Archive: History | Czech-German relations Czech-German relations

EU human rights court rules Czech state denied Kinský fair trial in property restitution case

10-02-2012 15:41 | Jan Richter

František Oldřich Kinský, photo: CTK The European Court of Human Rights denounced the Czech state for having denied a fair trial to František Oldřich Kinský, an Austrian aristocrat who sued the country over his property claims. The court said that Mr Kinský, who passed away nearly three years ago, had been subjected to abusive treatment by the Czech authorities when he sued to get back family property worth around 40 billion crowns. More

Svitavy – the birthplace of Oskar Schindler

19-10-2011 15:36 | Jan Richter

Svitavy You are not very likely to wander into Svitavy by chance. Located on both the major road and railway line connecting Moravia and eastern Bohemia, for most people Svitavy is just a name on their itinerary. But if you do come and take a closer look, you’ll find a little town proud of its past and working for a better future. Once an important town for Moravia’s textile industry, re-populated after the expulsion of Svitavy’s German speaking inhabitants, it only recently showed its pride in perhaps its most famous native personality – Oskar Schindler. More

A. J. P. Taylor: faith in socialist Czechoslovakia

08-10-2011 02:01 | David Vaughan

A. J. P. Taylor A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) was one of the best-known and most influential British historians of the 20th century. He is remembered in particular for his provocative left-wing political views and his conviction that German history made the country uniquely inclined towards aggression and expansionism. This made him an ardent opponent of attempts to rebuild Germany’s economy after the war, and a strong supporter of Czechoslovakia’s growing alliance with the Soviet Union. In July 1946, just after elections which saw the Communists emerge as the strongest single party, Taylor visited Czechoslovakia. More

Czechs and Bavarians celebrate historic anniversary of railway re-opening

02-06-2011 15:52 | Sarah Borufka

Železná Ruda train station For many decades, a train station located right on the Czech-German border was a symbol for the division between Germany and communist Czechoslovakia. The train station once connected a Bavarian and a Czech town that both carried the same name in Czech - Železná Ruda. After World War II, it was defunct and even set to be demolished. Its re-opening in 1991 was one of the most significant events in Czech-Bavarian history after the Velvet Revolution. Now, both towns are once again collaborating – on a celebration of the twenty-year-anniversary of the train station re-opening. More

In the footsteps of their father: The journey of Mary and George Jaksch

17-05-2011 13:48 | Sarah Borufka

Wenzel Jaksch In 1939, the chairman of the German Social Democratic Workers Party in the Czechoslovak Republic, Wenzel Jaksch, saw himself forced to escape his native land after it was invaded by Germany – staying would have put him, who opposed the growing influence of the Nazis in Sudeten-German politics, in grave danger. Wenzel Jaksch successfully escaped to London, via the Beskydy Mountains and Poland. He later shared his amazing story – and based on his written account, his children, George and Mary Jaksch, have set out for a pilgrimage in their father’s footsteps, over 70 years later. More

New documentary opens up sensitive chapter in country's post-war history

06-05-2011 15:43 | Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Czech Television In the run-up to the 66th anniversary of the end of WWII Czech public television featured a documentary throwing more light on events that have received little publicity in the past – the atrocities committed on German civilians in post-war Czechoslovakia. The subject has been avoided for years, but film director David Vondráček says Czechs need to hear about what happened and face up to events they may not be proud of. More

September 1938: last-minute appeals for moderation as Hitler builds upforces on the Czech border

09-04-2011 02:01 | David Vaughan

Wilhelm Sebekowsky This week we continue our look into the dramatic events in Czechoslovakia just before World War Two. By the summer of 1938, Hitler’s Germany was demanding nothing less than the immediate annexation of the entire Sudetenland – all parts of Bohemia and Moravia with a German speaking majority. The Sudeten German Party had made big gains among German speakers in local elections earlier that year, and the Nazi rhetoric of their leaders was unambiguous. More

The battle for the airwaves breaks out

02-04-2011 | David Vaughan

Joseph Goebbels In the last couple of weeks we have looked at the growing tensions in Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 1930s, as pressure from Nazi Germany grew. The period leading up to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, when Britain and France gave Hitler the green light to annex vast areas of Czechoslovakia, is extremely well documented in the Czech Radio archives. The archives also reveal that this was one of the first international diplomatic crises to be played out on the airwaves. Through radio, the Munich crisis became a battle of international propaganda and public opinion, with greater immediacy than ever seen before. More

Rising tensions in the Sudetenland

26-03-2011 02:01 | David Vaughan

“Hello, hello! Prague, Czechoslovakia calling. Good evening ladies and gentlemen”: Radio Prague welcomes listeners to its English programmes back in 1937. The tone may be a little more formal, but it is not so different from today. Yet much has changed since the troubled times of the later 1930s. Nazi Germany was breathing down Czechoslovakia’s neck and tensions in the mainly German-speaking Sudetenland were rising rapidly. The young British historian Hugh Seton Watson was in Czechoslovakia in September that year, attending an international summer school for students from across Central Europe. Talking to Radio Prague, he was far from optimistic about the country’s future. More

Executing justice in the retributions after WWII

07-11-2010 02:01 | Chris Johnstone

Czechoslovakia was one of the first victims of the Nazis, with the march into the Sudetenland in I938 followed by the occupation of the rest of the country in March 1939 and an increasingly oppressive regime for most of the population. The backlash at the end of WWII was harsh and violent. And that backlash against the Nazi occupiers, Sudeten Germans and Czechs believed to have collaborated in some way is the subject of US historian Benjamin Frommer’s book “National Cleansing: Retribution against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia.” More

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