questions of law or fact arising out of 

these Articles between the Czecho-Slovak Government and any one of the Principal Allied and 

Associated Powers, or any other Power that is a Member of the Council of the League of Nations, shall 

be held to be a dispute of an international character under Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of 

Nations. The Czecho-Slovak Government hereby consents that any such dispute shall, if the other party 

hereto demands, be referred to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The decision of the 

Permanent Court shall be final and shall have the same force and effect as an award under Article 13 of 

the Covenant. 

Treaty between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Czecho-Slovakia, Signed at Saint-Germainen-Laye, 

September 10, 1919 London, H.M.S.O., 1919. 

a) Chapter II (Articles 10 – 13), relating purely to Ruthenia, has been omitted. 

2 

1920, February 29, Prague. – Law No. 122/1920, in Accordance with Article 129 of the Constitution, 

Establishing the Principles of Language Rights in the Czechoslovak Republic 

Article 1 

The Czechoslovakian language shall be the official state language of the Republic (Art. 7 of the treaty 

between the leading allied and united powers and Czechoslovakia, signed in St. Germain-en-Laye on 

September 10, 1919). 

It shall therefore be in particular the language 

1. in which, apart from what is stipulated in 2. and 5., and with the exception of what will be stipulated under 

6 for Carpathian Ruthenia, official business shall be carried out at all courts, offices, institutions, enterprises 

and organs of the Republic, and in which their public notices and external declarations shall be made, 

2. in which the main text on treasury notes and bank notes shall be written, 

3. that shall be used in the armed forces when issuing commands and as the service language; when dealing 

with troops who do not know this language, their mother tongue may also be used. 

More detailed regulations on the duty of state officials and employees, and of the officials and employees of 

state institutions and state enterprises, to speak Czechoslovakian, will be created by decree. 

Article 2 

Concerning national and linguistic minorities (Chapter I of the Treaty of St. Germain) the following 

provisions shall apply: 

Courts, offices and organs of the Republic, whose jurisdiction relates to a court district in which 

according to the most recent census at least 20% of the state citizens who live there speak the same 

language, where this is not Czechoslovakian, shall be obliged, in all matters which it falls to them to deal 

with on the basis of the fact that their jurisdiction relates to this district, to receive submissions from 

those who speak the language of this minority in that language, and to deal with these submissions, not 

only in the Czechoslovakian language, but also in the language of the submission. 

296

297 

Documents 

Should there be several district courts on the territory of one municipal authority, then the whole of the 

municipal authority shall be considered to be a single court district. 

It will be stipulated by decree which courts and offices, whose jurisdiction covers a single district that contains 

such a national minority, and courts and offices immediately superior to them, shall be able to restrict 

themselves to issuing notifications solely in the language of the party involved, and to what extent. 

Under the same circumstances a public prosecutor shall be obliged to bring a criminal charge against an 

accused person who speaks another language in that language as well as in Czechoslovakian, or were relevant 

only in that language. 

The executive power shall lay down which language will be used in hearing such cases. 

If there is no initial submission from the party involved, but the other conditions of Paragraph 2 apply, 

then, following the same principles, the matter shall be dealt with in the language of the party as well as 

Czechoslovakian, or where relevant only in that language, where it is known, and otherwise at the 

request of the party. 

In districts with a national minority as in Para. 2, the language of the national minority shall be used as well as 

Czechoslovakian in the public notices of the state courts, offices and organs and in their external declarations. 

Article 3 

Local government offices, local councils and public corporations in the state shall be obliged to accept 

oral and written submissions made in the Czechoslovakian language and to deal with them. 

In their meetings and consultations it shall always be possible to use this language; proposals and 

suggestions made in this language must be discussed. 

The language used for public notices and external declarations issued by local government offices shall 

be laid down by the state executive power. 

Local government offices, local councils and public corporations shall have the duty to accept 

submissions in a language other than Czechoslovakian and to deal with them, and likewise to allow 

another language at meetings and consultations, under the circumstances described in 2. 

Article 4 

Offices using the official state language on that territory of the Republic which before October 28, 

1918 belonged to the Kingdom and lands represented on the Imperial Council, or to the Prussian 

Kingdom, shall usually transact official business in Czech, and those in Slovakia usually in Slovak. 

Officially dealing with a Czech submission in Slovak or officially dealing with a Slovak submission in 

Czech shall be considered to be dealing with it in the language of the submission. 

Article 5 

Teaching in all schools established for members of national minorities shall take place in their 

language. Likewise, cultural institutions established for them shall be administered in this language 

(Art. 9 of the Treaty of St. Germain). 

Article 6 

The assembly that will be established for Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia shall have the right reserved to it 

to regulate the language question for this territory in a way that is compatible with the unity of the 

Czechoslovak state (Art. 10 of the Treaty of St. Germain). 

Should this regulation not be carried out, then this law shall be used, but taking into account the 

particular language circumstances in the territory. 

Article 7 

Disputes concerning the use of language at state courts, offices, institutions, enterprises and organs, 

and also at local government offices and public corporation, shall be resolved by the relevant state 

supervisory authorities as matters pertaining to the state administration that are separate from the 

matters that gave rise to them. 

Article 8 

The more detailed implementation of this law will be provided by a decree issued by the state executive 

power, which will also regulate in the spirit of this law the use of languages for local government offices, 

local councils and public corporations (Article 3), and also for those offices and public organs whose 

jurisdiction relates to smaller areas than a court district or which do not have their own area. 

The decree shall also contain regulations concerning what needs to be provided to facilitate official 

dealings with parties who do not know the language in which official business is transacted at various 

courts, offices or organs, in the sense of this law, and what needs to be provided to protect parties 

from legal detriment that might arise from their lack of knowledge. 

The decree may also, for the period of the first five years from the day when this law takes effect, 

allow exceptions to its provisions that are necessary in the interest of an uninterrupted administration. 

Finally, the decree shall contain regulations necessary in order to secure its successful implementation.

Documents 

Article 9 

This law shall come into effect on the day of its promulgation. Thereby all language regulations that 

were in force before 28 October 1918 shall be abrogated. 

All ministers shall be entrusted with the execution of this law. 

T.G. Masaryk, o.h. 

Tusar, o.h. 

Staněk, o.h., as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and on behalf of the absent Minister of the Interior 

Houdek, o.h., as Minister for Supplying the People and on behalf of the absent Minister 

for Public Health and Physical Education and the absent Minister for Unifying 

Legislation and Organising Administration in the Czechoslovak Republic 

Dr. Beneš, o.h., Klofáč, o.h. 

Sonntág, o.h., Dr. Heidler, o.h. 

Habrman, o.h., Dr. Winter, o.h. 

Prášek, o.h., Dr. Franke, o.h. 

Dr. Veselý, o.h., Hampl, o.h.. 

Collection of the laws and decrees of the Czechoslovak Republic, year 1920, section 26 dated March 6, 1920. 

3 

1937, February 20, Prague. – Policy Statement by the Czechoslovak Government on its Nationality Policy, 

Approved as a Response to the Memorandum of the German Activist Parties. 

In a positive endeavour to make a lasting contribution to mutual understanding in nationality relations 

and to eliminate everything that might cause the population of the state to move apart from one another 

at this crossroads of national interests in Central Europe, the Czechoslovak government has examined 

the current state of minority policy in the Czechoslovak Republic, and, following on from the tradition 

of Czechoslovak democratic policy on minorities, has established guidelines for the future. The 

government is devoting particular attention to the economic situation in those regions affected by the 

worldwide crisis in some branches of industrial production. It so happens that these regions are 

inhabited mainly by our German-speaking fellow-citizens. The fact that the vast majority of state 

guarantees provided to industrial production have been authorised to German enterprises is proof that 

there can be nothing more disloyal than to accuse the government of insufficient care for the German 

economy. The government invests in public works and building in all parts of the state to the same 

extent according to need, and will see to it that local entrepreneurs and labourers have priority in 

employment everywhere in the state, thus including the territories inhabited by Germans. Central offices 

placing orders are enjoined to exercise strict surveillance on all organs subordinate to them so as to 

ensure that this principle of economic justice is fully satisfied. The government emphasises in particular 

to all organs their personal responsibility for carrying out this approach and points out the consequences 

that would ensue from disregarding this official order. 

In operating social care and social health measures, the government will take into account not only the 

size of the population in individual areas, but also the amount of unemployment. In the field of social 

care for young people the government will see to it – as it has done up till now – that the direction of 

care for young people will be entrusted to members of the same nationality group, and will make every 

effort to ensure that institutions for the care of young people are provided and continue to be built. In 

recruiting people to the state services, the constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic established a basic 

guideline in Section 128, Paragraph 2, when it proclaimed that, within the restraints of the general laws, 

difference of religion, belief, confession and language should not be a hindrance for any citizen of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, particularly so far as entry into the civil service in state offices and positions 

there are concerned. In addition to this constitutional principle the government likewise acknowledges 

the continuing validity of a principle that it considers to be its own and which is at the same time 

accepted by the corresponding international functionaries, namely that unconditional loyalty to the state 

is a self-evident precondition for the rights of national minorities. 

The government can affirm objectively that the moral strength of Czechoslovak statehood is proving its 

worth to a greater and greater extent so far as creative cooperation between nationalities is concerned. 

This fact and also the increasingly widespread knowledge of the official language has enabled the 

government to take a further step in accepting members of national minorities into the civil service, 

taking into account more and more, not only general qualifications and regional representation, but also 

the representation of minorities in a more just proportion. The language needs of national minorities 

when dealing with public offices and organs are provided for to the maximum practicable degree by the 

constitutional language law. 

The government considers it to be a self-evident requirement of political morality and wisdom that the 

laws of the Republic be carried out unconditionally in all sections of public administration. In relation to 

298

299 

Documents 

the language regulation on correspondence between district and some other offices and municipalities 

where the predominant majority of the population speaks one language, the government implemented 

measures so that official correspondence drawn up in the official language would have translations into 

the language of the national minority of the municipality attached free of charge and without the need 

for any special request for this. The government is willing to adapt the scope of language tests according 

to actual needs with a view to using the applicant in the public service, and to contribute to the issue of 

appropriate aids. The government proposal for the state budget will be an expression of the 

Czechoslovak government's resolve that the state policy of a democratic state considers it to be one of its 

major political and moral tasks to support public education to the maximum extent allowed by its 

financial possibilities, which is a fine tradition of the Czech and Slovak people, and likewise, in a spirit 

of proportionality, to support the public education of our fellow-citizens and nations speaking a different 

language, not only Germans and Hungarians, but all national minorities. 

The government also takes into consideration our fellow-citizens of Polish nationality. Now that no 

foreign influences intervene in our minority policy in this region, we can resolve what perhaps needs to 

be resolved in agreement with our fellow Polish-speaking citizens in a spirit of justice and fraternity. In 

the organisation of schools, special attention is already being paid to the cultural needs of the individual 

nationalities, and the government in no way excludes possible further intensification within the 

framework of the existing organisation. 

Where shortcomings from the viewpoint of the interests of national or minority groups are found in 

local government, the government will endeavour to eliminate them. The government will consistently 

uphold the principles of a strictly just minority policy and will develop it and adapt it to the interests of 

the state and the minority nationalities. 

Foreign policy 16, 1937, Chronicle, pp. 153-154. 

Czechoslovak press office, February 20, 1937. 

4 

1938, April 12, Prague. – Principles of the "Nationality Status" prepared by the Government of Milan 

Hodža, as sent to the Czechoslovak Embassies in Paris, London and Berlin. 

The government has decided to take quite far-reaching steps in matters relating to our minorities. It 

has done so in view of developments in our German camp, events related to the Anschluß, 

Hitler's speeches about foreign Germans, statements made by the French government about help for 

Czechoslovakia in the event of an attack, and finally the speeches of Chamberlain and Halifax about 

the Czechoslovak Republic. I am giving you a preliminary report on this, for the time being as 

confidential information. 

1) The government and the political parties, in agreement with the President of the Republic, have 

discussed all the issues relating to minorities, and agreed at the last meeting of the Council of Ministers 

to prepare a special minority status in which all the previous rights and legal guarantees for our 

minorities would be combined into a logical and comprehensive whole. A number of new provisions 

would be added to them, signifying a further significant step towards extending the rights of our 

minorities, especially Germans. 

2) In this sense a law would be prepared on preventing denationalisation, which would also satisfactorily 

resolve the issue of the misuse of minority schools. 

3) The law would be complemented by a language law, in order to put an end to all chicanery and so that 

practical needs are looked at everywhere and not matters of prestige. It would apply to state enterprises (the 

post office, the railways, etc.), ministerial decrees, and official business at district and central offices. 

4) The minorities would be guaranteed a proportional share in the state budget. 

5) A revision of the appointment of state officials and employees would be carried out so that the 

minorities would achieve their proportional quota within the near future. In addition, the question of the 

transfer of officials and employees to the German and minority areas would be revised so that there 

would always be a significant percentage of German- and minority-language-speaking officials in the 

German and minority regions. This would be a compromise response to the demand for 

"Selbstverwaltung" (self-administration) in state offices. In the municipalities, towns and districts a full 

elected Selbstverwaltung exists, while in the state offices it would be implemented to an extent that 

would be acceptable for the government and the Czechoslovak majority by appointing officials of the 

relevant nationality in those regions. 

6) An "education Selbstverwaltung" would be carried out. This would happen through extending the 

powers of the provincial education councils in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, where nationality sections 

would be established fully subordinate to and fully under the direction of officials of the relevant 

nationality, and administering all elementary, council, secondary and technical schools. The individual 

nationalities would be fully guaranteed the appropriate proportion of schools and an appropriate share of 

the budget of the Ministry of Education. Officials from the minority nationalities would also have posts 

in the Ministry of Education, but nationality sections would not be introduced there.

Documents 

7) Measures would be undertaken to eliminate the pinprick policy in the gendarmerie, the police, the 

judicial, customs, and administrative services, and in the railways and post offices, by setting up 

temporary appropriate inspectorates that would be consistent in removing language and nationality 

friction from offices, from official business, and in contacts with the population, and would gradually 

train a new generation of bureaucrats. 

These are the main points for the time being. They will be improved and added to. The Council of 

Ministers decided that the status would be quickly elaborated at the Ministries of the Interior, Justice, 

and Unification, and that contacts and discussion would continue with the German parties, with the 

Sudeten German Party and the German Social Democrats, who while not being in the government have 

remained in the government majority. 

You will be informed in detail about further preparations and also told under which circumstances it 

might be necessary to make certain communications about these matters to the government of the 

country where you are. 

Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague, f. Telegrams sent in 1938, Nos. 402-404. Copy of telegram 

sent out, typescript. 

J. Dejmek (ed.), Dokumenty československé zahraniční politiky, Československá zahraniční politika v roce 1938, 

Prague, 2000, Vol. I, Doc. No. 199, pp. 314-315. 

5 

1939, March 15, Berlin. – Minutes of Meeting between Adolf Hitler and Dr. Emil Hácha on the Abolition 

of the Independence of the Czechoslovak Republic 

The Führer and Chancellor of the Reich has today received, in the presence of the Minister of 

Foreign Affairs von Ribbentrop, President of the Czechoslovak State Dr. Hácha and the 

Czechoslovak Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr. Chvalkovský at their request. During the meeting the 

serious situation that had arisen as a result of the events of the last few weeks on what was until now 

Czechoslovak territory was discussed with the utmost frankness. Both parties agreed in expressing the 

conviction that the aim of all their efforts must be to ensure tranquillity, order and peace in this part 

of Central Europe. The President of the Czechoslovak State has declared that to this end and with 

the object of securing a final appeasement he entrusts with entire confidence the destiny of the Czech 

people and Czech country to the hands of the Führer of the German Reich with complete confidence. 

The Führer has accepted this declaration and expressed his resolve to take the Czech people under the 

protection of the German Reich, assuring it of an autonomous development suited to its own 

character. 

In testimony whereof this document has been signed in two copies. 

Berlin, March 15, 1939 

Dr. Hácha, Adolf Hitler 

Dr. Chvalkovský, Ribbentrop 

J. Gronský, J. Hřebejk, Dokumenty k ústavnímu vývoji Československa, Part I, Prague, 1997, pp. 136-137. 

6 

1939, March 16 – Decree issued by the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich No. 75/1939 on the Protectorate 

of Bohemia and Moravia 

For a thousand years the Bohemian-Moravian lands have been part of the Lebensraum of the German 

nation. Violence and folly tore them wilfully away from their historical environment, and eventually 

their inclusion in the artificial formation of Czecho-Slovakia made them a focus of constant unrest. 

From year to year the danger grew that from this region – as had already happened once before – 

a tremendous new danger to European peace would emerge. For the Czecho-Slovak state and those 

holding power in it were unable to organise sensibly the co-existence of the national groups that had 

been joined together in it by force, and thus to awaken and preserve the interest of all those involved in 

maintaining their common state. It thus demonstrated its inherent lack of viability, and has therefore 

now fallen prey to actual disintegration. 

The German Reich, however, cannot tolerate any continuing disturbances in these regions, which are so 

clearly important for the Reich's own peace and security and also for general well-being and peace. 

Sooner or later it would have had to bear the most serious consequences, as the power that is the most 

affected and has the greatest interest for historical and geographical reasons. The German Reich is after 

all only obeying the call to self-preservation if it has decided to intervene in a resolute manner to 

safeguard the basis of a rational order in Central Europe and to issue the decrees that ensue from this. 

300

301 

Documents 

For it has already demonstrated during its thousand-year-old history that, thanks to both its size and the 

qualities of the German nation, it alone is called to resolve these issues. 

Filled with the earnest wish to serve the true interests of the nations living in this Lebensraum, to 

ensure the national independence of the German and Czech nations, and to contribute to the peace and 

social well-being of all, I therefore issue the following decree in the name of the German Reich, as 

a basis for the future co-existence of the inhabitants of these regions: 

Article 1 

(1) Those parts of the former Czecho-Slovak Republic that were occupied in March 1939 by German 

units shall belong from now onwards to the territory of the Greater German Reich and shall enter under 

its protection as the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia". 

(2) Should the defence of the Reich so require, the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich shall make 

different arrangements for individual parts of these territories. 

Article 2 

(1) Inhabitants of the Protectorate who are members of the German nation shall become German citizens 

and, in accordance with the provisions of the law on citizens of the Reich dated September 15, 1935 

(Laws of the Reich I, p. 1146), citizens of the Reich. The provisions on the protection of German blood 

and German honour apply namely to them as well. They shall be subject to German judicial jurisdiction. 

(2) The remaining inhabitants of Bohemia and Moravia shall become subjects (Staatsangehörige) of the 

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. 

Article 3 

(1) The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia shall be autonomous and self-governing. 

(2) It shall exercise its sovereign rights, pertaining to it within the framework of the Protectorate, in 

harmony with the political, military and economic needs of the Reich. 

(3) These sovereign rights shall be exercised by its own organs and own offices with their own officials. 

Article 4 

The head of the autonomous administration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia shall enjoy the 

protection and honorary rights of a head of state. The head of the Protectorate shall need the confidence 

of the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich to exercise his office. 

Article 5 

(1) The Führer and Chancellor of the Reich shall appoint a "Reichsprotektor in Bohemia and Moravia" 

as an advocate of the interests of the Reich. His official seat shall be Prague. 

(2) The Reichsprotektor, as representative of the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich, and as the 

authorised agent of the government of the Reich, shall have the task of ensuring that the political 

directives of the Führer and Chancellor of the Reich are complied with. 

(3) The members of the government of the Protectorate shall be confirmed in office by the 

Reichsprotektor. This confirmation may be rescinded. 

(4) The Reichsprotektor shall be authorised to inform himself of all measures taken by the government 

of the Protectorate and to give it advice. He shall be able to make objections to measures that might be 

detrimental to the Reich and, if delay would be dangerous, to issue decrees necessary in the common 

interest. 

(5) The issuing of laws, decrees, and other legal regulations, and the implementation of administrative 

measures and final judgements, shall be abandoned should the Reichsprotektor raise objections. 

Article 6 

(1) The foreign affairs of the Protectorate, in particular the protection of its citizens living abroad, shall 

be dealt with by the Reich. The Reich shall manage foreign affairs in a way that corresponds to common 

interests. 

(2) The Protectorate shall have a representative at the government of the Reich with the official 

title of "envoy". 

Article 7 

(1) The Reich shall provide the Protectorate with military protection. 

(2) In providing this protection, the Reich shall maintain garrisons and military establishments in the 

Protectorate. 

(3) In order to maintain internal security and order, the Protectorate may set up its own forces. Their 

organisation, size and weaponry shall be determined by the government of the Reich. 

Article 8 

The Reich shall have direct supervision of transport, posts and telecommunication.

Documents 

Article 9 

The Protectorate shall be part of the customs area of the German Reich and shall be subject to its 

customs sovereignty. 

Article 10 

(1) In addition to the Reichsmark, the crown shall be legal tender until further notice. 

(2)The rate of exchange between the two currencies shall be determined by the government of the 

Reich. 

Article 11 

(1) The Reich may issue legal regulations that are valid for the Protectorate, should this be required by 

the common interest. 

(2) Should there be a common need, the Reich may take the administrative departments under its own 

administration and set up its own Reich offices necessary for this purpose. 

(3) The government of the Reich may take measures necessary for the maintenance of security and order. 

Article 12 

The law currently valid in Bohemia and Moravia shall remain in effect, provided it is not contrary to the 

intent of taking these lands under the protection of the German Reich. 

Article 13 

The Minister of the Interior of the Reich, in agreement with the other ministers of the Reich who are 

involved, shall issue the legal and administrative regulations necessary to implement and supplement this 

decree. 

Prague, March 16, 1939 

Führer and Chancellor of the Reich: 

Adolf Hitler, o.h. 

Minister of the Interior of the Reich: 

Dr. Frick, o.h. 

Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Reich: 

Ribbentrop, o.h. 

Minister of the Reich and Head of the Chancellery of the Reich: 

Dr. Lammers, o.h. 

Collection of laws and decrees, Year 1939, Chapter 28 dated March 17, 1939. 

7 

1939, August-October, Prague. – Memorandum on the exchange of the population, 

drawn up by Prof. Zdeněk Peška 

[…]a) Let us first ask the basic question: is such an exchange [of the population] to be 

recommended for the restored Czechoslovak state in the future? It is necessary to consider the 

following factors: 

1. Czechoslovakia must at all costs get rid of those who have shown themselves to be unreliable and 

who even worked to break up the Czechoslovak Republic. 

2. The great majority of the Germans were willing at any time to become an instrument of the policy of the 

German Reich and to carry it out blindly, regardless of the interests of our state and indeed regardless of their 

own interests. The large number of Germans in the Czechoslovak Republic on whom on the whole it was 

impossible to rely, and who at moments of crisis constituted a danger, paralysed the healthy development of 

our parliamentary movement. Our government was essentially a coalition that owed its cohesion not least to 

the impossibility of relying fully on the Germans (even if they were in the government), and thus lacked the 

flexibility and adaptability that are essential attributes of a parliamentary government. 

3. Many Germans profited substantially from the situation after March 15, 1939 to gain personal 

advantages and frequently advantages in terms of property too. They will however be deprived of these 

advantages and punished. If they are allowed to remain in the state they will constitute a permanently 

dissatisfied element that will continually accuse the state of having "impoverished" them. 

4. The German element, in particular the bourgeoisie in the Czech lands, through its limited 

outlook, arrogance, and deliberate shutting itself off from Czech influences, has abandoned its 

historical role of being a link and a mediator between the two cultures, and has become an obstacle 

302

303 

Documents 

to German-Czech rapprochement. It is in the interest of a good co-existence between the two 

nations and states that this element be restricted as far as possible. 

5. Through constant incitement Germany has goaded the German citizens of the Czechoslovak 

Republic into a position in which they would never have found themselves if they had been left to 

their own devices. Germany therefore bears a heavy responsibility for these people and with any new 

arrangement of the situation it has the duty to care for them. 

From all these points it is clear that it would be appropriate to count on a large shift of the German 

population. On the other hand, there is a smaller number of Czechs and Slovaks who are settled in the 

German lands. It would be possible to count on the repatriation of the minority in Vienna, and perhaps the 

Czech farming population of Lower Austria and the minorities settled in individual German and Austrian 

towns. It would be appropriate to make this number as large as possible so as to avoid economic disruption 

through the depopulation of certain regions and thus the impoverishment of the whole state. Even so the 

transfer would be to a large extent one-sided in nature. But this would not necessarily be a bad thing. 

Population transfers that have been carried out in the past – Greek-Bulgarian and in particular Greek-Turkish 

– though formally supposed to be in both directions, have in the end effect been substantially one-sided. 

[…]b) 

Archive of the T.G. Masaryk Institute Prague, f.38 (Vladimír Klecanda), 

a.j. 192/1. Original, typescript. 

J. Vondrová (ed.) Češi a sudetoněmecká otázka 1939-1945. 

Dokuments. Prague, 1994. Doc. No. 3, pp. 21-22. 

a) Passage on the Greek-Turkish exchange of population omitted. 

b) Passage on the possibilities for implementing the exchange of population between Germany and 

Czechoslovakia omitted. 

8 

1940, October 15, London – Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic No. 2/1940 in the 

Czechoslovak Official Gazette, on the Interim Exercise of Legislative Power 

On the proposal of the government I decree: 

Article 1 

Until such time as it is possible to carry out the provisions of the second chapter of the Constitution of 

February 29, 1920 on the legislative power, those acts that Section 64 No. 1 and No. 3 of the Constitution 

assign to the President of the Republic to perform, where the assent of the National Assembly is 

required, shall be performed by the President of the Republic with the agreement of the government. 

Article 2 

During the period the provisional system of state government is in force, regulations by means of which 

laws are amended or repealed or new ones are enacted shall in essential cases be enacted by the President 

of the Republic on the proposal of the government in the form of decrees, which shall be countersigned 

by the Prime Minister or the members of the government charged with enforcing them. 

Article 3 

The entire government shall be charged with enforcing this decree, which shall come into effect on the 

day it is signed by the President of the Republic. 

Signed in London, October 15, 1940 

Dr. Edvard Beneš, o.h. 

Dr. Šrámek, o.h. 

Czechoslovak Official Gazette, Year I, Chapter 10, London, December 4 ,1940. 

Re-enacted under No. 20/1945. 

9 

1941, December 16, London. – Declaration of a State of War Between the Czechoslovak Republic and the 

States that are in a State of War with Great Britain, 

the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States of America 

I declare, in accordance with Section 64, Para. 1, Point 3 of the Constitution, that the Czechoslovak 

Republic is in a state of war with all states that are in a state of war with Great Britain, the Union of

Documents 

Soviet Socialist Republics, and the United States of America, and that the state of war between the 

Czechoslovak Republic on the one hand and Germany and Hungary on the other exists from the 

moment when the governments of these states committed acts of violence against the security, 

independence and territorial integrity of the Republic. 

London, December 16, 1941. 

Dr. Šrámek. o.h., Dr. Edvard Beneš, o.h. 

Czechoslovak Official Gazette, Year III, No. 1, London, 1942. 

10 

1944, August 3, London. – Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic No. 11 Czechoslovak 

Official Gazette, on the Renewal of Legal Order (as Amended by Law No. 12/1946, Constitutional Law 

No. 57/1946 and Constitutional Law No. 72/1947) 

On the proposal of the government and after listening to the State Council I decree: 

Chapter I 

On general legal norms 

First Part 

On regulations issued in Czechoslovakia 

Article 1 

(1) Constitutional and other legal regulations of the Czechoslovak state, enacted up to and including 

September 29, 1938, issue from the free will of the Czechoslovak people and are the Czechoslovak legal 

order. 

(2) Regulations enacted in the area of this order during the period when the Czechoslovak people was 

deprived of its freedom (the period of lack of freedom) shall not be part of the Czechoslovak legal order. 

The period of lack of freedom shall be the period from September 30, 1938 until a date that shall be 

determined by a government decree. 

Article 2 

(1) By the will of the Czechoslovak legislative power, those regulations mentioned in Article 1, Paragraph 2, 

whose content is not contrary to the wording or democratic principles of the Czechoslovak constitution 

(the Constitution, its Articles, and Laws amending it or adding to it issued up to September 29, 1938), 

shall continue to be used for a purely provisional period. However, regulations from the period of lack of 

freedom in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedural law, personal law and family law, shall be 

absolutely excluded from use. 

(2) The date when the provisional period mentioned in Para.1 ends shall be fixed by law. 

Article 3 

A court or administrative office, when dealing with a certain legal matter, shall decide whether 

a regulation from the period of lack of freedom satisfies the provisions of Article 2 Paragraph 1; in so 

doing it must give reasons for its ruling on this preliminary question. 

Article 4 

Until such time as the National Assembly meets, the government shall authorise itself to extend territorially 

or to revoke the use of regulations from the period of lack of freedom by means of its decrees. 

Section Two 

On regulations issued by the system of state government abroad 

Article 5 

(1) The constitutional decree of the President of the Republic of July 21, 1940 on the establishment of the 

State Council as an advisory body of the interim system of state government of the Czechoslovak Republic 

(No. 1, Czechoslovak Official Gazette, issued in London on December 4, 1940), the constitutional decree 

of the President of the Republic of October 15, 1940 on the interim exercise of legislative power (No. 2, 

Czechoslovak Official Gazette), and all other decrees of the President of the Republic issued in accordance 

with Section 2 of Decree Number 2/1940, shall not be affected by the regulation of Article 1 Paragraph 2 

of this constitutional decree. They shall, however, together with the decrees in accordance with Article 4, be 

subject to additional approval by the relevant constitutional representatives (ratihabitio). 

(2) Decrees of the President of the Republic issued in accordance with Section 2 of constitutional Decree 

Number 2/1940, unless according to their content they are valid for a shorter period, shall cease to be 

304

305 

Documents 

valid six months after the day when the National Assembly meets, unless they are earlier repealed or 

amended, or re-approved and re-promulgated as laws. 

(3) Decrees of the President of the Republic designated as constitutional, including this 

constitutional decree, may also be repealed or amended by means of an ordinary law. This 

regulation shall not however in any way affect the provisions of Article 1 of the law that introduces 

the Constitution Number 121/1920, with regard to constitutional laws issued 

up to September 29, 1938. 

(4) Decrees issued abroad by the President of the Republic in accordance with Section 64, Paragraph 1, 

No. 10 of the Constitution, and by the government in accordance with Section 55 of the Constitution, 

shall not be affected by the regulation of Article 1 Paragraph 2. 

Chapter II 

On decisions by courts and administrative authorities 

First part 

General regulations on decisions by courts and administrative authorities 

Article 6 

(1) All decisions by courts and the public administration, including final and conclusive ones, that were 

issued during the period of lack of freedom, shall be cancelled or amended, even if the general regulations 

from the period up to September 29, 1938 inclusive do not allow for this, in the following cases: 

a) should they have been issued in accordance with regulations whose content is contrary to the wording 

or democratic principles of the Czechoslovak constitution (Article 2 Para.1), 

b) should they be directed towards an aim that is forbidden by Czechoslovak law. Decisions issued during 

the period of lack of freedom may also be cancelled or amended on the grounds given here in cases when 

the decision was issued without any legal regulation. 

c) should it have been impossible or very difficult, due to the exceptional conditions of the period of lack 

of freedom, for a party to attend the proceedings or produce evidence, or should persons taking part in the 

proceedings have been subjected to duress. 

(2) The provisions of Paragraph (1), Letters a) and b), shall not apply to decisions relating to public taxes, 

public credit, and organisational measures in the currency field. 

(3) Decisions issued during the period of lack of freedom may be cancelled or amended on the grounds 

that persons taking part in the proceedings have been subjected to duress according to Paragraph 1, Letter 

c), in cases where the decision was not made in accordance with the law or was not made in the way the 

decision would have been made in the period of freedom according to established practice, 

a) because a party or a person close to that party had been maliciously treated, or harm had been caused 

to their body, freedom, honour, property, or earnings, or they had been threatened with such harm, and 

for this reason and due to the conditions of the period of lack of freedom the party had been unable to 

defend his interests properly, or 

b) because a witness or expert, or a person close to that witness or expert, had been subjected to such 

duress during the proceedings, and for this reason and due to the conditions of the period of lack of 

freedom had not given a proper or complete testimony or expert opinion, or 

c) because the judge or official who presided over the proceedings or issued the decision acted under such 

duress or acted in accordance with official instructions or in accordance with the instructions of the 

occupying authority. 

(4) Should such a decision (Paragraph 1) have been issued by administrative authorities, it may also be 

cancelled or amended by virtue of office. 

(5) A party shall be able to propose the cancellation or amendment of a decision in accordance with 

Paragraph 1, Letter a, b, or c, up until June 17, 1949 at the latest. Within the same time limit the 

administrative office must notify the parties that it has commenced proceedings so that the decision be 

amended or cancelled by virtue of office in accordance with Paragraph 2 of this Article. 

Article 7 

(1) Article 6 shall not apply to official decisions by organs of the system of state government abroad nor 

to decisions by provost courts established according to the Decree of the President of the Republic of 

October 26, 1940 on Czechoslovak provost courts, No. 5 in the Czechoslovak Official Gazette. 

(2) The time limit for lodging a complaint with the supreme administrative court against a decision by 

the administrative authorities of the system of state government abroad (Section 14 of the law on the 

supreme administrative court as amended in the appendix to Law No. 164/1937), the time limit for 

seeking redress against findings by these offices on private law claims (Section 2 of the law by which 

Section 105 of the Constitution is implemented, No. 217/1925), and the time limit for applications for 

the lodging of petitions for exceptional renewal of provost court proceedings (Section 483 of the military 

criminal procedure code as amended by the law on military provost court criminal proceedings 

No. 115/1937), shall commence one year after the day the period of lack of freedom ends.

Documents 

Article 8 

(1) The regulations currently in force concerning the proceedings of administrative authorities may be 

simplified by government decree, provided they are applied to proceedings concerning the cancellation or 

amendment of decisions by the public administration in accordance with Article 6. 

(2) Analogous regulations for the domain of judicial proceedings will be issued as a law. The law will lay 

down in particular in which cases a court may commit the possession of movable property to the plaintiff 

(petitioner) or install him in the possession of immovable property before a decision is made in the case 

itself, even if the general pre-conditions for permitting execution or a preliminary decision 

are not fulfilled. 

Section Two 

Special regulations on judgements and findings in criminal cases 

Article 9 

(1) With regard to judgements and findings in criminal cases, in addition to the regulations contained in 

the preceding part, the regulations of this section shall apply as well. 

(2) Judgements by courts in criminal cases and administrative findings in criminal matters that were 

issued during the period of lack of freedom, by which someone was found guilty and convicted for an act 

that is not criminal according to Czechoslovak law, shall be null and void from the beginning. The court 

(office), acting in an analogous way to the regulations on a re-trial, shall declare nullity by means of 

a resolution. So far as administrative findings in criminal matters are concerned, the provisions of this 

paragraph shall apply only in cases when the criminal act was committed predominately in order that 

through it the perpetrator would contribute to the liberation of the Czechoslovak Republic or help 

persons who themselves (or persons close to them) were persecuted on national, racial or political 

grounds, or who were threatened by such persecution. 

(3) Should someone have been found guilty during the same period for an act that is criminal under 

Czechoslovak law, but have been sentenced to a stricter punishment than is imposed by Czechoslovak law, the 

verdict on the punishment shall be amended by virtue of office or on petition in such a way as to correspond 

to Czechoslovak law. The provisions of this paragraph shall not apply to administrative 

findings in criminal matters. 

(4) Should a member of the occupying presence or a person collaborating with him have committed in the 

same period an act that is criminal under Czechoslovak law, and should he have been acquitted from the 

charges arising from this act, or should he have had a more lenient punishment imposed on him than is 

imposed by Czechoslovak law, then the judgement shall be set aside on the petition of the public prosecutor 

and new criminal proceedings shall be held. 

Article 10 

(1) Should somebody have been convicted during the period of lack of freedom by a criminal court or an 

administrative office for an act that is criminal under Czechoslovak law, the judgement (finding) of conviction 

shall be cancelled on petition, if the act was committed with the intention that the perpetrator contributed to 

the liberation of the Czechoslovak Republic. 

(2) The petition shall be decided on by the court (office), whereby it shall act in an analogous way to the 

regulations on a re-trial. 

Article 11 

(1) Should circumstances be well-established that substantiate a petition that a judgement (finding) of 

conviction be declared null and void in accordance with Article 9, Paragraph 2, or a petition that a judgement 

(finding) be cancelled in accordance with Article 10, the convicted person shall be released from custody 

immediately. 

(2) The same shall apply in cases under Article 9, Paragraph 3, should it be well-established that the sentence 

that is imposed by Czechoslovak law has already been discharged through the punishment that has been 

served so far. 

(3) Should a public prosecutor become aware of circumstances that may substantiate a petition in favour of 

a convicted person, he shall be obliged to lodge such a petition himself immediately. 

Chapter III 

Proviso of separate regulations 

Article 12 

A separate law shall stipulate how damage that has arisen as a result of the extraordinary conditions of 

the period of lack of freedom will be redressed, and how cases will be regulated in which it is not 

possible, or in the interest of economic and social renewal is not expedient, 

to return to the original state. 

306

Chapter IV 

On courts and offices established during the period of lack of freedom 

307 

Documents 

Article 13 

(1) The government shall stipulate by decree which of the courts and administrative authorities established 

during the period of lack of freedom shall carry out their business for a temporary period, and to what extent. 

(2) The records of those courts and administrative authorities, established during the period of lack of 

freedom to implement the judicial system and public administration on the territory of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, on which a decision has not been made in accordance with the previous paragraph, shall be handed 

over without delay to the Czechoslovak court or office that has jurisdiction for the subject-matter and 

territory of the case. 

Chapter V 

Final provisions 

Article 14 

(1) This constitutional decree shall come into force on the day of promulgation and for the time being 

shall be valid only in the Bohemian and Moravo-Silesian provinces. 

(2) The government empowers itself to lay down by decree that the provisions of this constitutional 

decree including its provisions shall also be valid in Slovakia. 

(3) This constitutional decree shall be enforced by all members of the government. 

Czechoslovak Official Gazette, Year V, No. 11, London, August 3, 1944. Collection of Laws and Decrees of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, Year 1945, No. 30. 

11 

1945, May 19, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic No. 5/1945 on the Invalidity of Certain 

Property Transactions at the Time of Loss of Freedom and on the National Administration of the Property 

Assets of Germans, Hungarians, Traitors and Other Collaborators and Certain Organisations and 

Institutions. 

On a proposal from the government I decree that: 

Article 1 

(1) Any kind of property transfer whatever and any kind of property transaction, whether relating to 

immovable or moveable, public or private property, is null and void if it occurred after the September 29, 

1938 under the pressure of the Occupation or of national, racial or political persecution. 

(2) Where not covered in this decree, the manner in which claims arising from the provisions of 

Paragraph I are to be asserted will be regulated by special decree of the President of the Republic. 

Article 2 

(1) The property of persons unreliable in relation to the state on the territory of the Czechoslovak 

Republic is taken under national administration in accordance with other provisions of this decree. 

(2) Property of persons unreliable in relation to the state is to be understood to include property 

disposed of by such persons after the September 29, 1938, unless the acquirer was unaware that the 

property was of this kind. 

Article 3 

Enterprises (factories) and properties will be taken under national administration where the 

uninterrupted operation of production and economic life requires it, specifically in factories, enterprises 

and properties that have been abandoned, or in such properties as are in the possession of, administered, 

rented or leased by persons unreliable in relation to the state. 

Article 4 

The following are to be considered persons unreliable in relation to the state is meant: 

a) persons of German or Hungarian nationality, 

b) persons who have engaged in activities aimed against the state sovereignty, independence, integrity, 

democratic-republican state form, security and defence of the Czechoslovak Republic, who have incited 

or sought to seduce other persons to such activity, and who have in any way deliberately supported the 

German and Hungarian occupiers. Persons who may be so defined include, for example, members of 

Vlajka, Rodobrana, the assault corps of the Hlinka Guard, leading officials of the Association for Cooperation 

with the Germans, the Czech League against Bolshevism, the Youth Education Board, the 

Hlinka Slovak People’s Party, the Hlinka Guard, the Hlinka Youth, the National Employees’ Trade

Documents 

Unions Centre, the Agriculture and Forestry Union, the German-Slovak Society and other Fascist 

organisations of a similar character. 

Article 5 

Legal entities, the management of which deliberately and with intent served the German or Hungarian 

conduct of the war or Fascist and Nazi purposes, may also be deemed persons unreliable in relation to 

the state. 

Article 6 

Persons of German and Hungarian nationality are to be understood as persons who have declared 

themselves to be of German or Hungarian nationality in any census since 1929, or who became 

members of national groups or formations or political parties designed to bring together persons of 

German or Hungarian nationality. 

Article 7 

(1) For the purposes of applying national administration the following are the competent authorities: 

a) for financial concerns and banks – the district National Committee, 

b) for mining concerns in the coal-fields - the appropriate district National Committee, 

c) for industrial, commercial and other trade concerns 

aa) with up to 20 employees – the local National Committee, 

bb) with from 21 to 300 employees – the district National Committee, 

cc) with a larger number of employees – the provincial regional committee, and in Slovakia the National 

Council. 

(2) The number of employees is to be determined by reference to normal operations in 1943. 

a)the case of agricultural and forest property: 

aa) estate of up to 50 hectares – the local National Committee, 

bb) estate of more than 50 hectares - the district National Committee, 

cc) estate of more than 100 hectares - the provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia the National 

Council. 

dd)for residential houses and building plots – the local National Committee, but if the overall value 

exceeds 5,000,000 K, then the district National Committee, 

b) in the case of all other property: 

aa) to a value of up to 500,000 K – the local National Committee, 

bb) to a value of more than 500, 000 K – the district National Committee, 

cc) to a value of more than 5 million crowns - the provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia the 

Slovak National Council. 

c) If the concerns and property described under a) to f ) are nation-wide in their scope of operation, then 

national administration will be imposed by the appropriate ministry. 

(2) In the eventuality of dispute over the value of a property (headings c) and f )) being brought under 

national administration, the value will be determined with final validity by the higher body. 

(3) In communities and districts where an administrative commission or commissioner has or will be 

appointed instead of a National Committee, the imposition of national administration falls under its or 

his jurisdiction. 

Article 8 

(1) A decision under Article 7 in the case of concerns listed in Article 7, headings a), b), c) and d) will 

be issued on the basis of agreement with the factory committee (works council) or other representatives 

of the employees of the concern. If agreement is not reached, the higher body will decide. 

(2) In the case of agricultural and forest property larger than 50 hectares, a decision will likewise be 

issued after hearing the views of the relevant Local National Committees. 

Article 9 

If there is a danger of delay, especially when a concern has been abandoned, or if persons unreliable in 

relation to the state are interfering in the property or concern, even where responsibility for a decision 

lies with another body, the District National Committees are authorised to appoint a provisional 

national administrator for the period until the relevant body has taken a decision under Article 7. 

Article 10 

(1) If the public interest should so require, the appropriate Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia 

the Slovak National Council, may, ex officio – after hearing the views of the factory committee – change the 

decision of a District National Committee or Local National Committee on the introduction of 

administration or on the appointment of national administrators, and may take other measures. 

(2) The appropriate Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia the Slovak Council, will likewise 

make provision for the introduction of national administration in places where the district or Local 

National Committee has not done so, or has been unable to do so. 

308

309 

Documents 

Article 11 

National administration will be terminated as soon as the reasons for its imposition cease to exist. It will 

be terminated by the same body that introduced it. 

Article 12 

(1) All co-operative concerns and organisations (agricultural, retail, financial and suchlike) are to be 

taken under temporary national administration. This national administration will secure the ordinary 

running of the concern for a period of up to 4 weeks, and the election of a new managing body. 

(2) Local National Committees will impose this temporary national administration on co-operatives that 

do not operate the local ward limits; District National Committees will impose it in the case of cooperatives 

that operate beyond ward limits, but not the limits of the district, and in all other cases it will 

be imposed by the Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia by the Slovak National Council. 

(3) Before imposition of temporary national administration the views of the members of the cooperative 

should be heard as far as circumstances allow. 

(4)Temporary national administration will end as soon as the membership of the co-operative elects 

a new management. 

Article 13 

The appropriate Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia the Slovak National Council, may 

also impose national administration on professional, economic, cultural and interest-group 

organisations and institutes when there is good reason to do so. 

Article 14 

(1) Decisions on the imposition and termination of national administration, and on the appointment 

and dismissal of national administrators, must be issued in writing. 

(2) A copy of the decision is to be delivered to the Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia 

the Slovak National Council. 

Article 15 

On the basis of a decision under Article 14, the change will be registered ex officio by the relevant 

courts as follows: 

a) In the case of immovable property the relevant court will enter a record of statement of national 

administration in the land register books, 

b) In the case of mining licences the relevant court or office will enter a record of statement of 

national administration in the mining land books, or registers, 

c) in the case of concerns (factories) registered in the commercial (company) and in Slovakia the firm 

register, the relevant court will make enter a record of the statement of national administration in the 

commercial (company) register, and in Slovakia in the firm register. 

Article 16 

(1) Only a person with the requisite expert and practical knowledge, morally unimpeachable and 

reliable in relation to the state may be appointed a national administrator. 

(2) As a rule, no debtor or creditor of the concern (factory) or property estate should be appointed as 

national administrator, unless the organ competent under Article 7 decides otherwise. 

(3) As a rule the national administration will be appointed from among capable employees of the 

concern in question. 

(4) A member of the National Committee competent to introduce national administration under 

Article 7 may not be appointed a national administrator. 

Article 17 

(1) In the case of smaller properties, small businesses, small trades operators and such like, one 

administrator may be appointed for more than one concern or property estate. 

(2) If the scale of national administration so requires, a body competent under Article 7 may appoint 

a committee of up to 5 members which will then manage the administration on the principle of 

majority vote. 

Article 18 

Before taking up their office, national administrators will make a promise to the body competent 

under Article 7 to the effect that they will conscientiously fulfil their duties with the care of a proper 

steward in accordance with economic, national and other public interests. 

Article 19 

In the performance of their function national administrators possess the status of public organs within 

the meaning of Article 68 of the criminal law code of the May 27, 1852, No. 117 imp. law., Article 

461 of the legal code, Article V/1878, and Article 5 of the legal code, Article XI/1914.

Documents 

Article 20 

(1) Legal action undertaken by owners, holders and administrators of property falling under national 

administration, relating to the substance of these properties and undertaken after this decree comes 

into effect, is invalid. 

(2) The former owners, holders and administrators of property taken under national administration 

are obliged to refrain from any interference with the actions of the national administrator. 

Article 21 

A national administrator manages property taken under national administration and is authorised and 

obliged to take all measures necessary for its proper management. He is obliged to act with the care of 

a proper steward and is answerable for any damage caused by neglect of his duty. 

Article 22 

(1) The national administrator is obliged to present accounts of his management to the body 

competent under Article 7, observing the deadlines determined by that body, and to give necessary or 

requested reports and explanations at any time. 

(2) A national administrator requires the approval of the body competent under Article 7 before taking 

measures that are not part of ordinary management, such as all proceedings of special importance, lease 

or rent, loans, increased charges (encumbrances?) on the books, liquidation and suchlike. 

(3) The body competent under Article 7 will supervise the way in which the national administrator 

manages the property. 

(4) The national administrator is obliged to observe the guidelines issued to him by the body 

competent under Article 7, or the higher Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia the Slovak 

National Committee, or in concerns (works) with nation-wide activity by the relevant ministry. 

Article 23 

The national administrator has a right to reimbursement of cash expenses and to remuneration 

determined by the relevant body competent under Article 7. These costs are charged to the property 

administrated. 

Article 24 

(1) Property taken under national administration but previously belonging to workers, farmers, 

tradesmen, small and middle-sized businessmen, officials, members of the liberal professions and persons 

with a similar social standing, and lost by such persons as a result of national, political or racial 

persecution, will be removed from national administration and immediately returned to the former 

owners or their heirs, provided that they do not fall into the category of persons defined in Article 4. 

(2) Persons as defined in Article 4, provided that they are workers, farmers, tradesmen, small and 

middle-sized businessmen, officials, members of free professions and persons with similar social 

standing, or their heirs, may apply for removal of their property from national administration and for its 

return, provided that they are able to demonstrate reliably that they were victims of political or racial 

persecution and remained loyal to the democratic-republican state ideal of the Czechoslovak Republic. 

(3) The body competent under Article 7 will decides on the matter on application. 

(4) Other secured property will remain under national administration until new legislation is passed. 

Article 25 

(1) Appeal may be made against a decision of a Local National Committee to the District National 

Committee, the decision of the latter being final. 

(2) Appeal against a decision taken by a District National Committee as body of first instance may be 

made to the Provincial National Committee, and in Slovakia to the Slovak National Council. 

(3) Appeal has no delaying effect. 

Article 26 

In cases where the act is not more severely punishable, a penalty for misdemeanour of up to five years 

imprisonment, a fine of up to 10 million crowns and, as appropriate, complete or partial confiscation 

of property, is to be imposed on: 

a) anyone who violates or evades the provisions of this decree, and especially anyone who interferes 

with or renders impossible the authorised activity of a national administrator. 

b) a national administrator, if he intentionally or as a result of gross ignorance breaches one of the 

duties imposed on him by the preceding provisions of this decree. 

Article 27 

The government empowers itself to secure the funds needed to ensure the running of concerns 

(works) taken under national administration in cases whether their operation is necessary in the 

interest of economic life. 

310

Article 28 

(1)This decree comes into force on the day of promulgation. 

(2) Its implementation is entrusted to the government. 

311 

Documents 

Dr. Edvard Beneš o.h., Z. Fierlinger o.h., Gottwald o.h., Šrámek o.h., David o.h., Ján Ursíny o.h., 

Viliam Široký o.h., Václav Nosek o.h., Dr. V. Šrobár o.h., Pictor o.h., Dr. H. Ripka o.h., J. Ďuriš o.h., 

Dr. Šoltézs o.h., 

Dr. Procházka o.h., Svoboda o.h., Nejedlý o.h., V. Kopecký o.h., gen. Hasal o.h., Frant. Hála o.h., 

J. Stránský o.h., V. Majer o.h., B. Laušman o.h., Dr. Clementis o.h., also for J. Masaryk, 

Gen. Dr. Ferjenčík o.h., J. Lichner o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Orders of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 4 of May 23, 1945. 

12 

1945, June 19, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic No. 16/1945 on the Punishment of Nazi 

criminals, Traitors and their Accomplices and on Special People’s Courts 

The unprecedented crimes committed by the Nazis and their treacherous accomplices in 

Czechoslovakia cry out for strict justice. The subjugation of the mother country, the murder, 

enslavement, pillage and humiliation visited on the Czechoslovak people, and all the escalating atrocities 

of German rule, in which unfortunately the occupiers were helped or assisted by treacherous 

Czechoslovak citizens, some of them even abusing high office, mandates or rank to do so, are crimes 

that must be deservedly punished without delay if the Nazi and Fascist evil is to be torn up by the roots. 

For this reason, on the basis of government proposal I decree the following: 

Chapter I. Crimes against the State 

Article 1 

Any person who during the time of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18), on the territory of 

the Republic or outside it, committed one of the following crimes as defined by the Law for the Defence 

of the Republic of the March 19, 1923, No. 50 Coll. will be subject to the following penalties: actual 

conspiracy against the Republic (Article 1) is punished by death; preparation of conspiracy (Article 2), 

endangering the security of the Republic (Article 3), treason (Article 4, No. 1), betrayal of a state secret 

(Article 5, No. 1), military treason (Article 6, Nos. 1, 2 and 3) and violence against constitutional 

officials (Article 10, No. 1), is punished by between twenty years and life hard labour, and under 

particularly exacerbating circumstances by death. 

Article 2 

Any person who during the time of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18) was a member of the 

organisation: Die Schitzstaffeln der Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Arbeiterpartei (S.S.), or the 

Freiwillige Schutzstaffeln (F.S.), or Rodobrana, or Szabadesapatok, or other organisations of similar 

character not here named, is to be punished, provided he has not committed a more severely punishable 

crime, by between five and twelve years hard labour for the crime, and if the circumstances are 

particularly exacerbating, by between twenty years hard labour and hard labour for life. 

Article 3 

(1) Any person who during the period of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18) propagated or 

supported the Fascist or Nazi movement, or any person who during that time approved or defended the 

enemy government on the territory of the Republic, or individual unlawful acts committed by the 

occupying commands and offices and the bodies subordinate to them, in print, on radio, in film or theatre, 

or at a public meeting, is to be punished, if he has not committed a more severely punishable crime, by 

from five to twenty years hard labour, but if he committed such a crime with the intention of subverting 

the moral, national or state consciousness of the Czechoslovak people, and especially Czechoslovak youth, 

he is to be punished by between ten and twenty years of hard labour, and under particularly exacerbating 

circumstances by between twenty years to life imprisonment with hard labour, or by death. 

(2) A person who during the same period was an official or commander in the organisations the 

Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) or the Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP), or Vlajka, the 

Hlinka or Svatopluk Guard, or in other Fascist organisations of similar character, and especially a person who 

endangered the safety of citizens working for the liberation of the Republic at home, will be punished for the 

crime, if he has not committed a more severely punishable act, by from five to twenty years hard labour. 

Article 4 

A Czechoslovak citizen, who during the period of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18), 

subverted, while abroad, a movement aimed at the liberation of the Czechoslovak Republic in its Pre-

Documents 

Munich constitution and integrity, or otherwise knowingly damaged the interests of the Czechoslovak 

Republic, and especially any such person who endangered the safety of citizens working for the 

liberation of the Republic at home, will be punished, if he has not committed a more severely punishable 

crime, by between five and twenty years hard labour. 

Crimes against Persons 

Article 5 

(1) Any person who during the period of heightened danger to the Republic (Article 18) committed the 

following crimes in the service or in the interests of Germany or its allies, or a movement hostile to the 

Republic, its organisation or members, will be punished as stated below: 

a) offences as defined by the criminal code of May 27, 1852, No. 117 imp. law, i.e. the crime of public 

violence by robbery of people (Article 90), public violence by treating a person as a slave (Article 95), 

murder (Articles 134 – 7), killing (Articles 140 and 141), and grievous bodily harm (Article 156), and 

b) offences as defined by the criminal law code, Article V/1878, i.e. the crime of murder (Article 278), 

deliberate killing (Article 279), grievous bodily harm resulting in death (Articles 306 and 307), and 

robbery of children (Article 317) are punishable by death. 

(2) Any person who in the same period, under the same circumstances and with the same end 

committed the following crimes will be punished as stated: 

a) offences as defined by the criminal code of the May 27, 1855, No. 117, imp. law, i.e. the crime of 

public violence by unauthorised curtailment of personal freedom (Article 93), public violence by 

extortion (Article 98), public violence by dangerous menaces (Article 99) and grievous bodily harm 

(Article 152 and 155), 

b) offences as defined by criminal law code, Article V/1878, i.e. the crime of wrongful curtailment of 

personal freedom (Articles 323, 324 and 325), grievous bodily harm (Article 301) and extortion (Articles 

350 and 353) are punishable by between ten and twenty years hard labour. 

Article 6 

(1) Any person who in the same period of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18) ordered forced 

or obligatory labour to the benefit of the war efforts of Germany or her allies, and anyone involved in 

the promulgation and performance of such a task, is to be punished, unless he has committed a more 

severely punishable crime, with between five and ten years of hard labour. 

(2) If, however, as a result of such an order an inhabitant of the Republic was forced to work abroad, or 

under circumstances or in places dangerous to his life or health, the culprit is to be punished with from 

ten to twenty years hard labour regardless of the purpose of the work. 

Article 7 

(1) Any person who during the period of heightened danger to the Republic (Article 18), alone or with 

others, in the service or in the interests of Germany or its allies, or a movement hostile to the Republic, 

its organisation of members, was responsible for the loss of freedom of an inhabitant of the Republic 

without further consequences, is to be punished for the crime by five to twenty years hard labour. If, 

however, the guilty person caused loss of freedom to more than one inhabitant of the Republic, the court 

may impose a punishment of between twenty years and life hard labour, and under particularly 

exacerbating circumstances may impose the death penalty. 

(2) Any person who during the same period, under the same circumstances, for the same purpose and in 

the same way caused serious bodily harm to an inhabitant of the Republic without serious consequences 

(para. 3), is to be punished for the crime by a sentence of between ten and twenty years hard labour, and 

under particularly exacerbating circumstances by a sentence of twenty years to life hard labour. If, 

however, more than one person was concerned, the court may impose the death penalty. 

(3) Any person who during the same period and under the same circumstances, for the same purpose 

and in the same way, by court ruling, verdict, order or administrative decision of any kind, or by the 

implementation of the verdict, order or administrative decision, or otherwise, caused the death of an 

inhabitant of the Republic, serious bodily harm to an inhabitant of the Republic or his deportation, is to 

be punished by death. 

Crimes against Property 

Article 8 

(1) Any person who in the period of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18) committed the 

following crimes in the service or in the interests of Germany or its allies, or of a movement hostile to 

the Republic, its organisations or members in the service or in the interests of Germany or its allies, or 

a movement hostile to the Republic, its organisation of members, i.e. committed: 

a) as defined by the criminal code of the May 27, 1855, No. 117, imp. law, the crime of public violence by 

malicious damage to the property of another (Article 85) with consequences as defined in Article 86, 

312

313 

Documents 

Para. 2, arson (Article 166) under circumstances and with consequences as defined in Article 167 clause a), 

robbery (Article 190) under the circumstances and with the consequences as defined in Article 195, or 

b) as defined by the criminal code Article V/1878, the crime of arson (Article 424), robbery (Articles 344 

and 345), under the circumstances and with the consequences as defined by Article 349, Para. 1, Point 2 

and Para. 2, will be punished by death. 

(2) Any person who in the same period and under the same circumstances and with the same purpose 

committed the following crimes: 

a) under the criminal law of the May 27, 1855, No. 117, imp. code, the crime of public violence by 

violent invasion of the immovable property of another person (Article 83), public violence by malicious 

damage to the property of another (Article 85, 86, Para. 1), arson (Article 166) under the circumstances and 

with the consequences defined in Article 167, Clauses b) to g), theft (Articles 171 to 180), embezzlement 

(Articles 181 – 183), accessoryship to theft or embezzlement (Articles 185 and 186), robbery (Article 190) 

under the circumstances and with the consequences defined in Article 191 – 194, accessoryship to robbery 

(Article 196), fraud (Articles 197-201, 203), or 

b) under the criminal law of the criminal code, Article V/1878, the crime of violation of the household by 

private persons (Articles 330 and 331), the misdemeanour of damaging the property of another person 

(Articles 418 and 420), which under the circumstances defined by Para. 1 of this Paragraph may be 

considered a crime, arson (Articles 422 and 423), theft (Articles 333 to 341) to the extent that the act is not 

criminal under Para. 1, Letter b) of this paragraph, accessoryship (Article 370), fraud (Article 379 in the 

wording of Article 50 of the amended criminal law), under the circumstances defined in Article 383, Para. 2 

with the exception of Article 382, will be punished by ten to twenty years hard labour and under specially 

exacerbating circumstances from twenty years to life hard labour. 

Article 9 

Any person who alone or jointly with another, in the period of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18), 

in the service or in the interests of Germany or its allies, or a movement hostile to the Republic, its 

organisation or members, caused property to be taken from the Czechoslovak state, a legal entity or physical 

person in violation of the law of the Republic by court ruling, verdict, order or administrative decision of any 

kind, or by the implementation of the verdict, order or administrative decision, will be punished, if he has not 

committed a more seriously punishable crime, by between ten and twenty years hard labour, and under 

particularly exacerbating circumstances by between twenty years hard labour and life. 

Article 10 

Any person who in the period of heightened threat to the Republic (Article 18) exploited the predicament 

caused by national, political or racial persecution to enrich himself at the expense of the state, a legal entity or 

physical person, will be punished, if he has not committed a more seriously punishable crime, by between five 

and ten years hard labour. 

Informing 

Article 11 

Any person who during the period of heightened threat to the Republic, in the service or in the interest of the 

enemy, or exploiting the situation created by enemy occupation, informed on another person for some real or 

invented activity, will be punished for the crime by between five to ten years hard labour. If, however, by his 

act of informing, the culprit directly or indirectly caused a Czechoslovak citizen to lose his freedom, he will be 

punished by between ten and twenty years’ hard labour. If the act of informing directly or indirectly caused 

more than one person to lose his freedom or to suffer serious damage to health, the culprit will be punished 

by life hard labour, and if the act of informing caused the death of anyone, the punishment will be death. 

General Provisions 

Article 12 

Under this decree a foreigner may also be punished if he has committed the crime stated in Article 1, or one 

of the crimes stated in Articles 4 to 9 abroad, provided that he committed such crimes against a Czechoslovak 

state citizen or against Czechoslovak public or private property. 

Article 13 

(1) Criminal actions as defined in this decree cannot be justified on the grounds that they were ordered or 

permitted by the regulations of a legal code other than the Czechoslovak, or by organs set up by a state power 

other than the Czechoslovak, nor are they excused by the claim that the culprit considered such invalid 

regulations to be justified. 

(2) It is also no defence for the culprit to claim that he was carrying out his professional duties if he acted 

with unusual zealousness, thus exceeding to a marked degree the normal framework of his duties, or if he was 

active in the intention to assist the war efforts of the Germans (their allies), to damage or frustrate the war 

efforts of Czechoslovakia (its allies), or if he acted for other clearly reprehensible motives. 

(3) Irresistible compulsion by order of a superior is not a defence for any person who voluntarily became

Documents 

a member of an organisation in which membership imposed an obligation to carry out every order, including 

criminal orders. 

Article 14 

If a court convicts a person of a crime set out in this decree and does not waive punishment (Article 16 

Para. 2), it will also declare: 

a) that the convicted will lose civic honours for a certain period, or permanently (Article 15) 

b) that the convicted will spend part or all of a prison sentence in special forced labour sections that will be set 

up by special law; 

c) that all his property or part of his property will be forfeit to the state. 

Article 15 

Loss of civic honours (Article 14) is to be understood as: 

1. Permanent loss of decorations, orders and badges of honour, public services, ranks and functions, academic 

degrees, and also loss of retirement and social benefits, grace and favour payments and any other payments 

from state funds; 

2. Reduction to the ranks for NCOs and cashiering for officers; 

3. Loss of the legal right to acquire, exercise and require rights set out under numbers 1 and 2, and rights 

deriving from forfeited degrees and ranks; 

4. Loss of the right to vote or be elected or appointed to public function, or to vote on public matters; 

5. Loss of the right to hold offices in associations (societies or other similar formations); 

6. Loss of the right to own, publish, edit, or in anyway to engage in publication or production of printed 

periodicals, or to dispose of, publish and publicise non-periodical printed matter. 

7. Loss of the right to give public lectures or speeches’ 

8. Loss of the right to work in educational or art institutions or concerns; 

9. Loss of the right to be an employer or joint employer; 

10. Loss of the right to engage in a liberal profession 

11. Loss of the right to be sit on the board (board of trustees) of companies and societies; 

12. Loss of the right to be a senior official in a private concern. Any person violating the prohibitions 

contained in this paragraph will be punished by an ordinary court for misdemeanour by imprisonment for 

a period of one week to three months. 

Article 16 

(1) Prison sentences may not be reduced below the bottom end of the scale and their form changed to a more 

moderate punishment. 

(2) The court may, however, reduce punishments below the bottom end of the scale and moderate their 

form, and in cases deserving special attention may waive punishment in the statement of conviction if it 

is generally known, or if it can be demonstrated without delays, that the accused acted with the intention 

of benefiting the Czech or Slovak people or the Czechoslovak Republic or its allies or another general 

interest, or that later he contributed by his activities to the liberation of the Republic from enemy power, 

or to remedying or reducing the evil caused by the enemy, and that after his change of heart he has 

remained on the path of duty. This provision may not, however, be used if the harm caused by the culprit 

disproportionately outweighs the general benefit he has pursued. 

Article 17 

There is no term of limitation in relation to the crimes punishable under this decree. 

Article 18 

The period of heightened threat to the Republic is to be understood as the period from the May 21, 1938 to 

a day that will be determined by government order. 

Article 19 

Crimes punishable in accordance with this decree will always be regarded as especially heinous 

in the sense of Article 1, Para. 1 of the Law on state imprisonment of the July 16, 1931, No. 123 Coll. 

Article 20 

The abetting of criminals punishable according to this decree is to be punished in accordance with currently 

applicable criminal laws with the following changes: 

1. In the case of crimes against the state the punishment for abetting such crimes is the same as for the crimes 

themselves; 

2. In the case of these crimes, abetting by concealment of next of kin (Article 39, No. 4 of Law No. 50/1923 

on the protection of the Republic) is a punishable offence and carries a sentence of one year to ten years 

imprisonment, but if the death sentence is imposed for the crime itself, it carries a sentence of between five 

and twenty years hard labour; 

314

315 

Documents 

1. In the case of the other crimes, abetting is punished by hard labour 

a) between ten and twenty years if this decree imposes a sentence of death or more than twenty years hard 

labour for the crime itself, 

b) between one year and ten years, if this decree imposes a lesser punishment for the crime itself. 

Chapter II 

Special People’s Courts 

Article 21 

(1) All crimes punishable under this decree are to be judged by special people’s courts when those 

accused of criminal responsibility for the crimes as perpetrators, joint perpetrators, accomplices, 

accessories or abettors are persons as defined in Article 2 and Article 3, Para. 2. When other persons are 

answering for these crimes, they will be judged by special people’s courts if the public prosecutor 

proposes that proceedings against them be taken by these courts (Article 24). 

(2) The local (geographical) competence of special people’s courts is determined by the regulations of the 

criminal code valid on the territory of the Republic. 

Composition and Seat of Special Courts 

Article 22 

(1) A special people’s court exercises its jurisdiction in five-member senates composed of a chairman 

who must be a judge by profession (a civil or military judge), and four judges chosen from the people. 

(2) Chairmen of the special people’s courts, their deputy chairmen and professional judges (Para. 1) are 

appointed by the President of the Republic at the proposal of the government from lists drawn up for 

the purpose by District National Committees. The government appoints the people’s judges from other 

lists drawn up by the District National Committees. 

(3) The Chairman of a special people’s court or his deputy has the task of putting together the necessary 

number of senates with replacements from the persons named in Para. 2. 

(4) Special people’s court will be set up at the seats of the regional courts, but each senate of a special 

people’s court may conduct sittings, if the need is evident, in any place on the court circuit. Executioners 

of the death penalty together with the necessary number of assistants will be appointed by the Local 

National Committee at the seat of the regional court. 

(5) The form of words of the oath to be taken by the people’s judges and remuneration for their expenses 

and lost earnings will be the subject of a government order. 

Article 23 

When voting, the people’s judges will vote first in order of seniority. 

Article 24 

(1) The public prosecutors for special people’s courts will be appointed by the government, or as 

government delegate by the minister of justice, for a certain period, for certain cases, or for the entire 

period of the activity of the court, from among the public prosecutors or other persons who hold 

doctorates in law or have passed three state legal examinations, (including?) but at the least the state 

judicial examination provided they appear on the lists drawn up for the purpose by 

District National Committees. 

(2) The public prosecutors at special people’s courts are subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. 

Proceedings before Special People’s Courts 

Article 25 

(1) The principles of proceedings before permanent courts apply to proceedings before special 

people’s courts, and do so in the form set out in Articles 26 to 31 of this decree. Wherever the decree 

refers to regulations of ordinary procedure, this is to be understood as meaning the regulations 

of current criminal law. 

(2) If an accused is freed by the judgement of the special people’s court, this does not exclude the 

possibility of proceedings being instigated against him by the appropriate ordinary court, or before 

a state court in accordance with Law No. 68/1935 Coll., or before a regional court competent to judge 

cases of military treason under Law No. 130/1936 Coll., and government order No. 236/1937 Coll. 

This court will try the case again in ordinary proceedings, to which the legal provisions of this degree 

(Articles 1 – 20) will materially apply, in the same way as when the offending persons are brought 

before an ordinary court immediately before (Article 21). The petition to proceed against an accused in 

this way must, however, be submitted at the latest three months from the day of the verdict 

freeing the accused.

Documents 

Article 26 

(1) Proceedings before a special people’s court are initiated on a petition from the public prosecutor 

(Article 24). Pregnant women are not to be brought before a special people’s court until 

their pregnancy is over. 

(2) The entire criminal proceedings against an accused individual will take place, if possible without 

interruption, before the special people’s court. Proceedings against an individual defendant may not take 

longer than three days. This period is calculated from the moment when the accused is brought 

before the court. 

(3) If a special people’s court fails to reach a verdict within the three-day time limit, the case is passed on 

to the appropriate ordinary court (Article 23, Para. 2). In this eventuality it will also decide whether the 

accused must remain in detention. 

(4)If an accused person fails to appear before the court, or cannot appear before the court for any reason, 

the public prosecutor may move that the trial be conducted in the absence of the accused. In such a case 

the court must ex officio appoint a defence counsel. 

Article 27 

Proceedings before a special people’s court are verbal and public. The accused has the right to choose 

a defence counsel himself or to ask the court to arrange a defence counsel for him, if he lacks means. If 

the accused does not exercise his right, the court will arrange a defence counsel for him ex officio. Both 

the accused and the court may entrust the task to a person not entered on the list of advocates who holds 

a doctorate of law or has taken three state legal exams, but at the least the state judicial examination. 

Article 28 

(1) A trial before a special people’s court opens with the calling of the case and the establishment of the 

generalia through a description by the public prosecutor of the acts the accused is alleged to have 

committed. The questioning of the accused and presentation of proofs is governed by the general 

regulations of criminal proceedings. Records of the examination of accessories and witnesses, and expert 

opinions may always be read when the chairman of the senate regards their reading as useful. 

(2) Proceedings are as a rule limited to the act or acts for which the accused was brought before the 

special people’s court. Acts that are not criminal within the meaning of this decree should not be taken 

into account. If these are the subject of later proceedings before a special people’s court, or an ordinary 

or, as the case may be, state court, or before a regional court competent to judge military treason, account 

will be taken of a prison sentence already passed on the accused by a special people’s court when 

punishment is decided. 

(3) Proceedings before a special people’s court may not be delayed by determination of claims for 

compensation for damages caused by the criminal act. 

(4) Determination of accessories should not be overlooked, but must not be allowed to delay 

pronouncement and implementation of the verdict. 

(5) After completion of attendant proceedings, the public prosecutor will evaluate their results and 

present his final petition. The chairman will then give the accused and his defence counsel the floor in 

order to present a defence. If the public prosecutor responds to its conclusions, the accused and his 

advocate have the right to the last word. 

Article 29 

(1) The court then reaches a verdict in non-public session, observing the relevant regulations on ordinary 

procure provided that this decree does not stipulate otherwise. 

(2) If a guilty verdict in the case of a crime for which this decree imposes the death penalty is arrived at 

by only three votes, or if the court reaches the conclusion that circumstances had been established of 

a kind that makes the death penalty disproportionately severe, the court may impose a penalty of twenty 

years to life hard labour, and on the basis of the conditions set out in Article 16, Para. 2, may also make 

use of the latter provision. 

(3) The verdict will be declared immediately in a public sitting of the court. 

Article 30 

Records of proceedings before special people’s courts are drawn up according to the regulations on 

ordinary proceedings. The record will be signed by all the members of the senate and the recorder. 

Article 31 

(1) No ordinary means of remedy apply against the verdicts of special people’s courts. Pleas for mercy 

submitted to any quarter have no force to delay implementation of sentence. 

(2) The death penalty is execution within two hours of declaration of the verdict. On the express request 

of the accused this time limit may be extended by a further hour. If the proceedings have taken place in 

the absence of the accused, the death penalty is to be executed within 24 hours 

of apprehension of the accused. 

316

317 

Documents 

(3) A special people’s court may also decide that the death penalty should be carried out in public. This 

may be done specifically when the brutality with which the crime was committed or the perverted 

character of the culprit, the number of his crimes or his position are arguments for public execution of 

the sentence. In such a case the court may extend the time limit of two hours in order to arrange public 

execution of the sentence, but not to more than 24 hours. 

Temporary and Final Provisions 

Article 32 

(1) The provisions of the law of the May 3, 1934, No. 91 Coll., on the imposition of the death penalty 

and life sentences do not apply for crimes punishable under this law. 

(2) The provisions of the law of the March 11, 1931, No. 48 Coll., on criminal justice and youth, 

remain in force. 

Article 33 

This decree comes into force from the day of promulgation for a period of one year, unless it should be 

amended or augmented by the appropriate legislative institutions or its period of application be 

shortened or extended. 

Article 34 

All members of the government are charged with implementation of this decree. 

Dr. Beneš o.h. Fierlinger o.h. David o.h. Laušman o.h. Gottwald o.h. Ďuriš o.h. Široký o.h. Dr. Pietor 

o.h. Dr. Šrámek o.h. gen. Hasal o.h. Ursíny o.h. Hála o.h. Gen. Svoboda o.h. 

Dr. Šoltész o.h. Dr. Ripka o.h. Dr. Procházka o.h. Nosek o.h. Majer o.h. Dr. Šrobár o.h. 

Dr. Ferjenčík o.h. Kopecký o.h. Lichner o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Orders of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 9 of the July 19, 1945. The Decree of the 

President of the Republic No. 16/1945 was amended by Law No. 22/1946, Law No. 149/1946, Law 

No. 245/1946 and Law No. 33/1948. 

13 

Prague June 21, 1945 – Decree of the President of the Republic 12/1945 Coll., Concerning the Confiscation 

and Expeditious Redistribution of the Agricultural Property of Germans, Hungarians, and also Traitors 

and Enemies of the Czech and Slovak Nations. 

In response to the demands of Czech and Slovak farmers and landless peasants, and after diligent 

implementation of the new land reform, and primarily led by the desire to take back Czech and Slovak 

land from foreign German and Hungarian landowners, and also from the hands of traitors to the 

Republic, and put it into the hands of Czech and Slovak farmers and landless peasants, the government 

proposes and I decree that: 

Article 1 

(1) With immediate effect and without compensation for the purposes of land reform, agricultural 

property be confiscated which is in the possession of: 

a) all persons of German and Hungarian nationality, regardless of their citizenship; 

b) all traitors and enemies of the State of any nationality and citizenship who have shown their hostility 

during the time of crisis and war in the years 1938 to 1945; 

c) public limited companies and other companies and corporations whose management intentionally and 

purposefully served the German war effort or fascist and Nazi aims. 

(2) The agricultural property of persons of German and Hungarian nationality who actively participated 

in the fight for the preservation of the integrity and freedom of the Czechoslovak Republic, will not be 

confiscated in accordance with Para. 1. 

(3) Decisions about exceptions to Para. 2 will be decided by the relevant District National Committee 

upon submission from the relevant Agricultural Commission. Doubtful cases will be referred by the 

District National Committee to the Provincial National Committee, which will, along with its report, 

pass it along for final decision to the Ministry of Agriculture, which will make the decision in 

consultation with the Ministry of the Interior. 

Article 2 

(1) Those persons will be considered to be of German or Hungarian nationality who in any of the public 

censuses from the year 1929 declared themselves of German or Hungarian nationality, or became members 

of national groups or organisations or political parties uniting persons of German or Hungarian nationality. 

(2) Exemptions to the provisions of Para. 1 will be determined by a special decree.

Documents 

Article 3 

(1) The following are considered traitors or enemies of the Czechoslovak Republic: 

a) persons who collectively or individually engaged in activities directed against the independence, 

integrity, or sovereignty of the State, its democratic-republican form of government, or the security and 

defence of the Czechoslovak Republic, who stirred up these activities or tried to incite other persons to 

participate in them, and intentionally gave active support to the German and Hungarian forces of 

occupation in any way whatsoever; 

b) legal entities whose administration intentionally and actively served the German or Hungarian war 

effort, or fascist and Nazi aims. 

(2) Whether or not a physical or legal entity falls within the definition of Para. 1, Letter (a) or (b), is 

decided by the Provincial National Committee in whose jurisdiction this specific property lies, in 

accordance with the submission of the relevant District National Committee. Doubtful cases will be 

referred for final decision by the Provincial National Committee to the Ministry of Agriculture which 

will decide in consultation with the Ministry of the Interior. 

Article 4 

By agricultural property (Article 1, Para. 1) is to be understood all agricultural and forest land, the 

buildings belonging thereto together with all fixtures and fittings, any agricultural industrial enterprise 

working its own agricultural and forest property, as well as physical assets (live and dead stock) and all 

rights which are connected with the holding of confiscated property or any part thereof. 

Article 5 

(1) If the agricultural property confiscated in accordance with Article 1 is under lease (tenancy), all such 

lease agreements are cancelled. If the lessee (tenant) is a person with a right to the allocation of land 

(Article 7, Para. 1) it is possible to leave the land in their use until the end of the farming year. If the leased 

(rented) agricultural property is not allocated, then the lessee (tenant) will pay rent or a tenancy fee to The 

National Land Fund (Article 6, Para. 1). If the confiscation affects physical or legal entities who are not 

covered by Article 3, they will be provided with compensation for current expenses and investments by the 

National Land Fund in accordance with the submission of the Area National Committee. 

(2) Patronage rights and obligations attached to agricultural property confiscated in accordance with 

Article 1 are dissolved on the day of confiscation. In cases suitable for special consideration, the National 

Land Fund will provide compensation. 

(3) The question of debts and claims attached to confiscated properties (Article 1) will be resolved by 

government regulation. Wages, pensions, taxes and other current expenses will be covered by the 

Provisional National Administrator. 

Article 6 

(1) Agricultural property confiscated in accordance with Article 1 is administered until allocation by the 

National Land Fund which is hereby established under the Ministry of Agriculture. The government is 

entrusted to publish the by-laws of this Fund. 

(2) Continuous forest land over 50 hectares in area confiscated in accordance with Article 1 will fall to 

the state. If it is not possible to aggregate the confiscated forest lands with state forests into coherent 

tracts, and if they do not come to 100 hectares, the National Land Fund will allocate them to the 

relevant National Committee. 

Article 7 

(1) From the agricultural property administered by the National Land Fund, land will be allocated as 

follows to persons of Slav nationality: 

a) agricultural labourers and tenant farmers who pay in kind – up to 8 hectares of arable land or up to 12 

hectares of agricultural land in proportion to its productivity; 

b) smallholders – to the extent necessary to bring their currently owned real property up to 8 hectares of 

arable land or up to 12 hectares of agricultural land in proportion to its productivity; 

c) large farming families – to the extent necessary to bring their currently owned real property up to 19 

hectares of arable land or up to 13 hectares of agricultural land in proportion to its productivity; 

d) communes and districts for public works; 

e) building, agricultural, and other co-operatives composed of appropriately entitled applicants as per 

Letters (a), (b), (c), and (f ); 

f ) workers, public and private employees and tradesmen – for the building of their own houses or 

making of gardens up to half a hectare. 

(2) In those districts with a majority of citizens of German nationality and where there are no applicants 

of Czech or other Slav nationality qualified as per Para. 1, Letters (a) to (f ), the land will stay under the 

administration of the National Land Fund to meet the needs of internal relocation. 

(3) Forest land up to 50 hectares, or even up to 100 hectares (Article 6, Para. 2) could be allocated to 

villages and forest co-operatives. This land will be under state supervision. 

318

319 

Documents 

(4) Confiscated buildings, equipment used for agricultural or forest farming, agricultural industrial 

enterprises, orchards, heritage buildings, archives and so on, and also all confiscated properties not given 

to public organisations, could be transferred into the ownership of: 

a) co-operatives created from qualified applicants for purposes of communal use; 

b) in exceptional cases to individuals (recipients) already specified in Para. 1, Letters (a) to (c). 

(5) Any question of whether confiscated property will be allocated to co-operatives or individuals will be 

decided in a similar fashion to that described in Article 9. 

(6) Those persons have a preferential right to allocation that were distinguished and served in the 

national struggle for freedom, specifically soldiers and partisans, ex-political prisoners and deportees and 

their family members and legal inheritors and also farmers whose farms suffered war damage. 

Preferential right must be properly proven. 

Article 8 

Transfer, lease or mortgage of the property allocated in accordance with Article 7 can be carried out only 

with prior consent of the National Land Fund. 

Article 9 

(1) Within the Local National Committee in whose district the confiscated property lies, the applicants 

entitled in accordance with Article 7, Para. 1, Letters (a), (b), (c), (d) and (f ), will elect an Area 

Agricultural Commission consisting of a maximum of 10 members. 

(2) Representatives of Area Agricultural Commissions will elect during the meeting a District 

Agricultural Commission attached to the District National Committee consisting at the most of 10 

members. 

(3) The Area Agricultural Commission will develop a plan for allocation, together with a proposal for 

reimbursement (Article 10) for the allocated property, and submit it to the District Agricultural 

Commission for approval. 

(4) The District Agricultural Commission will examine the proposed allocation plans and proposals for 

reimbursement, and on that basis will develop an allocation plan and schedule of reimbursements for the 

entire district. If there is no disagreement between allocation plans and proposals for reimbursement 

submitted by individual Area Agricultural Commissions, or if they reach agreement, then the district 

allocation plan and schedule of reimbursement, after approval in accordance with Para. 5, are enacted. 

(5) The allocation plan of the District Agricultural Commission, together with the schedule of 

reimbursement, will immediately be submitted to the Provincial National Committee who will pass it on, 

with their report, to the Ministry of Agriculture, who can amend the allocation plan, together with the 

schedule of reimbursement, if important public or national interests were to be put at risk, or if directive 

Article 7, Para. 1, Letters (a) to (f ) were not being heeded. In the case of agricultural produce enterprises 

(Article 7, Para. 4), where it concerns allocation in accordance with Article 7, Para. 4, Letter (b), then the 

Ministry of Agriculture will make the appropriate decision in consultation with the Ministry of Food. 

(6) If the District Agricultural Commission cannot resolve the division between the allocation plans and 

the reimbursement proposals of the Area Agricultural Commissions, and there is no agreement, or if 

there is disagreement between the District Agricultural Commissions of neighbouring districts, then the 

District Agricultural Commission will submit the case to the Provincial National Committee which will 

pass it on, with their report, to the Ministry of Agriculture for a final decision. 

(7) The Ministry of Agriculture and the Provincial National Committee will provide the District 

Agricultural Commission with experts who will assist with the technical process of allocation. 

Article 10 

(1) Proposals for reimbursement are to be devised based on the yield, geographical position, remoteness, 

and level of cultivation of the land (fertilising, seeding, planting) and on the assets and family 

relationships of the recipient: 

a) at least to the extent of the value of one average annual harvest on the proposed tract of land; 

b) at most to the extent of two average annual harvests on the proposed tract of land; 

c) the reimbursement for the allocated buildings is to be limited to between one and three annual rents 

of the allocated building. This rent can in every case be set in kind. 

(2) Reimbursement for allocated live and dead stock and other equipment will be determined in 

accordance with directives which will be drawn up by the Provincial National Committees and approved 

by the Ministry of Agriculture. 

Article 11 

(1) Once fixed, the reimbursement will be paid: 1) in full settlement, at the latest twelve months from the 

taking possession of the allocation, in cash or kind, or 2) in payments in cash or kind, as follows: a) 10% 

payment for land and equipment is to be paid upon taking possession of the allocated land. If proposed by 

the Area Agricultural Commission, submitted previously as part of the allocation plan (Article 9), the 

National Land Fund can postpone the first payment at the most for three years, and b) in exceptional cases

Documents 

of special circumstances, or where it is socially justified, the National Land Fund can, upon submission by 

the Agricultural Commission, excuse payment by the recipient and give appropriate agricultural land 

without payment primarily to people who have first refusal of the allocation (Article 7, Para. 6). 

(2) In cases of special circumstances, and where it is socially justified, the National Land Fund can, upon 

submission by the Agricultural Commission, excuse payment by the recipient and allocate appropriate 

agricultural land without payment primarily to people who have first refusal of the allocation (Article 7, Para. 6). 

Article 12 

Reimbursement is paid by the recipients to the National Land Fund in accordance with the plan published 

by it. This reimbursement will be used to pay the debts and obligations attached to the confiscated 

properties, if these debts and obligations are recognised and assumed, and also for payment for war 

damages and damages inflicted on the property of persons persecuted during the period of occupation for 

national, political or racial reasons, and also for the improvement of agricultural production and for internal 

relocation. If there is any excess in the National Land Fund, it will fall to the state coffers. 

Article 13 

(1) Within the reimbursement set in accordance with Article 10 are included all the expenses and 

payments incurred during confiscations (Article 1), allocation (Article 7) and the recording of the 

transfers of the confiscated property. 

(2) Recording of the allocations into the land registry will be done by the National Land Fund at its 

own expense. 

(3) Transfers of property in accordance with this decree are free of all duty and grants. 

Article 14 

This decree will become law in the Czech, Moravian and Silesian provinces on the day of publication; it 

will be executed by the Ministers of Agriculture, Finance, Justice, Interior and Food. 

Dr. Beneš o.h., Fierlinger o.h., Nosek o.h., Dr. Stránský o.h., Dr. Šrobár o.h., Ďuriš o.h., Majer o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 7 from June 23, 1945. 

14 

1945, July 17, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic 27/1945 Coll., Concerning the Integrated 

Administration of Internal Relocation. 

The government proposes, and with the consent of the Slovak National Council, I decree that: 

Article 1 

By internal relocation we understand the sum of all proposals through which, in accordance with the 

special directive published on this topic, the return of all parts of the Czechoslovak Republic to the 

original Slav population is to be achieved. 

Article 2 

(1) With a view to integrated management and control of internal relocation, we establish a Relocation 

Office with its headquarters in Prague for the Czech, Moravian and Silesian provinces, and a Relocation 

Office with its headquarters in Bratislava for Slovakia. These offices will carry out their activities under 

the Central Management of a Central Commission for Internal Relocation (hereinafter Central 

Commission) 

(2) The actual activities of individual Ministries and other central offices in respect of internal relocation 

as described by special directives are unaffected: they will be carried out in accordance with the directives 

of the Central Commission and the Relocation Offices. 

Article 3 

(1) In charge of each Relocation Office is a Chairman who is named by the President of the Republic 

on the advice of the government. The Chairmen of the Relocation Offices are present at the meetings of 

the Central Commission, and their vote is advisory. 

(2) The composition, organisation and activity of the Relocation Offices will be adjusted in more detail 

by statute, published by the government upon submission by the Central Commission; the Minister of 

the Interior will publish it in the Collection of Laws and Directives. 

Article 4 

(1) The Central Commission is constituted under the Ministry of the Interior. Its Chairman is the 

Minister of the Interior, but he can be represented by an official of his Ministry. Its members are the 

representatives of the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministries of National Defence, Industry, 

320

321 

Documents 

Agriculture, Domestic Trade, the Office for the Protection of Labour and Social Care, the Ministries of 

Finance and Justice and also two representatives of the Slovak National Council. The Central 

Commission elects from among its members a Deputy Chairman of the Commission: if the Chairman is 

Czech, the Deputy is Slovak, and vice versa. The General Secretary of the Central Commission is the 

Representative of the Office of the Prime Minister: his task is to ensure that the Central Commission 

also looks after the interests of those government departments and sectors that are not directly 

represented on the Commission. 

(2) The Central Commission will set out its Procedural Guidelines which will be confirmed by the 

government; in the interim, the Ministry of the Interior will publish Provisional Procedural Guidelines. 

(3) For the work of the Central Commission, the Chairman can call on representatives of other Ministries 

or other persons as expert advisers, as required, especially if this is suggested by the General Secretary. 

Article 5 

(1) On the proposal of the Central Commission the government can transfer the execution of some 

tasks of the Relocation Offices to other public bodies and offices, or create for this purpose special 

offices and instruments. 

(2) All public offices and agencies must, on request, co-operate with the Central Commission and with 

the Relocation Offices and support them effectively in the execution of their task. 

Article 6 

This Decree is valid from the day of its publication, and is valid for the entire territory of the state; it 

will be executed by all members of the government. 

Dr. Beneš o.h., Fierlinger o.h., David o.h., Gottwald o.h., Široký o.h., Dr. Šrámek o.h. 

Ursíny o.h., Gen. Svoboda o.h., Dr. Ripka o.h., Nosek o.h., Dr. Šrobár o.h. 

Dr. Nejedlý o.h., Dr. Stránský o.h., Kopecký o.h., Laušman o.h., Ďuriš o.h., Dr. Pietor o.h., Gen. Hasal o.h., 

Hála o.h., Dr. Šoltész o.h., Dr. Procházka o.h., Majer o.h., Dr. Clementis o.h., also for Minister 

Masaryk, Gen. Dr. Ferjenčík o.h., Lichner o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 13 from July 19, 1945. 

15 

1945, July 20, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic 28/1945 Coll., concerning the Settlement of 

the Agricultural Property of Germans, Hungarians and other Enemies of the State by Czech, Slovak and 

Other Slav farmers. 

The government proposes, and I decree that: 

Article 1 

Agricultural property, confiscated in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Republic of June 21, 

1945, No. 12 Coll., concerning the confiscation and speedy division of the agricultural property of 

Germans, Hungarians, and also traitors and enemies of the Czech and Slovak nation, and which belongs 

to the National Land Fund, if it is not divided in accordance with the decree about confiscation, will be 

settled by allocating the land to qualified applicants (Article 2) from the districts in which there is not 

enough land, or in which there are unsuitable conditions for agriculture. 

Article 2 

(1) To request an allocation of land for purposes of relocation, application can be made by a members of 

the Czech, Slovak or other Slav nations who is loyal to the nation and state and are: 

a) an agricultural labourer paid in kind; 

b) a farmer currently holding up to 13 hectares of agricultural land, provided he hands this land along 

with the relevant buildings over to the National Land Fund; he can do as he wishes with the rest of his 

property; 

c) members of the family of the farmer referred to in letter (b), if they are working farmers and have 

reached the age of 18; 

d) manufacturing agricultural co-operative composed of qualified applicants as listed under (a), (b) or (c); 

e) communes, districts and the state for public purposes; 

f ) other than workers listed under letter (a), public and private employees, tradesmen and socially 

disadvantaged members of independent trades for the building of their own houses or for the creation of 

gardens up to half a hectare. 

(2) The land handed over to the National Land Fund in accordance with Para. 1, Letter (b), will be 

divided under the conditions specified in the Decree of the President of the Republic 12/1945 Coll., or 

in some cases in accordance with the present Decree.

Documents 

(3) Also persons may request allocation of land for the purposes of settlement who have their permanent 

address where the confiscated property lies, and who fulfil the requirements listed in Para. 1, if they will 

promise to carry out all possible reintegration of the land. 

Article 3 

Those persons have a preferential right to allocation that were distinguished and served in the national 

struggle for freedom, most particularly soldiers and partisans, ex-political prisoners and deportees and 

their family members and legal inheritors, and also farmers whose farms suffered war damage. 

Preferential right must be properly proven. 

Article 4 

(1) Qualified applicants will apply to the relevant District Commission for allocation from the Area 

Agricultural Commission. 

(2) The District Agricultural Commission will examine the applications concerning the allocation of 

land for relocation, and will pass them on swiftly to the Provincial National Committee who will submit 

these applications along with their report without delay to the Ministry of Agriculture. 

(3) The Ministry of Agriculture centrally manages the relocation within the framework of the directives 

of the Decree of the President of the Republic of July 17, 1945, No. 27 Coll., concerning the integrated 

management of internal relocations, and allocates the land with regard to the circumstances put forward 

in the application, and with the co-operation of the District Agricultural Commissions and the relevant 

District National Committees, according to need and availability, to qualified 

applicants in these measures: 

a) up to 8 hectares of arable land and up to 12 hectares of agricultural land, according to its productivity; 

b) to large families (at least 3 children), up to 10 hectares of arable land and up to 13 hectares of 

agricultural land according to its productivity, and if possible with the relevant equipment (agricultural 

buildings, livestock and inventory), and if possible consolidated into a single property. 

(4) Large agricultural buildings, machinery and similar ought, for reasons of more appropriate use, to be 

allocated wherever possible into the ownership of co-operatives composed of these recipients. 

(5) The Ministry of Agriculture and the Provincial National Committees will provide the District 

National Commissions with useful agencies to help with the technical work of allocation. 

Article 5 

(1) The recipient is obliged to take possession of the holding on the day that is determined in the 

decision about the allocation of the land. 

(2) Allocated land is transferred on the day of possession into the ownership of the recipient. The 

recipient is obliged to tend the allocated land personally. He can transfer it, rent it or put it to other use 

only in exceptional and specifically justified cases, and only with the agreement of the National Land 

Fund. Allocated land cannot be mortgaged without the permission of the National Land Fund, who can 

permit the mortgage only in cases with special conditions. 

Article 6 

In those districts where present methods of farming and agriculture are not profitable, and where the 

actual conditions demand a reorientation of agricultural processes (mountainous regions and so on), in 

these cases the confiscated land stays under the administration of the National Land Fund pending a 

decision on reorientation of agricultural processes in this specific district. 

Article 7 

(1) Agricultural property will be allocated to new owners in return for reimbursement which will be 

determined according to the yield, geographical position, remoteness and level of cultivation of the land, 

and according to the family situation of the recipient, and in the cases listed in Article 2, Para. 1, Letter 

(b), taking into account the value of the restored land: 

a) at least to the extent of the value of one average annual harvest on the proposed tract of land; 

b) at most to the extent of two average annual harvests on the proposed tract of land. 

(2) The value of the restored land [Article 2, Para. 1, Letter (b)] will be decided in accordance with the 

rules listed in Para. 1 

(3) Reimbursement for allocated buildings is to be limited to between one and three annual rents of the 

allocated building. This rent can in every case be set in kind. The compensation for dead and live stock 

and other equipment will be decided in accordance with the directives which were created by the 

Provincial National Committees and approved by Ministry of Agriculture 

(4) If the recipient receives none of the necessary buildings and equipment along with the allocated land, 

and if he can prove there is no possibility of his buying them from his own resources, the National Land 

Fund can give him a cheap long-term loan. 

(5) The National Land Fund can partly or completely excuse from reimbursement any recipient who has 

turned in the land in accordance with Article 2, Para. 1, Letter (b). 

322

323 

Documents 

Article 8 

(1) Applicants will pay the specified reimbursement (Article 7) in accordance with their economic 

potential: a) in full settlement, at the latest twelve months from taking possession of the allocation, in 

cash or kind, or b) in payments in cash or kind, as follows: 10% payment is to be paid upon taking 

possession of the allocated land. If proposed by the District National Committee (District 

Administrative Commission), in accordance with the report of the Area Agricultural Commission, the 

National Land Fund can postpone the first payment at the most for three years; the final payment is due 

in accordance with the payment plan specified by the National Land Fund at the latest fifteen years 

from the day of taking possession of the allocated property. 

(2) In exceptional cases of special need, or where it is socially justified, the National Land Fund can, 

after examination of the case and with the co-operation of the relevant National Committee and the 

Agricultural Commission, excuse payment by the recipient and give appropriate agricultural land 

without payment primarily to those listed in Article 3. 

Article 9 

The reimbursement is paid by the recipients to the National Land Fund (Article 7), and will be used to 

pay the debts and obligations attached to the confiscated properties, if these debts and obligations are 

recognised and assumed, and also for payment for war damages and damages inflicted on the property of 

persons persecuted during the period of occupation for national, political or racial reasons, and also for 

the improvement of agricultural production and for internal relocation. If there is any excess in the 

National Land Fund, it will fall to the state coffers. 

Article 10 

(1) In the reimbursement determined in accordance with Article 7 are included all expenses and 

payments incurred during the confiscation and allocation of the land, including the transfer of the 

property to the National Land Fund [Article 2, Para. 2, Letter (b)], the train transport of the recipients 

and their families and their inventories to the location of their allocated land, the registration of the 

transfer of the allocated property and through the exchange of the returned property. 

(2) Recording of the allocations in the Land Registry necessary for the implementation of the allocation 

and for the return of the land [Article 2, Para. 1, Letter (b)] will be carried out by 

the National Land Fund. 

(3) Transfers of ownership executed in accordance with this decree and the associated handing over to 

the courts and offices are free from payments, taxes and duty. 

Article 11 

The government is empowered to secure the necessary financial means for the execution 

of internal relocation. 

Article 12 

This decree becomes law in Czech lands on the day of publication; it will be executed by the 

Ministry of Agriculture in consultation with the Ministers of Finance, Interior, Justice, Transport 

and Food. 

Dr. Beneš o.h. 

Fierlinger o.h. 

Nosek o.h., Ďuriš o.h. 

Dr. Šrobár o.h., Gen. Hasal o.h. 

Dr. Stránský o.h., Majer 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 14 from July 26, 1945. 

16 

1945, July 31, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic 38/1945 Coll., Concerning Strict 

Punishment for Looting. 

The government proposes, and after consultation with the Slovak National Council, I decree that: 

Article 1 

Whoever, taking advantage of the exceptional conditions created by war or after the state of war, will 

take for themselves or other unauthorised persons the possessions or chattels of not insignificant value 

belonging to others which are in the buildings, or rooms, or on property deserted by the owner or 

damaged by whatsoever act of war, such as aerial or terrestrial bombardment, will be deemed to 

commit looting, and will be punished for this crime by hard labour from 5 to 10 years. If the 

perpetrator had a weapon, or if the crime was committed by several accomplices, or under

Documents 

circumstances of special danger to the public, or if the perpetrator abused his public post, he will be 

sentenced to hard labour from 10 to 20 years or for life. 

Article 2 

Whoever receives or transfers to himself or to unauthorised persons any property he knows was gained 

through looting will receive the same sentence. 

Article 3 

Decisions concerning crimes listed in Article Article 1 and 2 fall under the jurisdiction of the Legislative 

Court of First Instance. The provisions of Article 338 of the Criminal Code from May 23, 1873, 

No. 119 Imp. code, may be applied in cases that deserve exceptional scrutiny. 

Article 4 

Crimes listed in Article 1 belong to the category of crimes that could justify the declaration of martial 

law if they were to spread dangerously. 

Article 5 

This decree becomes law in the entire state on the day of publication; it will be executed by the 

Ministers of Justice, National Defence and Interior. 



Dr. Stránský o.h., Gen. Svoboda o.h. 

Nosek o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 19 from August 28, 1945. 

17 

1945, August 2, Prague – Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic 33/1945 Coll., concerning 

the Regulation of Czechoslovak State Citizenship of persons of German and 

Hungarian Nationality. 


Article 1 

(1) Czechoslovak State citizens of German and Hungarian nationality who, in accordance with the 

regulations of the foreign occupying power, took Hungarian or German state citizenship, lost their 

Czechoslovak state citizenship on the day this took effect. 

(2) Other state citizens of German and Hungarian nationality lose their Czechoslovak state citizenship 

on the day that this decree passes into law. 

(3) This decree does not apply to Germans and Hungarians who, in the time of increased peril to the 

Republic (Article 18 of the Decree of the President of the Republic from June 19, 1945, No. 16 Coll., 

concerning punishment of Nazi criminals, traitors and their accomplices and concerning special people’s 

courts), registered in an official report as Czechs or Slovaks. 

(4) Czechs, Slovaks and members of other Slavic nations who declared themselves Germans or 

Hungarians during this time because they were forced under pressure or circumstances deserving special 

scrutiny, will not be judged Germans or Hungarians in accordance with the decree, if the Ministry of the 

Interior approves a certificate for them declaring their national reliability. This certificate will be issued 

to them by the relevant District National Committee (District Administrative Commission) after 

examination of all listed facts. 

Article 2 

(1) Persons who fall under the provisions of Article 1 who can prove that they remained loyal to the 

Czechoslovak Republic, never offended against the Czech and Slovak nation, and either actively 

participated in the struggle for freedom, or suffered under Nazi and fascist terror, will retain their 

Czechoslovak state citizenship. 

(2) Application for judgement that Czechoslovak state citizenship is to be retained can be submitted for 

up to 6 months from the effective date of this decree to the local relevant District National Committee 

(District Administrative Commission), or if the applicant lives in a foreign country, at their 

Czechoslovak Consular Office. It will be decided by the Ministry of the Interior following the proposal 

of the Provincial National Committee, in Slovakia by the Slovak National Council. Until the application 

is processed these persons are to be considered Czechoslovak state citizens if their District National 

Committee (District Administrative Commission) or representative office will issue a certificate 

concerning their circumstances as set out in the previous paragraph. 

324

325 

Documents 

(3) Decisions on the retention of Czechoslovak state citizenship for members of Czechoslovak army 

units who are of German or Hungarian nationality are to be taken in the shortest possible time by the 

official authority of the Ministry of the Interior upon the proposal of the Ministry of National Defence. 

Until the official decision they are to be considered Czechoslovak nationals. 

Article 3 

Persons who have lost their Czechoslovak state citizenship under Article 1 can, for 6 months from the day 

that will be set by the ruling of the Ministry of the Interior published in the Collection of Laws and 

Directives, apply to their relevant District National Committee (District Administrative Commission) or 

Consulate Office for its return. This application will be decided at the discretion of the Ministry of the 

Interior upon the proposal of the Provincial National Committee, in Slovakia by the Slovak National 

Council; it must not be approved if the applicant has infringed the duties of a Czechoslovak state citizen. 

If the government directive does not determine otherwise, then even for these cases general regulations 

concerning the acquisition of Czechoslovak state citizenship apply. 

Article 4 

(1) For the purposes of this decree, married women and minors are judged separately. 

(2) Applications in accordance with Article 3 which are made by wives and minors of Czechoslovak 

nationals are to be considered generously. Until the decision these applicants are to be considered 

Czechoslovak nationals. 

Article 5 

Czechs, Slovaks and members of other Slav nations who, during the time of increased peril to the Republic 

(Article 18, Decree of the President of the Republic 16/1945 Coll.), applied for German or Hungarian state 

citizenship even though they were not forced to and there were no special circumstances, lose their 

Czechoslovak state citizenship on the day that this decree comes into effect. 

Article 6 

This decree comes into effect on the day of its publication, and will be implemented by the Minister of the 

Interior in consultation with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and National Defence. 



Masaryk o.h., Gen. Svoboda o.h. 

Nosek o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 17 from August 10, 1945. 

18 

1945, October 25, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic 108/1945 Coll., concerning Confiscation of 

Enemy Property and Funds of National Renewal (excerpt): 


Part I 

Confiscation of enemy property 

Article 1 

Definition of confiscated property 

(1) We hereby confiscate without compensation – if it has not already been done – on behalf of the 

Czechoslovak Republic, all property, fixed and moveable assets, especially also property rights (liens, bonds, 

deposits, and intangible rights) which, on the day of the actual end of the German and Hungarian 

occupation, were, or still are, in the ownership of: 

1. The German Reich, the Kingdom of Hungary, persons of public law, the German Nazi Party, Hungarian 

political parties, and other formations, organisations, businesses, institutions, personal partnerships, funds 

and managed property of these regimes or connected with them, and also other German and Hungarian 

legal entities, or 

2. Physical persons of German or Hungarian nationality with the exception of persons who can prove that 

they stayed loyal to the Czechoslovak Republic, never offended against the Czech and Slovak nation, and 

either physically participated in the struggle for freedom or suffered under Nazi or fascist terror, or 

3. Physical persons who worked actively and intentionally against the state supremacy, independence and 

integrity, democratic/republican state form, security and defence of the Czechoslovak Republic, and who 

incited others, or tried to seduce other persons, to such activity, intentionally supported in whichever way the 

German or Hungarian occupying forces, or who in the time of increased peril to the Republic (Article 18 of

Documents 

the Decree of the President of the Republic of June 19, 1945, No. 16 Coll., concerning punishment of Nazi 

criminals, traitors and their accomplices and concerning special people’s courts) preferred Germanisation or 

Hungarianisation of the territories of the Czechoslovak Republic, or behaved with hostility to the 

Czechoslovak Republic or to the Czech and Slovak nation, and also persons who allowed such activity by 

persons who were administering their property or business. 

(2) Provisions of Para. 1, number 3, also apply to legal entities if it is possible to allocate the guilt for the 

way this business behaved to the physical persons who are the members or shareholders of the property or 

business (capital participants) that represented the legal entity, or if these persons failed to exercise 

appropriate care during its decision-making or their supervision of it. 

(3) All that property is also confiscated which in the period after September 29, 1938, belonged to the 

subjects named in Paras. 1 and 2, and during this decisive period was, in accordance with Para. 1, 

sentence 1, and actually as the case may be still is, in the ownership of those persons in whose hands it 

would not fall to confiscation, except where the putting of this property up for confiscation would not 

follow principles of common decency. 

(4) Whether all the requirements for confiscation are fulfilled in accordance with this decree will be decided 

by the relevant District National Committee. The decision can be delivered by public announcement, even 

when all the requirements of Para. 33 of the government directive of January 13, 1928, No. 8 Coll., 

concerning proceedings taken in matters concerning the activity of political offices (administrative hearings) 

are not fulfilled. The decision of the District National Committee can be appealed at the Provincial 

National Committee (in Slovakia at the relevant agency of the Slovak National Council). The Provincial 

National Committee (in Slovakia the relevant agency of the Slovak National Council) can take over the 

proceedings even while they are in session, and decide the matter in the first instance. If the decision is 

taken in the first instance by the Provincial National Committee (in Slovakia the relevant agency of the 

Slovak National Council) this decision can be appealed at the Ministry of the Interior. The Minister of the 

Interior can, in accordance with this paragraph, adjust this decision process further through directives. 

Article 2 

Exemptions from confiscation and rendering of compensation: 

(1) From confiscation are exempted those chattels of the persons named in Article 1, Para. 1, Numbers 2 

and 3, which are absolutely necessary for sustaining the necessities of life, or for personally carrying on 

the employment of these persons and members of their families (such as clothing, bedding, linen, home 

equipment, food and tools). Details as to the size and extent of this property are given in a directive of 

the government. 

(2) The government can decide by a directive that the property of a certain group of persons who fall 

under the provisions of Article 1 is partly or completely excluded from confiscation. 

(3) Property is not to be confiscated which after September 29, 1938, under pressure of occupation, or 

as a result of national, racial or political persecution, was lost by persons who do not fall under the 

provisions of Article 1. 

(4) During the confiscation of the property of a legal entity there is a right of appropriate compensation 

for the persons who had capital participation in it if they do not fall under the provisions of Article 1, 

Paras. 1 and 2. Details will be regulated by government directive. 

(5) If persons whose property falls to confiscation are co-owners with persons who do not fall under the 

provisions of Article 1, and if their co-ownership/share is more than one half, the entire property will be 

confiscated. To persons not falling under the provisions of Article 1, compensation is due, in this case of 

the same value as was their share, or if that is not possible, then in cash. 

Part II 

[…]a) 

Part III 

[…]b) 

Part IV 

Joint and final provisions 

Article 15 

Proceedings before the Fund. 

For proceedings before the Fund, the relevant government directive 8/1928 Coll., applies. 

Article 16 

Transfer of real estate and deeds of title to the State. 

Transfer to the Czechoslovak state of real estate and deeds that will not be allocated to other persons 

will be registered in the court of the Land Registry in the public record upon the proposal 

326

of the relevant Fund, and if this concerns a property listed in Article 18, and with the proposal of 

Ministry of Health, with reliance on this decree. 

Article 17 

Application to agricultural property. 

This decree does not apply to agricultural property if it was confiscated in accordance with the 

Decree of the President of the Republic from June 21,1945, No. 12 Coll., concerning the 

confiscation and expeditious distribution of the agricultural property of Germans, Hungarians and 

also traitors and enemies of the Czech and Slovak nation, and in accordance with similar rules valid 

in Slovakia. 

Article 18 

Application to property of spas, medical and care institutions. 

(1) The directives of Parts II and III do not apply: 

a) To medical and care institutions; 

b) To spa properties [.]c) 

Article 19 

Criminal provisions. 

(1) Whoever wilfully breaks any provision of this decree or the directive published in accordance with 

it, or who will conspire to disrupt confiscation and the resulting division of confiscated property, will 

be punished – without prejudice to criminal proceedings – by the District National Committee for 

this transgression by a fine of up to one million Crowns, or a prison sentence up to one year, or both. 

In the event that it is impossible to collect the fine, a new custodial sentence of up to one year will be 

allocated in accordance with the scale of the crime. 

(2) The statute of limitations for transgressions listed in Para. I is three years. 

Article 20 

Co-operation of public offices and agencies. 

All public offices and agencies are obliged on demand to co-operate with the Funds of National 

Renewal and support them effectively in the execution of their tasks. 

Article 21 

This Decree is valid from the day of its publication; it will be implemented by all members of the 

government. 

Dr. Beneš o.h., Fierlinger o.h., David, o.h. Gottwald o.h. Široký o.h. Dr. Šrámek o.h. Ursíny o.h. 

Masaryk o.h., Gen. Svoboda o.h., Dr. Ripka v.r, Dr. Procházka o.h., Nosek o.h., 

Dr. Šrobár o.h., Dr. Nejedlý o.h., Dr. Stránský o.h., Kopecký o.h., Laušman o.h., 

Ďuriš o.h., Dr. Pieror o.h., Gen. Hasal o.h., Hála o.h., Dr. Šoltézs o.h., Majer o.h., 

Dr. Clementis o.h., Gen. Dr. Ferjenčík o.h., Lichner o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 48 from October 30, 1945. 

a) Omitted passage concerning so-called Fund of National Renewal 

b) Omitted passage concerning division of confiscated property 

c) Omitted list of medical care and spa institutions 

19 

1945, October 27, Prague – Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic 137/1945 Coll., 

Concerning the Arrest of Persons Who Were Considered Unreliable by the State During the Revolutionary 

Period 


Article 1 

The arrest of persons who were considered unreliable by the state, offices and agencies of the Republic, even 

beyond those cases permitted by law, or the extension of their temporary incarceration longer than the 

appropriate time according to the law, is hereby made legal. These persons have no right to any compensation 

as a result of this arrest or the extension of their temporary custody longer than the time allocated by law. 

Article 2 

Incarceration (temporary custody) in the sense of this decree and other legal judgement does not 

include the concentration of foreign nationals performed by the appropriate agencies in certain places 

327 

Documents

Documents 

for the purpose of their later repatriation. This kind of concentration can be carried on without any 

limitation whatsoever. 

Article 3 

This decree concerns only cases of arrest or extending temporary custody (remand) over the time 

allowed by law which took place before this decree took effect. 

Article 4 

While the Decree of the President of the Republic from June 19, 1945, No. 16 Coll., concerning the 

punishment of Nazi criminals, traitors and their accomplices, and concerning special people’s courts, is 

in effect, we extend the time limit set in Article 3, Constitutional Law of April 9, 1920, No. 293 Coll., 

concerning the protection of freedom of personal, domestic and postal privacy (in accordance with 

Articles 107, 112 and 116 of the Constitutional List) to 8 days. 

Article 5 

This decree becomes active on the 30th day after publication, and is valid in Czech, Moravian and 

Silesian provinces; it will be implemented by the Ministers of Justice and the Interior. 



Nosek o.h., Dr. Stránský o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 57 from November 11, 1945. 

20 

1945, October 27, Prague – Decree of the President of the Republic 138/1945 Coll., Concerning the 

Punishment of some Transgressions against National Honour. 


Article 1 

(1) Whoever in the time of increased peril to the Republic (Article 18, Decree of the President of 

the Republic from June 19, 1945, No. 16 Coll., concerning the punishment of Nazi criminals, 

traitors and their accomplices and concerning special people’s courts) created public nuisance 

through disorderly conduct insulting the national feelings of the Czech and Slovak people, will be 

punished – if it is not a criminal offence – by the District National Committee by imprisonment for 

up to one year, or a fine of one million crowns, or by public chastisement, or by any two or all three 

of the above penalties. 

(2) If the fine was given, and where it is impossible to collect it, a custodial sentence of up to one year 

must be set at the same time according to the degree of guilt. If, beside the fine, a non-custodial 

sentence is also handed, then the non-custodial penalty and the replacement custodial sentence together 

must not exceed one year. 

(3) The directives that are promulgated in this case by the Minister of the Interior are binding on the 

National Committees. 

Article 2 

In the case of a non-custodial sentence, time credit is given for the time that the offender was on 

remand (Constitutional Decree of the President of the Republic October 27, 1945, No. 137 Coll., 

concerning the arrest of persons considered disloyal to the state during the revolutionary period). 

Article 3 

Criminal acts covered by Article 1 will be limited by statute to 6 months. The period of limitation 

commences on the day the offence was committed; for offences committed before this decree came into 

effect, it will be the day it comes into effect. 

Article 4 

This decree becomes legal on the day of publication and is legal only in the Czech, Moravian and 

Silesian provinces, and it will be implemented by the Minister of the Interior. 

Dr. Beneš, o.h., Fierlinger o.h., Nosek o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak State, 1945, Part 57 from November 26, 1945. 

328

21 

1945, December 21, Paris.a) – Agreement on Reparation from Germany, on the Establishment of an Inter- 

Allied Reparation Agency and on the Restitution of Monetary Gold (excerpt). 

Agreement. 

Concerning Reparations from Germany, Establishment of the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency and the 

Restitution of Monetary Gold. 

In the name of the Czechoslovak Republic! 

On December 21, 1945, in Paris, this agreement was concluded: 

The Governments of Albania, the United States of America, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, 

Egypt, France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Greece, India, 

Luxembourg, Norway, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, the Union of South Africa and 

Yugoslavia, in order to obtain an equitable distribution among themselves of the total assets which, in 

accordance with the diplomatic provisions of this Agreement and the provisions agreed upon at 

Potsdam on August 1, 1945 between the Governments of the United States of America, the United 

Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, declared 

to be available as reparation from Germany (hereinafter referred to as German reparation), in order to 

establish an Inter-Allied Reparation Agency, and to settle an equitable procedure 

for the restitution of monetary gold, 

have agreed as follows: 

Part I 

German Reparation 

Article 1 

Shares in reparation 

A. German reparation (exclusive of the funds to be allocated under Article 8 of Part I of this 

Agreement), shall be divided into the following categories: 

Category A, which shall include all forms of German reparation except those included in Category B; 

Category B, which shall include industrial and other capital equipment removed from Germany, and 

merchant ships and inland water transport.. [.]a) 

Article 6 

German external assets 

A. Each Signatory Government shall, under such procedures as it may choose, hold or dispose of 

German enemy assets within its jurisdiction in manners designed to preclude their return to German 

ownership or control and shall charge against its reparation share such assets (net of accrued taxes, liens, 

expenses of administration, other in rem charges against specific items and legitimate contract claims 

against the German former owners of such assets). [.]b) 

I confirm the agreement concerning the reparations from Germany, the establishment of the Inter- 

Allied Reparation Agency, and the restitution of monetary gold, which was concluded at the reparation 

conference in Paris on December 21, 1945, and with which received the assent of the Provisional 

National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic on January 30, 1946.c) 

At Prague Castle, May 17, One Thousand Nine Hundred and Forty-Six. 

President of the Czechoslovak Republic: 

Dr. Edvard Beneš o.h. 

Minister of Foreign Affairs: 

J. Masaryk o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1947, No. 150. 

a) Date and signature of the agreement by the principal powers. 

b) Passages excluded concern the allocation of shares to individual countries and dealing with 

reparations. The Czechoslovak share of total reparations from Germany was 3% in Category A, and 

4.3% in Category B. 

c) The passages concerning the establishment of the Inter-Allied Reparation Agency and restitution of 

monetary gold are excluded. 

d) Czechoslovakia signed this agreement on February 27, 1946. 

329 

Documents

Documents 

22 

1946, March 28, Prague – Constitutional Law 57/1946 Coll., Whereby the Decrees of the President of the 

Republic are Confirmed and Enacted. 

The Provisional National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic has agreed to the following 

constitutional law: 

Article 1 

(1) The Provisional National Assembly confirms and enacts as law the Constitutional Decrees and 

Decrees of the President of the Republic published on the basis of Article 2 of the Constitutional 

Decree of the President of the Republic from October 15, 1940, No. 2 Official Czechoslovak Gazette 

(20/1945 Coll.), concerning the interim exercise of constitutional power, including the present 

constitutional decree if it has not already taken effect. 

(2) All decrees of the President of the Republic are to be considered law from their inception, and 

constitutional decrees will also be considered constitutional laws. 

(3) Territorial and temporal validity of these regulations listed in previous paragraphs 

remains without change. 

Article 2 

We hereby effect and change Article 5, Paras. 1 and 2 of the Constitutional Decree of the President of 

the Republic from August 3, 1944, Article II, Official Czechoslovak Gazette, concerning the 

reestablishment of legal order in the text of the law from December 19, 1945, No. 12 Coll., from the 

year 1946, by which we confirm, add to and change the regulations concerning the renewal of 

constitutional order. 

Article 3 

(1) The Constitutional Decree and the Decrees of the President of the Republic listed in Article 1 will 

be published within eighteen months as an addition to the Collection of the Laws and Directives of the 

Czechoslovak Republic if they have not already been printed in this Collection. 

(2) This constitutional law becomes effective on the day of publication. It will be implemented by all 

members of the government: 

Gottwald o.h., Kopecký o.h. 

Dr. Stránský o.h., Laušman o.h. 

Široký o.h., Ďuriš o.h. 

Dr. Šrámek o.h., Dr. Pietor o.h. 

Ursíny o.h., gen. Hasal o.h. 

Masaryk o.h., Hála o.h. 

Gen. Svoboda o.h., Dr. Šoltész o.h. 

Dr. Ripka o.h., Dr. Procházka o.h. 

Nosek o.h., Majer o.h. 

Dr. Šrobár o.h., Dr. Clementis o.h. 

Dr. Nejedlý o.h., Gen. Dr. Ferjenčík o.h. 

Drtina o.h., Lichner o.h. 



Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1946, Part 28 from April 3, 1946. 

23 

1946, May 8, Prague – Law 115/1946 Coll., on the Legality of Actions Connected with the Struggle for 

Restoration of the Freedom of Czechs and Slovaks. 

The Provisional National Assembly of Czechoslovak Republic has agreed on the following law: 

Article 1 

Actions that occurred between September 30, 1938 and October 28, 1945, with the purpose of assisting 

the struggle for renewal of the freedom of Czechs and Slovaks, or which were directed to just 

retribution for the acts of the occupying forces and their accomplices, are not unlawful even when they 

would be so according to the criminal code in effect at that time. 

Article 2 

(1) Persons convicted for this kind of criminal activity are to be dealt with in accordance with the 

directives on re-opening criminal proceedings. 

330

(2) The relevant court is the court of first instance and, if it does not exist, then the court which would 

now be the appropriate court of first instance if the illegality of the act were not ruled out in accordance 

with Article 1. 

(3) If the action listed in Article 1 is linked with a criminal act for which the accused was convicted as 

part of the same sentence, the court will render new judgement for this other criminal act, taking into 

account the guilty verdict already reached. 

Article 3 

This law takes effect on the day of publication; it will be implemented by the Ministers of Justice and 

National Defence. 



Dr. Drtina o.h. 

Gen. Svoboda o.h. 

Collection of Laws and Directives of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1946, Part 49 from May 17, 1946. 

331 

Documents

Some Presidential Decrees and their Present Legal Status 

(compiled by Vladimír Mikule) 

Expiry 

Amendments 

Binding incidental 

and concomitant regulations 

Publication 

Name of Decree 

The Council of State was abolished 

by Decree No.13/1944 of the 

Official Gazette (promulgated 

as No.2/1945 Coll.) 

Constitutional Decrees Nos. 3/1942 1) 

and 12/1942 of the Official Gazette 

No.1/1940 

Official Gazette 1) 

Constitutional Decree of July 21, 

1940 establishing the Council 

of State as a working assembly 

of the provisional establishment 

of the Czechoslovak Republic 

Expired Oct. 28, 1945 (by order 

of the Provisional National Assembly) 

Constitutional Decree No.3/1945 of 

the Official Gazette (reprinted as 

21/1945 Coll.) 

No.2/1940 Official Gazette 

(reprinted as No.20/1945 

Coll.) 

Constitutional Decree of Oct. 15, 

1940 on the provisional exercise of 

legislative power 

Law No.12/1946 Coll. (corrected 

version No.74/1947 Coll.), Const. Law 

No.72/1947 Coll. 

Govt. order No.31/1945 

No.11/1944 of the Official 

Gazette (prom. as 

No.30/1945 2) ) 

Constitutional Decree of Aug. 3, 

1944 on the restoration 

of the legal order 

332 

Ceased to be valid on liberated 

territory (see Decree No.16/1945 

Coll.) 

No.6/1945 of the Official 

Gazette 1) 

Decree of Feb. 2, 1945, on 

punishment of Nazi criminals, 

traitors and their accomplices and 

on special people’s courts. 

No.5/1945 Coll. 

Decree of May 19, 1945, on the 

invalidity of certain property and 

legal transactions at the time of loss 

of freedom and on the national 

administration of the property assets 

of Germans, Hungarians, traitors and 

other collaborators and certain 

organisations and institutions

Name of Decree Publication Binding incidental 

Amendments Expiry 

and concomitant regulations 

The effect of the decree terminated 

31.12.1948 (Law No.33/1948 Coll.) 

Law No.22/1946 Coll., Laws Nos.149 & 

245/1946 Coll. 3) , Law No.33/1948 Coll. 

(extending its effect) 

Govt. orders Nos.18/1945 

and 217/1946 Coll. 

No.16/1945 

Decree of June 19, 1945 on the 

punishment of Nazi criminals, 

traitors and their accomplices 

and on Special People’s Courts. 

Law No.245/1946 Coll. 

Laws Nos.149 & 245/1946 Coll. 

Govt. order No.40/1945 Coll. 

No.17/1945 Coll. 

Decree of May 19, 1945 on the 

National Court 


Law of the Czech National Council 

No.243/1992 Coll. 

Govt. orders Nos.70/1945, 

116/1949 & 122/1951 Coll. 


No.12/1945 Coll. 

Decree of June 21, 1945 on the 

confiscation and expeditious 

redistribution of the agricultural 

property of Germans, Hungarians, 

and also traitors and enemies of 

the Czech and Slovak nations. 

333 

Law No.18/1950 

Ordinances Nos.72/1945 & 

241/1946 

No.27/1945 Coll. 

Decree of July 17, 1945 on unified 

administration of internal 

settlement 

Govt. orders Nos.11/1949 

&122/1951 Coll. 


No.28/1945 Coll. 

Decree of July 20, 1945 on the 

settlement of the agricultural 

property of Germans, Hungarians 

and other enemies of the state by 

Czech, Slovak and other 

Slav farmers. 

According to the Constitution 

of 1948 it ceased to be 

a constitutional decree (law) 

Ordinances Nos.51/1945, 245/1946, 

77/1948, 119/1949, 40/1950 Govt. 

orders Nos. 76/1948, 116/1949, 

252/1949 Coll. 

Law No. 34/1953 Coll. 

No.33/1945 Coll. 

Constitutional Decree of August 2, 

1945, concerning the regulation of 

Czechoslovak state citizenship of 


nationality

Abolished by Law No.65/1965 Coll. 

No.71/1945 

Decree of Sept. 19, 1945 on the 

compulsory labour of persons 

stripped of Czechoslovak citizenship 

No.122/1945 Coll. 

Decree of Oct. 18, 1945 abolishing 

the German University in Prague 

No.123/1945 Coll. 

Decree of Oct. 18, 1945 abolishing 

the German technical universities in 

Prague and Brno 

Laws Nos. 84/1949, 18 & 182/1950 Coll. 

Law of Czech National Council 

No.243/1992 Coll. 

Govt. orders Nos.45/1945, 106 & 

163/1947, 89/1948, 32 & 116/1949, 

19/1950 Coll., Laws Nos. 31 & 

90/1947 Coll. 

No.108/1945 Coll. 

Decree of Oct. 25, 1945, 

concerning confiscation of enemy 

property and creation of National 

Regeneration Funds 

Abolished by Law No.87/1950 Coll. 

137/1945 Coll. 

Constitutional Decree of Oct. 27, 

1945 concerning the arrest of 

persons who were considered 

unreliable by the state during 

the revolutionary period 

334 


Laws Nos. 123 & 246/1946 Coll. 

Law No.34/1948 Coll. (revision) 

No.138/1945 Coll. 

Decree of Oct. 27, 1945 on the 

punishment of certain offences 

against national honour 

Abolished by Law 87/1950 Coll. 

No.126/1945 Coll. 

Decree of Oct. 27, 1945 on special 

forced labour detachments 

Notes: 1) In the Constitutional Decree No.22/1945 Coll., the government failed to state that it remained in force on the liberated territory and it was therefore published as per Art. III par.1 of the 

Constitutional Law No.57/1946 in the appendix to the Collection of Laws and Orders of 1974. 

2) Constitutional Decree No.11/1944 of the Official Gazette was promulgated as Constitutional Decree No.22/1945 Coll. 

3) After amendment the full text of Decree No.16/1945 Coll., was promulgated as Nos. 23/1946 and 9/1947.

Table referred to on p. 92 

PParliaamenttary electtion results iinn tthe Czechoslovak Republic 1925-1935 

Percentage of votes cast and number of seats gained 

(only parties that gained seats) 

1920 1925 1929 1935 

% vote seats % vote seats % vote seats % vote seats 

Republican Agrarian and Small-Peasant Party 13,6 40 13,7 46 15,0 46 14,3 45 

Czechoslovak Social-Democratic Workers’ Party 25,7 74 8,9 29 13,0 39 12,6 38 

Czechoslovak National Socialist Party 8,1 24 8,6 28 10,4 32 9,2 28 

Czechoslovak People’s Party 7,5 21 9,7 31 8,4 25 7,5 22 

Czechoslovak National Democracy 6,3 19 5,0 14 4,9 15 5,6 17 

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia – – 13,2 41 10,2 30 10,3 30 

335 

Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party 3,8 12 6,9 23 5,7 19 6,9 22 

German Social-Democratic Workers’ Party 11,1 31 5,8 17 6,9 21 3,6 11 

German Christian-Social People’s Party 2,5 9 4,4 13 4,7 14 2,0 6 

German Agrarian Union 3,9 13 8,0 24 5,4 16 1,7 5 

German National Party – 12 3,4 10 2,6 7 – – 

German National-Socialist Workers’ Party – 5 2,4 7 2,8 8 – – 

Sudeten-German Party – – – – – – 15,2 44 

Hungarian and German Social-Democratic Party 1,8 4 – – – – – – 

Hungarian Peasants’ Party 0,4 1 – – – – – – 

Hungarian Christian-Social Party 2,2 5 1,4 4 – 4 – 4

The text of Facing History 

is based on information material produced for teachers under 

the title Odsun-Vertreibung. Transfer Němců z Československa 1947 

(Odsun-Vertreibung. The Transfer of the Germans from 

Czechoslovakia 1947) 

published for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Physical 

Training of the Czech Republic by the SPL – Práce and Albra 

publishing houses. 

Our thanks go to all those who helped in any way towards 

the production of these materials. 

FACING 

HISTORY 


in the Czech provinces, 1848-1948 

Zdeněk Beneš, Václav Kural, editors. 

Zdeněk Beneš, Drahomír Jančík, Jan Kuklík, jr., Eduard Kubů, 

Václav Kural, Robert Kvaček, Václav Pavlíček, Jiří Pešek, 

René Petráš, Zdeněk Radvanovský (et al.), Radovan Suchánek 

Editorial collaboration: Marie Bergmanová 

Selection of photographs: Viktor Šlajchrt 

Graphic layout: Světla Kořánová 

Cover photography: Jaroslav Kvíz 

Lithography: Art D –Graphic Studio Černý 

Printed by: Východočeská tiskarna, Pardubice 

English translation: Czech-In Translations 

Published by: s.r.o., Prague 2002

the nationality of all inhabitants of the czech provinces and ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?