Talk:Beneš decrees

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[edit] Decree 115

Is there any reason, why the 'real hard' decree 115 from 8th of May 1946 is not at all mentioned? - in it all violence, torture and killing especially against Germans was justified and amnestied even if it took place after the end of WW II. 21:33, 15 May 2006 User:217.10.15.40 (Paul)

Sure. Firstly, it does not belong there, as it was not "enacted by the Czechoslovak government of exile during World War II in absence of Czechoslovak parliament". Secondly, it is not in fact a governmental decree at all, but a standard Act adopted by the Provisional Parliament. Thirdly, it does not justify "all violence, torture and killing especially against Germans", but only those activities (which would otherwise be considered criminal), whose "objective was to contribute to the fight for regaining of freedom of Czechs and Slovaks or were aimed at righteous retaliation for deeds of occupants or their collaborators" - i.e. any inappropriate violence or any other similar excesses were not amnestied and were subject to standard criminal prosecution. Whether or not particular cases were prosecuted in practice is of course another question. Regards (another Paul). 14:13, 3 August 2006 User:80.95.254.1

Another Paul, I think you will not dispute that the objective "to contribute to the fight for regaining of freedom of Czechs and Slovaks or were aimed at righteous retaliation for deeds of occupants or their collaborators" is a wording quite useful for justifying all kinds of acts, probabaly perpetrators subjectively could decide what righteous retalation was, or who a collaborator was, or what constituted the "freedom of Czechs and Slovaks". PS. Please all sign your posts. Str1977 (smile back) 14:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, certainly, there's no controversy in this matter. But frankly, it is always quite hard to find better wording when you have to deal with resistance movements and other stricto sensu "illegal" activities, isn't it? Was Heydrichs' assasination a murder, a terrorism or just and lawful act (note that those soldiers who carried out the killing were in civilian clothes)? Were such people heroes or criminals? Without such Act, many resistance combatants would be open to criminal prosecutions for their activities against Nazis. Nevertheless, I have added the above-mentioned quotation primarily to show that there were certain guidelines for assessing such situations by the police and the courts, based on criteria, which per se could hardly be called unjust - i.e. it simply is not true that "all violence, torture and killing especially against Germans was justified and amnestied". Of course there certainly were rascals and pseudoheroes who, driven by greed or sadism, "boldly" attacked anything German after the end of the War. Of course it is a shame if such people were not prosecuted and condemned. But such actions were always crimes and were always punishable as crimes and were not legalised by this Act. (another) Paul --80.95.254.1 15:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hungarians

Hungarians were also affected by the Benes decrees The article and the links focus on the treatment of ethnic Germans in the former Czechoslowakia, and that's fair as they were the group most seriously affected by the decrees. However, we should not forget about several hundred thousand civic Hungarians who also suffered due to the Benes decrees and the political debates which developed over that in recent years between Hungary on one side and the Czech Republic and Slovakia on the other side. I guess the facts of the removal of Hungarians and corresponding issues should be part of the article about the Benes decrees and perhaps a separate article would be also justified. I write this as somebody might appear in this discussion who is better prepared than me to put together the facts in the most "neutral" possible way. Probably new stages of the debate will evolve and in that case a story on the background in Wikipedia would be great help to readers to understand what will be happening and why.

Hungarians are mentioned once, Feel free to add more information or write standalone article for the topic. Also please use ~~~~ to sign your edits. Pavel Vozenilek 00:37, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] move

this page should be moved to eliminate the windows-1252 char from the title. Plugwash 13:51, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • disagree the name was written that way. there is no problem using special characters, just like in German articles Wikipedia use the "Umlaut" Antares911 21:09, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • The german wikipedia uses utf-8 so thats not really got anything to do with the topic at hand. The only reason you see a letter at that position in the name at all is because of web browsers trying to provide bug for bug compatibility with IE. it does cause problems for inbound interwikis as mentioned at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1679
      • Move for the moment, and revisit when MediaWiki 1.5 goes live. I have just had to put a redirect from Talk:BeneÅ¡ decrees here because somone's browser blew out the original link. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:25, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC) No need to move. Windows-1252 is no longer an issue now 1.5 is with us. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 28 June 2005 06:08 (UTC)
        • agreed, lukilly the developers made sure that windows-1252 chars were converted to the appropriate unicode code points during conversion (something i belive didn't happen back when de was converted). Plugwash 28 June 2005 12:53 (UTC)

[edit] the term is most frequently used

By radical Germans. Xx236 07:53, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Empty link

I have removed:


Please correct the link, if possible. Xx236 10:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] exproriation?

Current text of the article includes this sentence...

"Some of the decrees concerned the exproriation of wartime traitors and collaborators accused of treason but also all Germans and Hungarians regardless of their degree of guilt."

What is meant by "exproriation"? Closest English word is "expropriation" but that usually means taking away of property. "Exportation"? Doesn't make sense. "Expulsion"? That makes sense but it's far from the actual text.

Help?

--Richard 22:14, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's expropriation (going to fix it) - as the article says, the decrees didn't mandate the actual transfer, but "merely" loss of property and citizenship. 89.102.137.191 10:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of this article

I inserted information about Czech decree 76/1948 and Slovak decree 287/1948 which revoked decree No. 33/1945. JKlamo deleted the text with an edit summary indicating that this article was about the Benes decrees only. I restored the text that he deleted.

Here is my rationale...

I agree that the article should be about the Benes decrees only. However, I am assuming that decree No. 33/1945 was one of the Benes decrees. If it was not, then JKlamo is right and the information about the Czech and Slovak decrees does not belong here.

JKlamo also deleted text that asserted that "with two exceptions, 89 of the Benes decreess are still in force". This seems clearly germane to the topic so I restored that text.

--Richard 17:14, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Impact on today's political relations

I must tell that this can not be without comment the problems are there because the artikels are still activ part of the checkh law it is not a law from the past nobody would care about that. It is a scandal that with the Council of Europe existing this laws where not cleansed before they came to the EU that means the human rights are only valid for non Germans. Johann

[edit] Mixed families

The subject of mixed families should be discussed.Xx236 11:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

So... tell us what the article should say. --Richard 14:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't know legal details, but apparently many German members of mixed families weren't expelled.Xx236 07:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Liechtenstein

According to List of unrecognized countries, Liechtenstein is not recognised by, and does not recognize, the Czech Republic and Slovakia due to a feud over the applicability of the Beneš decrees to property owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein. If anyone can find out more about this, it'd fit the article well. Lejman (talk) 23:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Check the source - it is from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. +Hexagon1 (t) 10:17, 13 April 2008 (UTC)