Czechoslovakia during the Second world war

The Czechoslovakia during the Second world war covers, essentially, the period located between the March 15th 1939 at the May 8th 1945. March 15th, 1939, the German troops invade the Bohemia and the Moravie. The young person Czechoslovakia is then burst for one 6 years period. On a side, the “Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravie” is almost annexed to the Third Reich, and other, the Slovakia is a country independent, satellite of the Nazi Germany which is not occupied by the German troops.

Czechoslovakia before war

Czechoslovakia is born from the cutting-up of the Austria-Hungary enterriné by the treated Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer at the conclusion of the First World War (See Histoire of the Czech Republic). According to the statistics of 1921, 13 613 172 inhabitants live on the territory of the republic divided into:

51% of German Czechs
23,4% of of Sudètes
14% Slovak
5,5% of Hungarian
3,4% of Ruthène S, Ukrainians and Russian
1,3% of German-speaking Jews
1,4% of other minorities, of which Polish, Rroms, etc

From the linguistic point of view, only Czech and the Slovak one are recognized like official languages. The other minorities can use their languages in the relationship with the administrations only in the districts where they represent more than 20% of the population.

The first elections proceed the April 18th 1920 and, until the German annexation of 1938-1939, the populations of Czechoslovakia will be invited to take part in the various polls by respecting the calendar envisaged by the constitution. The nationalist tensions strongly mark the political life.

The January 24th 1924, France and Czechoslovakia sign a treaty of alliance.

The opposition between the Germans and the Czechs is latent throughout the Années 1920 and intensifies in the Années 1930. The German of Sudètes, initially irredentists, constitute a German Parti Sudètes ( Sudetendeutsche Partei - SdP) directed by Konrad Henlein which claims, with the support of the Nazi Germany, fastening with the Third Reich and amplifies its requirements gradually. The crisis bursts following the Anschluss of Austria and Reich in 1938. It is then obvious that the next requirement of Hitler will be the reunification with Sudètes.

In February 1938, Hitler implies in a public short speech that the problem of Sudètes would be solved only by fastening in Reich of the areas where the Germans are majority. The tension goes up to Czechoslovakia where SdP disallows the various proposals of the president Edvard Beneš. September 16th, the government prohibits SdP.

Agreements of Munich

In 1938, none the allied great powers of Czechoslovakia (France and the United Kingdom) wishes a conflict in Europe and a conference meets in Munich to solve the territorial claims of Reich to the detriment of Czechoslovakia. On September 29th and 30th, the leaders of Germany, of Italy, of England and France, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier, meet in Munich. The September 30th, the participants sign the Accords of Munich, in conformity with the German claims, which envisage fastening in Germany of the areas inhabited mainly by the Germans and the retrocession of part of Silesia in Poland (906 km ² - 258.000 inhabitants).

President Beneš is constrained to accept this plan, gesture which causes gigantic demonstrations in Prague and in many Czech cities. The October 5th, Beneš resigns and is not long in leaving the country. The chief of the government, the general Jan Syrový then tries to establish a close cooperation with Germany.

Czechoslovakia loses especially its military defenses. The equivalent of the Line Maginot having been built including one great part with the margins sudètes of the country, it is found from now on with the hands of Reich. Without this line of defense, the independence of the country is more theoretical than real; it depends entirely on goodwill Nazi and the western powers which guaranteed its borders during the agreements of Munich.

In front of the separatist pushes which appear as Slovakia and subcarpatic Russia, the National Assembly approves the autonomy of these two areas the November 19th 1938. The Communist party plunges in clandestinity at the end of 1938 and its leaders leave for the USSR.

Under the pressure Nazi and the crook of M^gr Tiso, the independence of the Slovakia is proclaimed the March 14th 1939 in Bratislava. The March 15th in the morning, the armies of Reich, violating deliberately the agreements make six months front in Munich, invade and occupy the remainder of Bohemia and of Moravie and establish a protectorate there. The president Emil Hácha does not give to the army the order to resist.

England and France begin the mobilization of their troops even if no concrete action is taken then. It is the invasion of Poland by Hitler, more than that of Czechoslovakia, which marks the beginning of the Second world war.

The Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravie

German occupation

The statute of the Protectorat is governed by a decree of Hitler of March 16th, 1939. The Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravie does not have no clean representation abroad and its army under the control of the government can have that a role of auxiliary. In each province, the authority is exerted by a Oberlandrat . Only one party is authorized, the National alliance , that the Germans make vote by plebiscite to 99% of the voices in May 1939, not justifying the existence of a Parliament. With the head of Protectorate, the president and the government do not have real capacities. The capacity is between the hands of a Reichsprotektor (Protective of Reich) and the administration is held in hand by the Secretary of State of Protectorate, Karl Hermann Frank. The various German police services like the Sicherheitsdienst or the Gestapo operate on the whole of the territory of Protectorate and are interested in the Czech political opponents and the many German political refugees who could not escape before March 15th, 1939.

The first months which follow the installation of Protectorate, the German occupation is relatively soft. The Germans endeavor to gain the workmen whose work their is necessary and reserve repression for the intellectuals to which the release of the second world war could give some hope.

October 28th, 1939, at the time of the birthday of the independence of Czechoslovakia, of great demonstrations take place to protest against the occupation and, during the confrontations with the police force, a student, Jan Opletal, are wounded mortally by a German policeman. The German occupying forces then take pretext of the demonstrations of students started by the advertisement of died of Opletal to close the universities. Last nine leaders of the studied movement are shot and many other students sent in concentration camps in Germany. State education is entrusted to a convinced collaborator, colonel Moravec.

Alfons Mucha dies shortly after a interrogation by Gestapo in July 1939.

Finding Konstantin von Neurath too lenient, Adolf Hitler names Reinhard Heydrich temporary (Statthalter) of this one on September 24th, 1941. In the facts, von Neurath does not have any more any capacity. As of its arrival in Prague, Heydrich hardens the German occupation. Its first gesture is to make condemn to dead the Prime Minister Alois Elias, of which it had not had of cease to ask the execution. Between on September 27th and on November 29th, it makes shoot more than four hundred Czechs. Gestapo is increasingly active and it will make disappear more than four thousand opponents or resistant. Many intellectuals are carried out: Vladislav Vančura in 1942 and Julius Fučík in 1943.

Concurrently to its policy of terror, Heydrich also tries to attract itself the sympathy of the " saine" part; population, by increasing the food intakes and while fighting against the black-market.

Racial persecutions

The Czechoslovakian law, following in that the Austro-Hungarian example of before the First World War, recognizes the Citoyenneté (by Czechoslovakian definition) and the Nationalité: Czech, Slovak, German, Jewish, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian, etc At the time of the invasion of the country by the Nazis, the administration thus has precise lists which will help the occupant in his lethal work of racial discrimination. They will also be useful, post-war period, to implement the expulsion of the German of Sudètes within the framework of the Décrets Beneš.

Persecution of the Jews

Dice the first days of protectorate, the Lois of Nuremberg on the statute of the Juif S are applied by the Reichsprotektor Von Neurath. the Jews are excluded from the Czech company by a whole series of regulation of the German occupation. They must carry particular badges, their freedom of circulation is limited, their food intakes are reduced, they do not have the right to take part in events cultural or sporting and the children cannot go to school.

In one second stage, the goods of the Jews are confiscated, and the Jews are gradually off-set in the Concentration camp of Theresienstadt in Bohemia. It is about a camp presented by the Nazis like a model Jewish colony. On the 141 184 Jews which forward there, half comes Protectorate, the other is mainly made up old men coming from Germany and Austria from which much dies on the spot. The main part of the Czech deportees are then redirected towards the death camp of Auschwitz.

On the whole, according to a German report/ratio, at end 1942,69 677 Jews of Protectorate were off-set, and there remained nothing any more but 15 about it; 550. At the end of the war, there remained nothing any more but 6 about it; 550 out of the camps. For the majority, they were members mixed couples.

Persecution of the Gypsies

Czechoslovakia had adopted, since 1927, a law against the Tzigane S nomads and an indentity card different from that of the other Czech citizens had delivered to them. The October 10th 1941, Reinhard Heydrich decides to the evacuation Gypsies of Bohemia-Moravie. In fact, they are concentrated in two camps: Lety in Bohemia and Hodonín in Moravie. Towards the end of 1942, Heinrich Himmler issues that according to their racial classifications, a certain number of Gypsies are authorized with living, the different one were to be sterilized and other deportees with Auschwitz, i.e. exterminated. Finally between 22 000 and 23 000 Gypsies of Germany, from Austria, of Protectorate, from Poland, from Belgium, from the Netherlands and the north of France arrived at Birkenau where a special section their is reserved.

Czech external Resistance

The government in exile of London

Edvard Beneš resigned of its position of president of the first Czech republic on October 5th, 1938, after the Accords of Munich and the annexation of Sudètes by the Germans. With other emigrants, it tries to make admit by the western powers the idea of a Gouvernement in exile, but on the one hand, the emigrants are not all of agreement between them, and on the other hand, France and the United Kingdom which signed the agreements of Munich refuse the idea of Beneš to restore the Czechoslovakian republic. When the Second world war bursts, a Czechoslovakian National council, made up in France, has more success: a free-Czechoslovakian treaty signed the October 2nd 1939 allows the reconstitution of the Czechoslovakian army on the French soil without however the full recognition of the government in exile being obtained. This National council then issues the mobilization of the Czechs and the Slovak civilians, members of the Foreign legion and old of the international Brigades.

Units of the first Czechoslovakian division of infantry take share with the battle of France, in May - June 1940. Czechoslovakian pilots are also engaged in a certain number of French squadrons. The east, the Polish government allows the formation of a Czechoslovakian unit ordered by the general Ludvík Svoboda. With the projection of the German troops, this Czechoslovakian unit ebbs towards the occupied territories by the Red Army . These soldiers remain a long time in Soviet camps, but after the opening of the hostilities between Germany and the USSR, they are reconstituted in units and fight again against Reich as from March 1943.

The July 9th 1940, after the defeat of France, the Czechoslovakian National council decides to form a provisional governmental structure with Beneš as president, Monseigneur Jan Šrámek as head of government and Jan Masaryk with the Foreign affairs. This government in exile is recognized by the British government the July 18th 1940, by the USSR in the current of the summer 1941 and by the United States the next winter. It is only in 1942 that the whole of the allies denounce the Accords of Munich and thus recognize continuity between the first Czechoslovakian republic and the presidency of Beneš.

Before even as the allies retroactively null and void the agreements of Munich make, Beneš profited from a rare legitimacy, since not only incipient Czech interior resistance, but also Alois Eliáš, Prime Minister in exercise in Prague, and, at least until 1940, president Hácha recognize his authority. This legitimacy from which Beneš profited personally is transferred to the government from London. Thanks to the logistic support of the British, an active collaboration between the government of London and interior resistance are maintained during the years of war. The most known action of Czechoslovakian Resistance, the attack against Reinhard Heydrich, known under the name of Operation Anthropoïde, is a fruit of this collaboration.

In December 1943, the government in exile concludes an agreement with the the USSR. By maintaining friendly relations, Beneš hopes to dissuade the Soviets to seize the capacity post-war period. It offers to the Communists exiled to enter his government, going rather far in the concessions: nationalization of heavy industry and establishment of popular committees at the end of the war. In March 1945, it gives ministry-keys to the Communists exiled in Moscow.

Czechoslovakia in the coalition antihitlérienne

In September 1941, the USSR accepts a military convention which allows the Czechoslovakian formation of units on the Soviet ground.

During years 1941-42, they are especially the aviators based into Large-Betagne who take share with the combat. The three escadrilles of hunting Czechoslovakian are credited with the destruction of 200 enemy apparatuses. Starting from June 6th, 1944, they take part in the cover of the Bataille of Normandy and in the Opération Market Garden. The 311e Czechoslovakian flotilla of bombardment carries out 149 raids on Germany between 1940 and 1942 and takes part in the fight against the maritime blockade.

The 11th Czechoslovakian battalion of infantry which had fought at the sides of the Poles and had made a success of a exfiltration towards the Middle East, faces into 1941 the French troops of the Régime of Vichy and takes part then in the battle of Tobrouk. The battalion is then integrated into the autonomous armor-plated brigade to which one entrusts after the Unloading the blocking of the German garrison of Dunkirk. Many Czechoslovakian also fights in units of the free France, in North Africa. Many takes part in the Résistance in all the countries of Europe, in particular in Yugoslavia and the USSR where they form entirely autonomous units. In the middle of 1944, the Germans move in Italy of the members of the army of the Protectorate which they consider not very sure. A considerable part of them joined Italian Resistance.

To the east, on the Russian face, the 1st Czechoslovakian autonomous squadron fights battle for the first time on March 8th, 1943 to Sokolovo, close to Kharkiv. In spring 1944, one starts to organize the first Czechoslovakian army corps in the USSR.

Czech interior resistance

One can distinguish four components from Czech Resistance:

the political Center ( Politické ústředí , PÚ) consists of collaborators of Beneš, under the control of Prokop Drtina. The PÚ is almost completely destroyed by the arrests of November 1939 and, thereafter, it is directed by younger politicians.
the Défense of the Nation ( Obrana národa , ONE) is especially made up officers of active or reserve.
We will remain faithful ( Petiční výbor Věrni zůstaneme , PVVZ, of the name of the launched petition in May 1938 by the representatives of the Czech culture) gathers social democrats and intellectuals of left in partnership with trade unions and youth movements.
the Czech Communist party (KSČ) whose leaders took refuge in Moscow after the agreements of Munich in September 1938 and who has plunged in clandestinity for this time remains relatively weak until 1943.

Resistance not-Communist is linked as of spring 1940 to form the Central management of Resistance (Ústřední výbor odboje domácího, ÚVOD). The ÚVOD passes gradually from a work of organization to the diffusion of leaflets and from a clandestine press and to the collection of political or military information, sent in London, but also in Moscow.

After the attack of the USSR by the German troops, in June 1941, the groups associated in the ÚVOD start a bringing together with the KSČ, but consecutive effective repression with the attack against Heydrich marks a pause in the process of unification.

Interior Resistance has evil to recover from this wave of repression and it is only towards the end of the war that it will be restored completely. Starting from December 12th, 1943, the alliance signed by Beneš, between Czechoslovakia and the USSR facilitates the unification of interior Resistance. The Communists are largely represented in the " The Council of Trois" (R3) which is affirmed at the end of the war.

The communist Resistance, directed of Moscow by Klement Gottwald, and Rudolf Slánský, is animated on the spot by militants like Jan Sverma, Jaromír Dolanský, Antonin Novotný, Josef Smrkovský. Much of them is carried out or off-set (thus of the future president Antonín Zápotocký).

The Slovakia of 1939 to 1945

Creation of a Slovakia independent

After the agreements of Munich, the Slovakia acquires her autonomy. Jozef Tiso, a more known prètre under the name of “Monseigneur Tiso” and leader of a Slovak nationalist party, the Slovak Popular party of Hlinka is the Prime Minister for the autonomous Slovak government. In March 1939, the action of the German agents and the Slovak separatists leads to an interior crisis and a declaration of independence of the Slovakia whom the Czechoslovakian government of Prague tries to solve by an armed intervention on March 9th, 1939. Jozef Tiso, president of the Slovak self government, is reversed. Right before the invasion of Czechoslovakia, on March 15th, 1939 and the incorporation of Bohemian and Moravie in Third Reich in the form of a Protectorate, Hitler invites Tiso in Berlin and presses it to proclaim the independence of Slovakia or else, Slovakia could be divided between the Poland and the Hungary. Tiso then convenes the Parliament called the Diet of the Slovaque country which votes independence on March 14th. Tiso becomes first leading new republic.

The shortly after the agreements of Munich, Hungary had recovered the subcarpatic Ruthénie. This transfer of territory had been officialized, on November 2nd, 1938, by the “first arbitration of Vienna”. It is precisely starting from Ruthénie subcarpatic that Hungary attacks Slovakia on March 23rd, 1939 and recovers 1697 km ² territory in the south of the countries populated by 70 000 inhabitants, mainly Hungarian. The relations between Hungary and Slovakia never will be really standardized.

Slovakia will be always very dependant on the Nazi Germany. A " treaty of protection " signed in Munich on March 23rd, 1939, to Germany the Slovak policy in the fields subordinates formally economic, military and diplomatic. This treaty will lead Slovakia to join the forces of the axis and to enter in war against Poland, the USSR and to even declare the war in Great Britain and the United States, but on the other hand, except for a spit of land located at the German border, Slovakia will never be occupied by the German troops.

The Slovakia of Monseigneur Tiso

85% of the 2 650 000 inhabitants of the new republic are Slovak, the 15% remainder making up of Hungarian, Jews, Germans and Rroms. 50% of the population live agriculture. The capital, Bratislava comple more 120 000 inhabitants.

According to the constitution of 1939, president (Jozef Tiso) is with the report heading, the Parliament called Diète of the Slovak Republic is theoretically elected for five years, but no election will never take place. A Council of State holds place of Upper House. The executive consists of a government of eight ministers.

The Slovak Republic of Monseigneur Tiso is a totalitarian State and supporter of corporatism according to the terms of Michel Laran. The Communists describe it as “clerical-fascist”. In fact, the Slovak nationalism of this time is very strongly tinted Catholicism. Its two great figures, Hlinka, died in 1938, and Tiso are catholic priests. Only the Slovak Popular party of Hlinka is authorized, except for small parts representing the minorities German and Hungarian woman. The government issues a certain number of laws anti-semites, excluding the Jews from the public life initially and off-setting them in Allemgne in the second time. Put aside the persecution of the Jews, the mode is credited only with only one execution.

The existence of this first Slovak republic had positive effects on the economy, science, teaching and the Slovak culture. A Slovak Academy of Science is founded in 1942. Many universities and colleges are created. The literature and the Slovak culture are flourishing.

The Slovak Popular party of Hlinka is divided into two tendencies: that of Monseigneur Tiso especially consists of conservatives who have as an ideal an authoritative and religious state, the other is much more openly fascistic and inspired by the German Nazis. They have as an ideal a Slovak state based on blood and the ground. They have more anti-semites than the entourage of Monseigneur Tiso and would drive out readily all the Czechs of the country. Their main organization is the “Guard of Hlinka” ( Hlinkova kept ). Their representatives with the government are the Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka and the Minister of Interior Department Alexander Mach. It is primarily by antibolchevism that these two tendencies could make alliance.

In a relatively prosperous country at that time where the rest of Europe and fire and with blood, the population supports the Tiso tendency rather. The Germans started by supporting Tuka, but finally, they are satisfied of Tiso, representative of its people and which guarantee to the Germans the calm one at their border.

The persecution of the Jews of Slovakia

Shortly after independence, the Slovak Republic implements a certain number of measurement against some 88 951 Jews listed on December 15th, 1940 on his territory. The first antijuives measurements date of April 18th, 1939, one month after independence and consist of the expropriation of the 12 300 Jews which have a company and in the revocation of the civils servant. The Guard of Hlinka starts to attack the Jews and a “Jewish Code” (Law 105 of September 9th, 1941) is promulgated. Very similar to the Laws of Nuremberg into force in the Third Reich, the code obliges the Jews to carry an arm-band yellow, prohibited the mixed marriages and excluded the Jews from certain professions. In this code, the definition of the Jew approaches the racial designs of the Nazis. The Vatican protests then while pointing out that the legislation is contrary with the principles of the Church.

The camps of forced labor make their appearance with the autumn 1941, whereas the majority of the Jews lost their employment. A Jewish central organization, the Judenzentrale or Ústredna Židov (ÚŽ) brings together all the Jews.

In October 1941, 15 000 Jews are explulsés of Bratislava. In fact, 5 000 of them, holders of a work permit, are authorized to remain. The others take the way of the camps of forced labor.

Dice June 1940, the Slovaque government had promised to send 120 000 workers in Germany, but in October 1941, they are only 80 000, and in November 1941, the report being improved as Slovakia, the Slovaque government proposes to replace the missing Slovak workers by Jews. After the Conference of Wannsee, in January 1942, the German Nazis of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt propose with the Slovak authorities to off-set all the Slovak Jews on the territory of Reich realize a royalty of 500 marks per capita, corresponding at the expenses of " housing, food, clothing and reconversion". The totality of the sum corresponds envoron to 80% of what the Slovak government succeeded in tapping with the Jews by various measurements of expropriation.

The deportations towards Germany begin in March 1942. Within the ÚŽ, the service of the emigration, directed by Gisi Fleischmann assistance the Jews to be fled. 7 000 manage to take refuge in Hungary. Several thousands try to escape the deportation while converting with Christianity. Mgr Tiso will grant 2 000 presidential pardons (defined within the framework of the law) in particular to the baptized Jews.

From June 1942, the Slovak government is shown less co-operative to off-set the Jews towards Germany. At this date, 52 000 Jews were already off-set, but it still remains about it between 30 000 and 35 000. Several reasons explain this Slovak reversal:

the royalty fixed by the Germans is high,
a certain number of Jews are essential to the walk of the country,
the interventions of the Vatican are likely to make bend a state whose president is a catholic priest.

Dice the beginning of the deportations, of the notes of the Vatican to the Tuka Prime Minister explain why the Jews are not sent in ex-Poland to work there, but to be exterminated there. In practice, the deportations are stopped until October 1944.

August 29th, 1944, it occurs a rising anti-nazi starting from the town of Banská Bystrica. In October 1944, with the approach of the Red Army , rising becomes national and forces the Nazi Germany to occupy Slovakia. The Germans off-set 13 500 Jews moreover. On the whole, 70 000 Jews will have been off-set by the German or Slovak authorities. Approximately 65 000 will never return.

The Slovak historian Ivan Kamenec recalls in a article published in March 2007 in a Slovak famous daily newspaper that

" the first Republic of Slovakia is the only State nonoccupied by Germany having off-set by its own means its Jewish citizens in camps. The first convoys of young men and women left under cover of “work”. As of April 1942, one locked up whole families - old men and children included - in livestock wagons. From March in October 1942, 57 convoys transporting more than 57.000 people were organized and two thirds of the Jewish population was off-set. Only a small hundred people survived the concentration camps. It is the political elite of the time which carries the political responsibility and morals of this crime. It was not only one tragedy for the victims; the consequences touch the whole company, which is traumatisée." still today;

End of Slovakia de Tiso

At the end of 1944, the German troops ebb little by little under the push of the Red Army , but also of Rumanian and Czechoslovakian troops which arrive by the east. The released territories become again by the force of the Czechoslovakian things.

The first Slovak republic ceases existing on April 4th, 1945 when the Red Army enters Bratislava and occupies the whole of Slovakia.

Release

The April 5th, Beneš, arrived of London while forwarding by Moscow, constitutes with Košice a coalition government chaired by Zdeněk Fierlinger, with Klement Gottwald like first vice-president. The program of Košice envisages a democratic republic, where Czech and Slovak will be equal

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