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

Chapter VII The Transfer and its Legal Aspects
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
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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