From 1918 to 1938, after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, more than 3 million ethnic Germans were living in what became the Czech lands of the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. Ethnic Germans had lived in Bohemia, a part of the Holy Roman Empire, since the 14th century (and in some areas from at least the 12th century), mostly in the border regions of Sudetenland. They were called Sudeten Germans since the beginning of the 20th century; the name was derived from the Sudeten (Czech: Sudety) Mountains. Many German ethnics of Bohemian, Moravian or Silesian origin prefer the expressions German Bohemians (Deutschböhmen), German Moravians (Deutschmährer) or Silesians to avoid to be associated with German nationalistic tendencies among many Sudeten German institutions. Another German ethnic group, the Carpathian Germans, lived in the territory of modern Slovakia.
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The end of World War I, in 1918, brought about the breakup of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire into its historical particles. One of them being Czech kingdom, forming western part of newly created Czechoslovakia. They insisted on the traditional boundaries of the Kingdom of Bohemia and Moravia, according to Uti possidetis juris. This meant that the new Czech state would have defensible mountain boundaries with Germany, but also that the highly industrialized settlement areas of 3 million Sudeten ethnic Germans would be separated from Austria and put under Czech control.
After the Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) was proclaimed on 28 October 1918, the Sudeten Germans, claiming the right to self-determination according to the 10th of President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, demanded that their homeland areas remain with the Austrian State, which by then had been reduced to the Republic of German Austria. They relied on peaceful opposition to the occupation of the Sudetenland by the Czech military, a process that started on 31 October 1918 and was completed on 28 January 1919. Fighting and bloody attacks took place only sporadically, resulting in the deaths of a few dozen Germans and Czechs.
On 4 March 1919, almost the entire Sudeten German population peacefully demonstrated for their right of self-determination. These demonstrations were accompanied by a one-day general strike on the part of the Germans. The German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic, which was the largest party at the time, was responsible for the demonstration initiative, but it was supported by the bourgeois German parties. These mass demonstrations were put down by the Czech military, involving 54 deaths and 84 wounded.[1]
The Treaty of St. Germain of 10 September 1919 confirmed the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia. The new Czechoslovak state regarded ethnic Germans as a minority. Nevertheless, some 90 percent lived in territories in which they represented 90 percent or more of the population.
In 1921, the population of multi-ethnic Czechoslovakia comprised 6.6 million Czechs, 3.2 million Germans, two million Slovaks, 0.7 million Hungarians, half a million Ruthenians (Rusyns), 300,000 Jews, and 100,000 Poles, as well as Gypsies, Croats and other ethnic groups. The Germans represented one-third of the population of the Czech lands, and about 23.4 percent of the population of the republic (13.6 million).
The Sudetenland possessed huge chemical works and lignite mines, as well as textile, china, and glass factories. To the west, a triangle of historic ethnic German settlement surrounding the town Cheb (Eger in German) was most active in pan-German nationalism. The Bohemian Forest extended along the Bavarian frontier to the poor agricultural areas of southern Bohemia.
Moravia contained patches of ethnic German settlement to the north and south. More characteristic were the German "language islands", towns inhabited by ethnic German minorities and surrounded by Czechs. Extreme German nationalism was never typical of this area. The ethnic German nationalism of the coal-mining region of southern Silesia, 40.5 percent German, was restrained by fear of competition from industry in Germany.
Not all ethnic Germans lived in isolated and well-defined areas; because of historical development, Czechs and Germans were mixed in many places, and many of each group had at least partial knowledge of second languages. Since the second half of the 19th century, Czechs and Germans had created separate cultural, educational, political and economic institutions which were kept (by both sides) isolated from each other. This separation continued until the end of WWII.
Sudeten German nationalist sentiment ran high during the early years of the republic (their representatives wished and tried to join Austria, Germany or at least obtain as much autonomy rights as possible). The constitution of 1920 was drafted without Sudeten German representation, and the group declined to participate in the election of the president. Sudeten German political parties pursued an "obstructionist" (or negativist) policy in the Czechoslovak parliament. In 1926, however, Chancellor Gustav Stresemann of Germany, adopting a policy of rapprochement with the West, advised the Sudeten Germans to cooperate actively with the Czechoslovak government. In consequence, most Sudeten German parties (including the German Agrarian Party, the German Social Democratic Party, and the German Christian Socialist People's Party) changed their policy from negativism to activism, and several German politicians accepted cabinet posts.
At a party conference in Teplitz/Teplice in 1919, the provincial social democratic parties of Bohemia, Moravia and Sudeten-Silesia united to form the Deutsche Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei (DSAP). They elected Josef Seliger as chairman. After Seliger's untimely death in 1920, Ludwig Czech became party chairman, who was succeeded in 1938 by Wenzel Jaksch.
Already in 1936 Jaksch, together with Hans Schütz of the German Christian Social People's Party (Deutsche Christlich-Soziale Volkspartei) and Gustav Hacker of the Bund der Landwirte (Farmer's Federation), formed the movement of the Jungaktivisten (Young Activists). They sought agreement with the Czechoslovak government on a policy that could withstand the Nazi onslaught from within and from outside Czechoslovakia. At simultaneous mass rallies in Tetschen-Bodenbach/Děčín, Saaz/Žatec and Olešnice v Orlických horách/Gießhübl im Adlergebirge on April 26, 1936, they demanded equal opportunities in civil service for Germans, financial assistance for German businesses, official acceptance of the German language for public servants in the Sudetenland, and measures to reduce unemployment in the "Sudetenland". (At the time, one in three was unemployed in the "Sudetenland" compared to one in five in the rest of the country.) Improving the quality of life of the Sudeten Germans was not the only motivation of the Jungaktivists. For Jaksch and his social democratic compatriots, it was a question of survival after a possible Nazi takeover. Of some 80,000 social democrats in Czechoslovakia, only about 5,000 managed to flee the Nazis. The rest were incarcerated and many of them executed. Many of those who survived Nazi persecution were later expelled together with other ethnic Germans on the basis of the so-called Beneš decrees.
By 1929 only a small number of Sudeten German deputies, most of them members of the German National Party (propertied classes) and the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei), remained in opposition to the Czechoslovak government. Nationalist sentiment flourished, however, among Sudeten German youths, who were organized in a variety of organizations, such as the older Deutsche Turnverband and Schutzvereine, the Kameradschaftsbund, the Nazi Volkssport (1929), and the Bereitschaft.
Early policies of the Czechoslovak government, intended to correct social injustice and effect a moderate redistribution of wealth, had fallen more heavily on the German population than on other citizens. In 1919 the government confiscated one-fifth of each individual's holdings in paper currency. Those Germans constituting the wealthiest element in the Czech lands were most affected.
The Land Control Act brought the expropriation of vast estates, many belonging to German nobility or large estate owners. Land was allotted primarily to Czech peasants, often landless, who constituted the majority of the agricultural population. Only 4.5 percent of all land allotted by January 1937 was received by Sudeten Germans, whose protests were expressed in countless petitions.
According to the 1920 constitution, German minority rights were to be protected; their educational and cultural institutions were to be preserved in proportion to the population. Local hostilities were engendered, however, by policies intended to protect the security of the Czechoslovak state: border forestland, considered the most ancient Sudeten German national territory, was expropriated for security reasons. Czech soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats were stationed in areas formerly inhabited only by Germans.
Minority laws were most often applied to create new Czech schools in German districts, sometimes only for civil servants who had relocated to the area. Government contracts in the area were frequently carried out by Czech companies. The use of the Czech language in the German-speaking regions was actively promoted, which led, among other incidents, to a "sign war" between the Czech Hikers Club (KČT) and local Germans in the Krkonoše. Sudeten Germans, owning numerous subsidized local theatres, were required to open them to the Czech minority one night a week.
Sudeten German industry, highly dependent on foreign trade and having close financial links with Germany, suffered badly during the Depression, particularly when banks in Germany failed in 1931. Czechs, whose industry was concentrated on the production of essential domestic items, suffered less. By the mid-1930s, unemployment in the Sudetenland was at about five times the level as that in the Czech lands. Tensions between the two groups resulted.
Relations between Czechs and Germans suffered further when Sudeten Germans were forced to turn to the Czechoslovak government and the small loans bank (Živnostenská banka) for assistance. These authorities often made the hiring of Czechs in proportion to their numbers in the population a condition for aid. Czech workmen, dispatched by the government to engage in public works projects and border fortification in Sudeten German territories, were resented by local populations.
The Sudeten German nationalists, particularly the Nazis, expanded their activities during the Depression years. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. The Czechoslovak government prepared to suppress the Sudeten Nazi Party. In the Autumn of 1933, the Sudeten Nazis dissolved their organization, and the German Nationals were pressured to do likewise. The government expelled German Nationals and Sudeten Nazis from local government positions. The Sudeten German population was indignant, especially in nationalist strongholds like Egerland.
On 1 October 1933, Konrad Henlein with his deputy Karl Hermann Frank, aided by other members of the Kameradschaftsbund, a youth organization of mystical orientation, created a new political organization. The Sudeten German Home Front (Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront) professed loyalty to the Czechoslovak state but championed decentralization. It absorbed most former German Nationals and Sudeten Nazis.
Czechoslovakian Chamber of deputies 1920-1935 - German and German-Hungarian parties or lists[2][3]
| Party/List | seats 1920 | seats 1925 | seats 1929 | seats 1935 | votes 1935 |
| Sudeten German Party | - | - | - | 44 | 1.256.010 |
| German National Party | - | 10 | 7 | - | - |
| German National Socialist Workers Party | 15 | 17 | 8 | - | - |
| German Social Democratic Workers Party | 31 | 17 | 21 | 11 | 300.406 |
| German Christian Social People's Party | 7 | 13 | 14 | 6 | 163.666 |
| German Union of Farmers | 11 | 24 | - | 5 | 142.775 |
| Hungarian Parties and Sudeten German Electoral Bloc | 9 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 292.847 |
| United German Parties | 6 | - | 16 | - | - |
| Total (out of 300 seats) | 79 | 85 | 75 | 75 |
In 1935 the Sudeten German Home Front became the Sudeten German Party (Sudetendeutsche Partei) (SdP) and embarked on an active propaganda campaign. In the May election, the SdP won more than 60% of the Sudeten German vote. The German Agrarians, Christian Socialists, and Social Democrats each lost approximately one-half of their following. The SdP became the fulcrum of German nationalist forces. The party represented itself as striving for a just settlement of Sudeten German claims within the framework of Czechoslovak democracy. Henlein, however, maintained secret contact with Nazi Germany and received material aid from Berlin. The SdP endorsed the idea of a Führer and mimicked Nazi methods with banners, slogans, and uniformed troops. Concessions offered by the Czechoslovak government, including the installation of exclusively Sudeten German officials in Sudeten German areas and possible participation of the SdP in the cabinet, were rejected. By 1937 most SdP leaders supported Hitler's pan-German objectives.
On 13 March 1938, the Third Reich annexed Austria, a "union" known as the Anschluss. Immediately thereafter many Sudeten Germans threw their support behind Henlein. On 22 March, the German Agrarian Party, led by Gustav Hacker, fused with the SdP. German Christian Socialists in Czechoslovakia suspended their activities on 24 March; their deputies and senators entered the SdP parliamentary club. Only the Social Democrats continued to champion democratic freedom.
Konrad Henlein met with Hitler in Berlin on 28 March 1938 and instructed to raise demands unacceptable to the Czechoslovak government. On 24 April, the SdP demanded complete autonomy for the Sudetenland and freedom to profess Nazi ideology. If Henlein's demands had been granted, the Sudetenland would have been in a position to align itself with Nazi Germany.
As the political situation worsened, the security in Sudetenland deteriorated. The region became the site of small-scale clashes between young SdP followers (equipped with arms smuggled from Germany) and police and border forces. In some places the regular army was called in to pacify the situation. Nazi German Propaganda accused the Czech government and Czechs of atrocities on innocent Germans.
On 20 May, Czechoslovakia initiated a so-called "partial mobilization" (literally "special military precaution") in response to rumours of German troop movements. The army had moved into positions on the border. The Western powers tried to pacify the situation. The SdP, instructed to push towards war, however, escalated the situation with more protests and violence.
With the help of special Nazi forces, the Sudetendeutsche Freikorps (paramilitary groups trained in Germany by SS-instructors) took over some border areas and committed many crimes: they killed more than 110 Czechs (mostly soldiers and policemen) and kidnapped over 2,020 Czechoslovak citizens (including German anti-fascists), taking them to Nazi Germany.[5]
In August, UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sent Lord Runciman, a faithful appeaser,[6] to Czechoslovakia to see if he could obtain a settlement between the Czechoslovak government and the Germans in the Sudetenland. His mission failed because the Sudeten German Party refused all conciliating proposals (on Hitler's command).[7][8][9][10]
Runciman reported the following to the British government regarding Czech policy towards the German minority in the preceding decades.[11]:
| “ | Czech officials and Czech police, speaking little or no German, were appointed in large numbers to purely German districts; Czech agricultural colonists were encouraged to settle on land confiscated under the Land Reform in the middle of German populations; for the children of these Czech invaders Czech schools were built on a large scale; there is a very general belief that Czech firms were favoured as against German firms in the allocation of State contracts and that the State provided work and relief for Czechs more readily than for Germans. I believe these complaints to be in the main justified. Even as late as the time of my Mission, I could find no readiness on the part of the Czechoslovak Government to remedy them on anything like an adequate scale... the feeling among the Sudeten Germans until about three or four years ago was one of hopelessness. But the rise of Nazi Germany gave them new hope. I regard their turning for help towards their kinsmen and their eventual desire to join the Reich as a natural development in the circumstances. | ” |
Britain and France then forced the Czechoslovak government to cede the Sudetenland to Germany on 21 September. The Munich Agreement (signed on 29 September) only confirmed the decision and the negotiated details.
As a result, Bohemia and Moravia lost about 38% of their combined area, as well as about 3.25 million Germans and approximately 250,000 Czechs to Germany. Some 250,000 Germans remained on the Czech side of the border, which later became part of the Reich by the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under German governors and the German Army. Almost all the Germans in these Czech territories were subsequently granted German citizenship, while most of the Germans in Slovakia obtained citizenship of the Slovak state.
With the establishment of German rule, hundreds of thousands of Czechs who (under the policy of Czechification) had moved into the Sudetenland after 1919 left the area, some willingly. They were, however, permitted to take away their possessions and to legally sell their houses and land. A few, however, remained.[12]
In elections held on 4 December 1938, 97.32% of the adult population in Sudetenland voted for the NSDAP (most of the rest were only the Czechs allowed to vote as well). About half a million Sudeten Germans joined the Nazi Party (17.34% of the German population in the Sudetenland (the average in Nazi Germany was 7.85%). Because of their knowledge of the Czech language, many Sudeten Germans were employed in the administration of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well as in the Nazi oppressive machinery such as the [[Gestapo). The most notable was Karl Hermann Frank: the SS and Police general and Secretary of State in the Protectorate.
During the World War II, German men in Slovakia usually served in the Slovak army, but more than 7,000 were members of paramilitary squads (Freiwillige Schutzstaffeln) and almost 2,000 volunteers joined the Waffen-SS. After the beginning of the Slovak National Uprising in late 1944, most of the young Germans in Slovakia were drafted in the German army, either with the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS. The very young and elderly were organized in Heimatschutz, an equivalent of the Volkssturm in Germany. The Nazis ordered some of them to take action against the partisans; others participated in deportation of Slovak Jews.[13] The Nazis evacuated about 120,000 Germans (mostly women and children) to the Sudetenland and Protectorate.[5]
In the aftermath of WWII, when the Czechoslovak state was restored, the government expelled the majority of ethnic Germans, in the belief that their behavior had been a major cause of the war and subsequent destruction. In the months directly following the end of the war, "wild" expulsions happened from May till August 1945. Several Czechoslovak statesmen encouraged such expulsions by polemical speeches. Generally local authorities ordered the expulsions, which armed volunteers carried out. In some cases the regular army initiated or assisted such expulsions.[14] Several thousand Germans were murdered during the expulsion, and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence of becoming refugees.
The regular transfer of ethnic nationals among nations, authorized according the Potsdam Conference, proceeded from 25 January 1946 till October 1946. An estimated 1.6 million ethnic Germans were deported from Czechoslovakia to the American zone of what would become West Germany. An estimated 800,000 were deported to the Soviet zone (in what would become East Germany).[15] Estimates of casualties related to this expulsion range between 20,000 and 200,000 people, depending on source.[16] Casualties included primarily violent deaths and suicides, rape, deaths in internment camps[16] and natural causes.[17]
About 244,000 Germans were allowed to remain in Czechoslovakia, but many Germans who initially stayed later emigrated to West Germany. Many German refugees from Czechoslovakia are represented by the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft. In the 2001 census, 39,106 people in the Czech Republic[18] and 5,405 people in the Slovak Republic[19] claimed German ethnicity.
ISBN 3-921332-97-4.
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