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Current AffairsAnniversary of Velvet Revolution marked by anti-government demonstrations
On Thursday, November 17th, the Czech Republic marked 22 years since the
start of the Velvet Revolution as well as the 72nd anniversary of the
events of November 1939 which resulted in the closure of all Czech
universities by the Nazis and reprisals against students and intellectuals.
But many Czechs used the holiday to voice their discontent with the current
government policies. More
From the ArchivesA bizarre speech by an ailing president
The wartime president of occupied Bohemia and Moravia, Emil Hácha, is one
of the saddest figures of Czech twentieth century history. An elderly
academic, he only agreed reluctantly to become head of state after Edvard
Benes resigned over the Munich Agreement in 1938. He made the tragic
mistake of remaining in office when Hitler marched into the country six
months later. Hácha’s hopes of preserving at least some of his
country’s independence were gradually worn down, and as his health
failed, he eventually became nothing but a puppet of the Gestapo. More
From the ArchivesThe nurse who treated the Führer
During the wartime occupation, German-language broadcasts from Prague were
absorbed into the radio network of Nazi Germany, the so-called
“Reichssender”. A number of archive recordings in German survive from
the time. Most vivid and chilling among them are the long lists of names
broadcast each day of Czechs arrested and executed. But there are also some
propaganda curiosities. In June 1941, Prague’s German programme
interviewed a nurse. She was living and working in the city, and remembered
with great nostalgia one particular patient who had come into her care.
This is how the broadcast began: More
From the ArchivesOccupation and betrayal
Sixty-nine years ago this week, on March 14 1939, the Czechoslovak
President Emil Hácha spoke to the nation. He had just returned from
Berlin, where Hitler had given him a simple ultimatum: face either
occupation or destruction. Hácha chose occupation: More
From the ArchivesAfter Munich: Czechoslovakia left to her fate
In recent weeks, I’ve tried to capture something of the tense atmosphere
of the time leading up to the Munich Agreement of September 30 1938, when
the British and French Prime Ministers Chamberlain and Daladier allowed
Hitler to carve up Czechoslovakia and march unopposed into the Sudetenland.
The agreement left the country as a fragment of its former self; not only
Germany, but also Hungary and Poland, claimed large chunks of
Czechoslovakia’s borderlands. Here is how Radio Prague reported on the
final border agreement, reached some weeks after Munich was signed. The
scale of the loss is huge. More
From the ArchivesWarnings of Hitler's ambitions go unheeded
We quite often hear it said that in the run-up to World War Two, no-one
quite realized the scale of the threat that Nazi Germany posed in Europe.
When Hitler set his eyes on Czechoslovakia, there were plenty of
politicians in Western Europe who really seemed to believe him, when he
said that the Czech borderlands, the so-called Sudetenland, were his
“last territorial claim”. But Czech Radio’s archives show only too
clearly, that here in Prague there were also plenty of people who were only
too aware of the worldwide menace that Hitler posed. As Britain and France
pursued their policy of appeasement towards Germany, these were voices
that, tragically, remained unheard. More
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