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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
On 27 February 1992, almost 47 years after the end of the Second World War, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of a re-united Germany and President Václav Havel of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic [the ČSFR] signed a Friendship Treaty between their two countries in the Spanish Room of Prague Castle, the residence of the Czechoslovak president. While this treaty could have signalled a new era of Sudeten German-Czech relations, in fact it did not, as some 2,000 protesters who greeted Kohl and Havel with denunciatory placards following the signing made clear. Why not?
1. Vertrag zwischen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Tschechischen und Slowakischen Föderative Republik über gute Nachbarschaft und freundschaftliche Zusammenarbeit; Smlouva mezi ČSFR a SRN a dobrém sousedství přátelské spolupráci. The text of the treaty was published in both Bundesgesetzblatt, pt. II, 1992, p. 294ff. and Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, Bulletin 4 March 1992, 24: pp. 233-244.Google Scholar
2. Lidové noviny, 28 February 1992 and “Schwieriger Anfang; Der Freundschaftvertrag zwischen Bonn und Prag ist unterschrieben-doch viele Probleme sind ungelsst,” Der Spiegel, 2 March 1992, p. 20.Google Scholar
3. The Slovaks have traditionally been more concerned with their own Hungarian minority—some one-half million strong—than with the Sudeten Germans in the Bohemian lands. See Nemec, Ludvík, “Solution of the minorities problem,” in Mamatey, Victor S. and Luža, Radomír, eds, A History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918-1948 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 418. In late May 1993, the President of Slovakia, Michal Kováč, condemned the post-war expulsion of some 170,000 of Slovakia's own former German minority, the Carpathian Germans. Sudetendeutsche Zeitung (the official organ of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft), 4 June 1993. Of course, it was easier for the Slovak government to make this sort of condemnation than for the Czech government, because Carpathian German-Slovak relations are far less politically sensitive than are Sudeten German-Czech relations.Google Scholar
4. Following the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, Czechoslovakia officially became the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (the ČSFR). With the so-called “Velvet Divorce” on 1 January 1993, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic was divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.Google Scholar
5. For a detailed discussion of the meaning of odsun, see Schmidt-Hartmann, Eva, “Menschen oder Nationen? Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus Tschechischer Sicht,” in Benz, Wolfgang, ed., Die Vertreibung der Deutschen aus dem Osten: Ursachen, Ereignisse, Folgen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985), pp. 143–157.Google Scholar
6. Although somewhat underrepresented in Vienna, by 1910, Czech civil servants and politicians were dominant in the Bohemian lands. National dissatisfactions were far removed from any sense of impending doom. See Leff, Carol Skalnik, National Conflict in Czechoslovakia: the making and remaking of a state, 1918-1987 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. On removing the “German threat” in post-1945 Czechoslovakia, see Crane, John O. and Crane, Sylvia, Czechoslovakia: anvil of the Cold War (New York: Praeger, 1991), pp. 247–256; Milan Hauner, “Czechs and Germans over the centuries: a historical review,” East Central Europe 1991, 18(2): pp. 130, 146; Karel Kaplan, The Short March: the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia, trans. C. Hurst & Co. Ltd. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), pp. 19–32; Radomír Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans: a study of Czech-German relations, 1933-1962 (New York: New York University Press, 1964), pp. 267-300; Tomáš Staněk, Odsun Němců z Československa 1945-1947 (Prague: Naše Vojsko, 1991), and Edward Taborsky, “President Edvard Beneš and the Czechoslovak crisis of 1938 and 1948,” in Norman Stone and Eduard Strouhal, eds, Czechoslovakia: crossroads and crises, 1918-1988 (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1989), pp. 120-144.Google Scholar
8. See Torsten Mehlhase, “Erste Bestrebung zur Eingliederung der Flüchtlinge und Vertriebenen in Sachsen-Anhalt 1945 bis 1949 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Sudetendeutschen,” Bohemia 1992 33(2): pp. 338–340.Google Scholar
9. See for example Griffith, William E., The Ostpolitik of the Federal Republic of Germany (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1978), pp. 221–222, on the place of the Sudeten Germans in West German-Czechoslovak negotiations for resumption of diplomatic relations; H. Gordon Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), p. 649, citing Rudé právo from 1968 that the activities of Sudeten German organizations were a major block for improved relations between Bonn and Prague during the Prague Spring.Google Scholar
10. For a hostile, but detailed, description of the history and functions of the Landsmannschaft, see Herde, Georg and Stolze, Alexa, Die Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft: Geschichte, Personen, Hintergründe-Eine kritische Bestandsaufnahme (Cologne: Pahlregenstein Verlag, 1987).Google Scholar
11. The Munich group is not the only Landesgruppe organization. In addition to one in Austria, Landesgruppen have recently been formed in some of the states of the former East Germany, including Brandenburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Thuringia.Google Scholar
12. In response to calls for direct negotiations between the Sudeten Germans and the Czech government at the 44th annual Sudetendeutscher Tag in Nuremberg on 31 May 1993, the Czech Premier Václav Klaus made it clear that the proper negotiating partner for the Czech Republic is the German government, not the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft. See Lidové noviny and Suddeutsche Zeitung, both 1 June 1993.Google Scholar
13. The émigré Czech historian Eva Hartmann made this point in an interview with Libuše Koubská, “Mezi Dachau a Pohorelicemi” [Between Dachau and Pohorelice], Nědelní lidové noviny 3 July 1993: p. 2.Google Scholar
14. Kučera, Jaroslav, “Die rechtliche und soziale Stellung der Deutschen der Tschechoslowakei Ende der 40er und Anfang der 50er Jahre,” Bohemia 1992, 33(2): pp. 322–327. Other recent studies on the Germans in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War include Šarka Hernová, “Němci v ČSR v Letech 1950-1980 (Demografika Charakteristika)” [Germans in the ČSR, 1950-1980: demographic characteristics], Slezský sborník 85/4 (1987): pp. 264-275; Tomáš Staněk, “Němci v českých zemích v první polovine 50. let” [The Germans in the Czech lands during the first half of the 1950s], Slezský sborník 89/3-4 and idem., “Němcká národnostn' skupina v Československu v letech 1947-1986. Stručný prěhled problematikyí [The German nationality group in Czechoslovakia in the years 1947-1986. A brief overview of the problematic], Slezský sborník 1990, 88(2): pp. 81–95.Google Scholar
15. Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, pp. 302–303.Google Scholar
16. Křen, Jan, “Odsun němců ve svetle nových pramenu” [The expulsion of the Germans in light of new sources], Dialog, mesičník pro politiku, hospodárství a kulturu 1-3 (1967): pp. 1–3. This article, along with much of the “unofficial” Czech-language material on the expulsion dating from the Prague Spring through the early 1980s, has been included in Bohumil Černý, Jan Křen, Václav Kural and Milan Otáhal eds, Češi Němci odsun. Diskuse nezávislých historiků [The Czechs, the Germans, the Expulsion. Discussion of the independent historians] (Prague: Academia, 1990), pp. 6-32. See also Hauner's brief overview of the “Sudeten German question” during the Prague Spring in the section, ’The dissidents and the Czech-German question,‘ in his article, “The Czechs and the Germans: a one-thousand-year relationship,” in Dirk Verheyen and Christian Søe, eds, The Germans and Their Neighbors (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), pp. 253-254.Google Scholar
17. Vladimír Blažek, Milan Hübl and Jan Procházka, “Trialog o roce 1945” [Trialog about the year 1945], Host do domu 1968, 5: pp. 22–29; reprinted in Češi Němci, pp. 33–43.Google Scholar
18. For a discussion of the historiography of this period, see Grünwald, Leopold, Wir haben uns selbst aus Europa vertrieben: Tschechische Selbstkritik an der Vertreibung der Sudetendeutschen. Eine Dokumentation (Munich: Verlagshaus Sudetenland, 1985).Google Scholar
19. Dérer's unpublished memoirs, entitled Antifierlinger, comprise three volumes and were written between 1952 and 1961. The original manuscript is in the Archiv Národního muzea, Prague. Extracts appeared in Právo lidu, the exile newspaper of the Czechoslovak Social Democrats, in 1985.Google Scholar
20. Danubius [Ján Mlynárik], “Tézy o vysídlení československých Němcov” [Theses on the expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia], Svědectví 1978, 57: pp. 105–122; reprinted in Češi Němci, pp. 55–90. A German-language version of the Danubius article, “Thesen zur Aussiedlung der Deutschen aus der Tschechoslowakei 1945-1947,” appears in both the appendix of Grünwald, Wir haben uns selbst vertreiben, pp. 145-149 and in Habel, Fritz Peter, Dokumente zur Sudetenfrage, 2nd edn (Munich: Langen Muller, 1984), pp. 405-409. Mlynárik made some of the same arguments in briefer form in a more recent English-language article, “The nationality question in Czechoslovakia and the 1938 Munich Agreement,” in Czechoslovakia: crossroads and crises, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar
21. Following the publication of the “Danubius” article, Mlynárik was arrested and imprisoned for 10 months. In the face of international pressure, the Czechoslovak government permitted him to emigrate to West Germany in 1982.Google Scholar
22. See “Tribuna Svédectví” [Svědectví Tribune], Svědectví 1979-1980, pp. 57–63.Google Scholar
23. Bohemus was the work of six academics from Prague: Tomáš Brod, Jiří Doležal, Milan Otáhal, Petr Pithart, Miloš Pojar, and Petr Příhoda. The Bohemus article appeared in several West German publications in addition to “Slovo o odsunu” [A word on the expulsion], Právo lidu 1 (1980). It was reprinted in Češi Němci as “Stanovisko k odsunu Němců z Československa” [Point of view on the expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia], pp. 179–202. See comments on the article from a wide range of readers in Právo lidu 3 (1980). A German-language version of the article has been reprinted in the appendix of Grünwald, Wir haben uns selbst vertrieben, pp. 87–104. The most important articles to appear in Czechoslovakia on Bohemus are contained in the samizdat, “K dějinám česko-německých vztahu. Sborník” [On the history of Czech-German relations. A collection.] (Prague, 1980).Google Scholar
24. See for example “Sudetští němci a my: Stanovisko českých historiků [We and the Sudeten Germans: the point of view of Czech historians], Národní osvobození, 13 August 1991.Google Scholar
25. On the attitude of many Czechoslovak Communist intellectuals, see Schmidt-Hartmann, “Menschen oder Nationen?,” p. 145.Google Scholar
26. On Král, see Skilling, H. Gordon, “The muse of history-1984: history, historians and politics in Czechoslovakia,” Cross Currents: a yearbook of Central European culture 3 (1984): pp. 34–35. Concerning Krái's attitude toward the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, see for example the foreword to Die Deutschen in der Tschechoslowakei, 1933-1947: Dokumenten-Sammlung (Prague: Československá Akademie Véd, 1964), p. 7ff.Google Scholar
27. Luža, Transfer, a book whose title clearly reflects the viewpoint of its author, has probably been the most influential English-language book on this topic. Ordinarily at odds with the former Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Luža found a point of agreement in defense of the expulsion. See Nemec, “Solution of the minorities problem,” pp. 416–427. The term “transfer,” reflecting the language of the Potsdam Protocol, has also been used by those non-Czech authors sympathetic to the position of the Czechoslovak, now Czech, government. Among the most recent examples is Crane, Czechoslovakia: anvil of the Cold War. Alfred de Zayas, Nemesis at Potsdam: the expulsion of the Germans from the East, 3rd edn, revised (University of Nebraska Press, 1988), is one of the few English-language publication sympathetic to the Sudeten German expellees.Google Scholar
28. These books are legion. See for example Birke, Ernst and Oberdorfer, Kurt, eds, Das bšhmische Staatsrecht in den deutsch-tschechischen Auseinandersetzung des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Marburg/Lahn: N. G. Elwert-Verlag, 1960) and Kurt Glaser, Czecho-Slovakia: a critical history (Caldwell, ID: Caxton, 1961). Some more recent work by Sudeten German historians, particularly in the popular press, repeats this interpretation, including Oskar Bose and Rolf-Josef Eibricht, ed., Die Sudetendeutschen: eine Volksgruppe im Herzen Europas (Munich: Langen Muller, 1989).Google Scholar
29. On the political role of the Sudeten Germans in West Germany during the early post-war era, see Lemberg, Eugen and Edding, Friedrich, eds, Die Vertriebenen in Westdeutschland: ihre Eingliederung und ihr Einfluss auf Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Politik und Geistesleben 3 vol. (Kiel: Hirt, 1959). For the later period, see Richard Eberle, “The Sudetendeutsche in West German politics, 1945-1973” (PhD dissertation, University of Utah, 1986).Google Scholar
30. See for example excerpts from the speech of the Christian socialist Premier of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, at the 44th annual Sudetendeutscher Tag in Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 4 June 1993. See also Stares, Paul B., ed., The New Germany and the New Europe (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1992), p. 148.Google Scholar
31. Many Sudeten German Social Democrats were associated with the Seliger-Gemeinde in Stuttgart, an organization dedicated to making known the history of the Sudeten German workers' movement. The late Adolf Hasenšhrl, long-time leader of this organization, was also an SPD deputy to the Landestag in Baaden-Würtemburg.Google Scholar
32. Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 20 December 1991.Google Scholar
33. Ibid., 2 November 1990.Google Scholar
34. This appears to reflect the general consensus of the Czech public. See for example Czech Foreign Minister Josef Zieleniec's comments in response to Landsmannschaft demands making clear that Prague had no intention of returning property claimed by Sudeten Germans: “Tschechien: Stilles Grauen,” Der Spiegel, 14 June 1993, p. 168. See also “Sudetští Němci a my,” Národní osvobození 13 August 1991.Google Scholar
35. “Majetek zabavený po válce se Němcům vracet nebude” [German property seized after the War will not be returned], Mladá fronta dnes 9 March 1995.Google Scholar
36. Havel had already distanced himself from defenders of the expulsion by the early 1980s. See Grünwald, Wir haben uns selbst vertrieben, p. 42, citing Mlynárik.Google Scholar
37. See discussion, including reaction in the ČSFR, in Hauner in both “Czechs and Germans over the centuries,” pp. 129, 147, 150 and “The Czechs and the Germans,” p. 255. See also Stares, The New Germany, p. 148 and “Schwieriger Anfang,” Der Spiegel, p. 23.Google Scholar
38. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28 February 1992, quoted in Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 6 March 1992.Google Scholar
39. Disagreement between Bonn and Prague on the complex legal issue of “invalidity ab initio” of the Munich Treaty is not new. In the prolonged negotiations which preceded the treaty of 11 December 1973 establishing normal diplomatic relations between Czechoslovakia and West Germany, the question of “invalidity ab initio” was simply left open. See Griffith, Ostpolitik, pp. 121–122, 221-223; Snowden, J. K., The German Question 1945-1973: continuity in change (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975), pp. 275-370; and Lawrence L. Whetten, Germany's Ostpolitik: relations between the Federal Republic and the Warsaw Pact countries (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 17, 19, 121, 169–171.Google Scholar
40. Svobodné slovo, 20 January 1992.Google Scholar
41. Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 3 April 1992.Google Scholar
42. Ibid., 4 June 1993.Google Scholar
43. “Das geht nicht,” Der Spiegel, p. 23.Google Scholar
44. Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 3 April 1992.Google Scholar
45. Ibid., 6 March 1992, quoting Czech émigré journalist Ota Filip.Google Scholar
46. Lidová demokracie, 23 May 1992.Google Scholar
47. “Das geht nicht,” Der Spiegel, p. 23; see also Kronenzeitung (Vienna), 27 February 1992, and Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 6 March 1992.Google Scholar
48. See for example Mlynárik, “The nationality question in Czechoslovakia,” p. 99; Skilling, Czechoslovakia's Interrupted Revolution, pp. 649, 671, 685, and Snowden, The German Question, p. 371.Google Scholar
49. Lidová demokracie, 23 May 1992.Google Scholar
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51. Ibid. Google Scholar
52. See the section in Hauner entitled ’What the average Czech thinks of the Germans,‘ in both “Czechs and Germans over the centuries,” pp. 146–148 and “The Czechs and the Germans,” pp. 255-256. For a discussion of joint Czech-Sudeten German youth activities in a speech by Peter Pawli, the head of the Sudetendeutschen Jugend, see Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 4 June 1993.Google Scholar
53. Many Czechs distrust Sudeten German—especially Landsmannschaft—motives vis-à-vis their country. They remain, however, curious about the Sudeten Germans, which has led to a plethora of articles on the subject in Czech newspapers. See for example Zbynék Petrácek, “Bez tabu a omezen': S Berndem Possletem o prioritách Sudetoněmeckého landsmansaftu” [Without tabu or limits: Bernd Posselt on the priorities of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft], Respekt, 1-7 February 1993, p. 9, and Libuše Koubská, Jaroslav Šonka, and Viktor Vondra, “Kdo jsi v Sudetech narodil …” [Who was born in the Sudeten lands …], Nědelní lidové noviny, 6 February 1993, pp. 1, 3.Google Scholar
54. Suddeutsche Zeitung, 10 March 1993.Google Scholar
55. See for example ibid., 21 January and 10 March 1993; “Das geht nicht,” Der Spiegel, p. 22.Google Scholar
56. “Das geht nicht,” Der Spiegel, p. 22. This point of view is not limited to the residents of the Czech Republic. See similar comments by Hartmann, “Mezi Dachau a Pohorelice,” p. 2.Google Scholar
57. “Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft-Pressestelle,” p. 43. Sudetendeutscher Tag, Munich 1992, 7 June 1992.Google Scholar
58. Suddeutsche Zeitung, 3 June 1993 and “Tschechien,” Der Spiegel, p. 168.Google Scholar
59. Among the more controversial organizations to emerge representing Sudeten Germans on Czech soil is the splinter Democratic Party of the Sudetenland (DSS/DPS), founded in Pilsen on 19 November 1989. The DDS has called for the annulment of the Benes decrees. In January 1993, its chairman, Jaroslav Blühmel, left the Czech Republic by way of Germany to seek political asylum in Paraguay due to alleged threats and physical attacks against his person. Suddeutsche Zeitung, 25 January 1993. For the party's aims, see the lengthy interview by Vladimír Mlynář, with the group's spokesman, Lubomír Duda, “Blühmel z Plzně do Paraguaye: Demokratická strana Sudety se distancuje od svého prědsedy' [Blühmel from Pilsen to Paraguay: the Sudeten Democratic Party distances itself from its chair], Respekt, 1-7 February 1993, p. 4. See also the controversy between Professor Ferdinand Seibt, the head of the Collegium Carolinum, and members of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft: for example, “Urteile aus Hass und Unverstand. Ferdinand Seibts Attacken gegen das Sudetendeutschtum,” Sudetendeutsche Zeitun, 11 March 1994; “Dr. von Lodgman und Ferdinand Seibt,” Sudetendeutsche Zeitung, 18 March 1994; and “Česko-německé dějiny bez předsudků. Sudetoněmecké sdřuzeni chce odvolat profesora Seibta ze společné komise” [Czech-German history without prejudice. Sudeten German organization wants to recall Professor Seibt from Joint Commission], Lidové noviny, 26 March 1994.Google Scholar
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61. Suddeutsche Zeitung, 31 March 1993.Google Scholar
62. Ibid., 13 January and 31 March 1993.Google Scholar
63. Ibid., 31 March 1993. Among those who reject this analogy is Josef Zieleniec, Foreign Minister in the Klaus government. Ibid., 2 June 1993.Google Scholar
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65. Urban, Jan, “Europe's darkest vision: an unsentimental reading of the past invokes a grim scenario for the continent's future,” Washington Post, C1, 11 October 1992. The concept of Czechoslovakia as the “keystone” of a democratic Central European arch dates from the inter-war era. See Robert W. Seton-Watson, “Czechoslovakia in its European setting,” Slavonic Review, June 1936, 15(43): p. 6.Google Scholar