Beneš decrees

The decrees Beneš (in Czech: Benešovy dekrety , German: Beneš-Dekrete , Slovak: Benešove dekréty , Hungarian: Beneš dekrétumok ) is the vernacular manner to call the Presidential decrees of the Republic ( dekrety presidenta republiky ), laws promulgated by the Czechoslovakian government in exile during the Second world war and then, in the absence of ratification by the Parliament dissolves.

Nowadays, they describe in particular the decrees concerning the fate of the German of Sudètes and the Hungarians of Slovakia and became the symbol of the treatment and the expulsion of the Germans following the Second world war.

In fact, they are only during gigantic spoliations which were operated by the nobility and the clergy Austrians in 1620, following the defeat of the white Mountain. Indeed, the noble ones and the Austrian ecclesiastics seized the goods of the Czech middle-classes, creating immense fields, so much so that good number of families of the Austrian nobility (Lichtenstein, Schwarzenberg, Czernin,…) fields as large were adapted as French departments. During three centuries, the intendants who managed these immense fields while making sweat the burnou expropriés Czech polluted the social life of these unhappy country subjected to the Austrian autocracy. The Benes decrees make finally only give the pendulums per hour.

Context

These decrees are signed by the president Edvard Beneš, resigner of its functions on October 5th, 1938 following the Accords of Munich and replaced by Emil Hácha under president of Czechoslovakia before the country does not sink in anarchy (the Slovakia, under the crook of M {{gr.}} Tiso declares his autonomy the October 7th before being reconquered on March 9th, 1939 by the Czech armies) and does not disappear: Slovakia declares her independence on March 14th, 1939 and Reich seizes Bohemia-Moravie transformed into protectorate the March 15th 1939.

All these decrees are ratified by the provisional National Assembly the March 5th 1946 by a constitutional act (57/1946 Sb.). They can be divided into three units:

1940 – 1944
:These decrees are published since London. Their object is mainly to establish a Czechoslovakian government in Exil (including an army) and to ensure the organization of it.
1943 – 1945
:Also published in exile. Their object is to ensure the transition from the capacity in the released zones of the Czechoslovakian territory by the Allies and the organization of the Czechoslovakian government of the Post-war period.
Until October 26th, 1945
: The government is restored and sits at Košice, it includes the forces of resistance (Czechoslovakian National front) with a strong communist quota. But, in the absence of an elected Parliament, the need for resorting to the Presidential decrees of the continuous republic. The decrees are prepared by the government and signed by the president. They treat primarily Nationalization of heavy industry and confiscation of the goods of the collaborator .

List discussed decrees

5/1945 Sb. - Presidential decree of the republic of May 19th, 1945 on the non-validity of certain transactions on movable goods and real estate during the period of not-freedom and concerning the administrative supervision of the goods of the German, Hungarian, treacherous nationals and collaborators of certain organizations and associations ( Dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 19. května 1945 O neplatnosti některých majetkově-právních jednání Z doby nesvobody has O národní správě majetkových hodnot Němců, Maďarů, zrádců has kolaborantů has některých organisací has ústavů )
12/1945 Sb. - Presidential decree of the republic of June 21st, 1945 on the confiscation of the agricultural real goods of the Germans and the Hungarian as traitors and enemies of the nations Czech and Slovak ( Dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 21. června 1945 O konfiskaci has urychleném rozdělení zemědělského majetku Němců, Maďarů, jakož I zrádců has nepřátel českého has slovenského národa )
16/1945 Sb. - Presidential decree of the republic of June 16th, 1945 on the punishment of the Nazi criminals, the traitors and their accomplices and on the extraordinary popular courts of justice ( Dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 19. června 1945 O potrestání nacistických zločinců, zrádců has jejich pomahačů has O mimořádných lidových soudech )
27/1945 Sb. - Presidential decree of the republic of July 17th, 1945 on the centralized administration of the interior settlement ( Dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 17. července 1945 O jednotném řízení vnitřního osídlení )
28/1945 Sb. - Presidential decree of the republic of July 20th, 1945 on the settlement of the grounds of the Germans, Hungarians and other enemies of the State by the Czech, Slovak or Slavic farmers ( Dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 20. července 1945 O osídlení zemědělské půdy Němců, Maďarů has jiných nepřátel státu českými, slovenskými has jinými slovanskými zemědělci )
33/1945 Sb. - Constitutional Decree of the president of the republic of August 2nd, 1945 on the Czechoslovakian citizenship of the people of German or Hungarian nationality ( Ústavní dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 2. srpna 1945 O úpravě československého státního občanství osob národnosti německé maďarské )
108/1945 Sb. - Presidential decree of the republic of October 25th, 1945 on the confiscation of the enemy goods and the funds of national rebuilding ( Dekret presidenta republiky ze dne 25. října 1945 O konfiskaci nepřátelského majetku has Fondech národní obnovy )

Application and exceptions

In the facts, in fact the municipalities ( národní výbor ) are charged to identify the Czechoslovakian citizens of nationality allemandes who are brought together in camps then led by railway convoys towards Germany. The expulsion of the German nationals of Sudètes towards Germany, will be spread out over three years, of 1945 to 1947.

On the whole, they are approximately 2,6 million Germans who moved towards Germany and Austria, which represents between the fifth and the quarter of the total population of Czechoslovakia (because of war, the figures of the total population are not very precise in 1945). On the 3,1 million Germans living on the Czechoslovakian territory pre-war period, one estimates that:

: 2256 million is expelled “in the rules” laid down by the Conférence of Potsdam
: 400000 were expelled in a “wild” way
between 100 and: 300000 fled towards Germany the projection of the Red Army, according to the order of Adolf Hitler of March 20th, 1945
between 300 and: 500000 died under the flags of Wehrmacht

That is not made without bur nor pain, the Czechoslovakian authorities count: 18816 victims during their transfer, is: 5596 homicides: 3411 suicides: 6615 deaths in the concentration camps: 1481 deaths during transport, 705 after transport, 629 while trying to flee and 379 deaths whose cause remained unexplained. According to bilateral work Czech and German historians, it are between nineteen and thirty thousand people who die during displacements of population.

In their application, the decrees see amended. The rule which wants that all the Czechoslovakian citizens of German nationality are expelled know some exceptions:

the Family gathering and the mixed marriages: it is advisable to apply the decrees with a certain humanity and in a country already largely métissé, not to separate the Czech nationals from their couple or parents of German nationality,
the “Spécialiste S”: it is advisable to apply pragmatic the Beneš decrees in manner and to make turn the factories when well even, and especially, if the technical framing were ensured by German nationals; one transitional period is ensured to allow the formation of a Czechoslovakian technical framing,
the too old people to survive a departure: in particular if they are the parents a person who married one or a Czech and whose small children have Czechoslovakian nationality, a subparagraph precise that these people cannot perceive Czechoslovakian government pension and that they are the responsibility of their children or with their own load,
the Antifasciste S: those of the German nationals which took part in the combat against Fascism are authorized to remain on the territory of Czechoslovakia, considering that they served their country. In the facts, those “will be encouraged” to join the German Democratic republic.

For the transitional period (between the publication of the decrees and the end of the expulsion of the Germans of Sudètes), the mixed marriages are prohibited in order to avoid the use of the Phony marriage at patrimonial ends or diversions of the law.

On the whole, it is estimated that: 250000 German nationals remained on the Czechoslovakian territory, under their combat antifascist or of the essential character of their qualification.

War reparations in Europe and Beneš decrees

The Beneš decrees are primarily associated with the transfers of German populations between 1945 and 1947. Even if they do not refer to it directly, its defenders stress that they are in the line of the decided transfers of population or all at least ratified with the Conférence of Potsdam between the July 17th and on August 2nd, 1945 (the orders in Council precede them by little).

A progressive gradation is noted: passing from the confiscation of the goods of the Nazi criminals and “traitors” with that of the German population as a whole, culprit of “a collective” and collectively treated fault of collaborator via the German Left Sudètes, the political party pro-Nazi of Konrad Heinlen.

In Sudètes, at the time of the organized elections on December 4th, 1938, 97% of the German population voted for NSDAP. One could certainly assert that these elections are then far from being objective and democratic, however in the protectorate of Bohemia-Moravie, the party counts a half-million registered voters, that is to say 17% of the German population whereas the average in the remainder of Reich is of 7%.

Another argument, often heard, is that Czechoslovakia abstained from requiring war damagees of Germany (in any event ruined), compensating for the losses undergone with the expropriation and the eviction of its German nationals, Nazis or not.

Finally it would not have all the same to be forgotten that these decrees are only one Juste and healthy return of the things following the dispossessions which had been operated three hundred years plus years at the time of the defeat of the white Mountain. Dispossessions which had been operated with the detriment of the middle-class and the Czech people and with the greatest profit of the Austrian nobility which had hastened to choose managers coming from Germany of the south.

Almost each decree specifies that it exempts to sanctions the antifascists without specifying this definition too much.

And Hungarians?

Punishment of mass of a collective fault, the anger of overcome yesterday and winners of the day falls down only mollement on the Hungarians. Let us recall that following the Agreements of Munich, the Hungary of the admiral Horty seizes the southern third of the Slovakia populated mainly of Hungarian. However contrary to Bohemia-Moravie passed under the yoke Nazi, the Second world war marks for Slovakia one period of independence (the first and only until 1993) and it is not interdict to think that the Slovak ones do not have the same “liability” towards their Hungarian neighbors as the Czechs with Sudètes. In 1948, the expulsion of the Hungarians, already largely inoperative, is officially buried.

Impact on the modern history

The existence of these decrees, by the means of the exploitation which is made by it by the conservative parties of Bavaria and Austria, continuous to pollute the atmosphere of the relations germano-Czech. In the actual position of the things, these decrees were maintained by the Czechoslovakian republics (democratic, socialist or federal) and Czech which followed one another of 1945 our days.

The Czech State not claiming war damagees in overcome Germany, this will have an incidence after the fall of the Communist regime, the new democratic State deciding to restore the goods confiscated in 1948 by the only Communist regime, considering that (legal or not) the Beneš decrees were the fact of a democratically elected government and that it is not necessary “to revise them”. This decision will be disputed by the Germans originating in Sudètes, strong credits politically in Bavaria in particular but will not be reopened by reunified Germany.

The presence of a strong Hungarian minority as Slovakia, on the other hand still feeds the Irrédentisme Hungarian and causes with regular intervals of the skirmishes between the two countries.

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