2. Trip Details…
• Leaving: March 9 at 3:40 pm from IAH Houston on
KLM Flight 662 to Amsterdam. Arrive 7:45 am March
10. Depart Amsterdam 12:00 pm, arrive Prague Vaclav
Havel Airport1:30 pm.
• Two mandatory lectures and field trips: European
Czech parliament tour and lecture and visit to Terezin
Jewish ghetto/concentration camp. Dates and times
TBA, hopefully by the end of next week. Terezin trip
will be via bus and is on your own dime.
• Departing: March 15, 6:50 am, flying to Amsterdam.
Arrival 8:30 am. Depart Amsterdam10:10 am, KLM
flight 661. Arrive IAH 2:35 pm.
3. In the Beginning…
• A Celtic tribe called the Boii settled the region
circa 100 AD, hence the term Bohemia for the
region.
• Eventually the area is overrun by many different
groups in the next 500 years, including Huns,
Magyars, Germans, and everyone’s favorite
invaders, the Huns.
• Eventually, what is now the Czech Republic and
Slovakia coalesces under the Premyslid Dynasty.
4. The Tale of the Premyslids…
• Libuse in Czech legend founds Prague after
dreaming of its spires. She marries a humble
plowman, Premysyl, and thus founds the
dynasty that bears his name – how’s that for
sexism?
• The story of Premysl and Libuse….
• The first real Premyslid ruler known to history
is Ottakar.
• Ottakar is a master at political intrigue, and …
5. Here He Is! (Well, at least his tomb in
St. Vitus Cathedral)
• Ottakar (1155-1230) plays the European power
game well and ends up being recognized as King
of Bohemia by Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, a
hereditary title, in The Golden Bull of Sicily.
• What will become Czechoslovakia/the Czech
Republic is now officially part of the Holy Roman
Empire and will remain so in various forms until
1918…
• The Premyslids, however, do not have the same
staying power…
6. The Golden Age of Czech History
• By 1306, the Premyslid line dies out; leading to several short
dynastic wars that result in the House of Luxembourg gaining
control over Bohemia.
• Charles IV, King of Bohemia and later Holy Roman Emperor, is
still today considered the greatest Czech monarch. During his
reign the Czech lands experience their greatest power and
prestige.
• A patron of the arts, Charles also oversaw mcuh of the
construction of the Hrad as well as St. Vitus cathedral.
• Charles is also a realist: He focuses on building a Holy Roman
dynastic line rather than trying to build the HRE up as an
empire for all Christendom.
7. • Among Charles (Karel) IV’s accomplishments is the
founding of Charles University, the first University
(1347) in the HRE and among the oldest in Europe.
• Charles get the Golden Bull of 1356 out of the Pope,
which lays down the ground rules for ascension to HRE
until the HRE is dissolved by Napoleon in 1805.
• Charles dies in 1378, succeeded by his son Wenceslaus.
Never again will the Czech lands hold such power and
prestige.
• Charles dies just in time, as the Plague decimates
Bohemia starting in 1380…
8. Religious Upheaval and the Rise of the
Hapsburg Empire
• The Hussite rebellion, inspired by Jan Hus (1369 – 1415),
rector of Charles University, is both a religious and political
movement and a forerunner of the reformation.
• Hus did not approve of the rampant corruption in the Roman
Catholic church and urged a return to chastity and poverty
among clergy and church leadership.
• Hus is arrested, tried, and burned at the stake in 1415. His
last recorded words were: "in a hundred years, God will raise
up a man whose calls for reform can not be suppressed."
Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses of Contention to a church
door in Wittenberg 102 years later.
• Just like in The Mummy, “death is only the beginning…”
9. The Hussite Wars
• War erupts (1420-1432) over Hus’ teachings
and his execution.
• The First Defenestration of Prague occurs in
1419: Shortly thereafter, King Vaclav IV dies,
and the region descends into chaos.
• Ultraquists (moderates) vs. Taborites (hard
core Hussites).
• Communion “in both kinds” vs. literal biblical
law and infallibility.
10. • Pope Martin V declares a Crusade against the Hussites in Bohemia,
something Vaclav’s brother and successor, Sigismund, King of Hungary is
only too happy to embark on.
• Unfortunately for Sigismund, his forces are routed by the Hussites and all
of Bohemia falls under their control by November 1420.
• Bohemia then descends into periods of civil war between the Ultraquists
and the Taborites, with the Taborites under Jan Zizka eventually winning
out in 1424, just in time for another foreign crusade.
• In 1452, the Ultraquists have their revenge and defeat the Taborites,
eventually reaching an accommodation with Rome – communion in both
kinds is now allowed – to this day!
• The last Ultraquist king of Bohemia dies childless in battle with the
Ottoman Turks in 1526. His death leads to the acquisition of Bohemia and
Moravia by the Austrian Hapsburg Empire, where it will remain until
1918…
11. Unter den Doppeladler…
• While Moravia quickly adapted to Hapsburg
rule, Bohemia did not, as the Austrians sought
to impose strict Catholicism and German
control over the region, which had gone
Protestant after the Reformation.
• Ultraquist Czech nobility were stripped of
their land and titles by the Hapsburgs and HRE
Charles V and discriminated against.
12. • The Czech lands, particularly Moravia, are not happy
with Hapsburg Catholicism.
• With the Ultraquist nobility and the lower Protestanty
classes being discriminated against and taxed heavily,
the possibility of revolt grows.
• The spark for revolt comes in 1617. Emperor Matthias
wanted his dynastic heir Ferdinand II appointed to the
royal throne of Bohemia and Hungary. Ferdinand was
duly elected by the Bohemian estates to become the
Crown Prince, and automatically upon the death of
Matthias, the next King of Bohemia.
• This leads to…
13. The Start of the Thirty Years’ War
• Protestant Czech nobles clash once again with the Hapsburgs when Bohemia
passes to a hereditary Hapsburg possession.
• HRE Rudolf II gave the Czechs a good deal of autonomy in daily religious life,
recognizing the Czech Reform Church and allowing Charles University to be run by
the Ultraquist nobility.
• Rudolf’s successor, Emperor Matthias, is a hard-core Catholic and sets about rolling
back many of Rudolf II’s reforms. He also introduces the Jesuits into Prague.
• At Prague Castle on May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants, led by Count Thun,
tried two Imperial governors for violating Rudolf II’s Letter of Majesty (Right of
Freedom of Religion), found them guilty, and threw them, together with their
scribe Philip Fabricius, out of the windows of the Bohemian Chancellery. They fell
roughly sixty feet and landed on a large pile of manure in a dry moat and survived.
Philip Fabricius was later ennobled by the emperor and granted the title von
Hohenfall ("of the High fall").
• This is the beginning salvo of the next war(s) of religion, the Thirty Year’s War.
• The Bohemian phase of the 30 Year’s War ends with the…
14. The Battle of White Mountain
• Matthias is not seen as nearly hard core enough and is
supplanted by Ferdinand II, who sets out to crush the
Protestants in Bohemia and Moravia.
• The Bohemian region sees early fighting in the war, with
the Protestants being finally and decisively defeated by the
Hapsburgs, under Count Tilly, in the Battle of White
Mountain in November 1620.
• Emperor Ferdinand then orders the Protestant nobles to
leave his lands or convert to Catholicism.
• White Mountain solidifies Hapsburg control of Bohemia for
the next 300 years.
• Prague and Bohemia suffer in the later stages of the 30
Years’ War under both Swedish and Saxon occupation.
15. Payback
• Many Czech commoners, with no stake in
Ultraquist theology, are happy to see a return to
Catholicism.
• With the Protestant “Winter King”, Frederick V,
having fled Prague, Tilly exacts his revenge,
executing 27 Ultraquist nobles in Prague’s Old
Town Square (Stare Mesto).
• Five out of every six Czech nobles flee the
country, and Bohemia and Moravia are now
firmly in the grasp of the Catholic Hapsburgs.
16. • Bohemia suffers a great deal of damage during
the 30 Years’ War, particularly after being invaded
by Sweden, under Gustavus Adolphus.
• Ironic, as the Czechs at this time were
predominantly Protestant-leaning, although their
Hapsburg overloads were Catholic…
• Gustavus dies in battle in 1632, but the last
Swedish push carries them to the gates of Prague
in 1648…
17. • The Swedes take Hradcany Castle but are
repulsed from entering the “Old Town” (Stary
Mesto) on the Charles Bridge.
• The Swedes have to content themselves with
pillaging the Castle and removing many of the
priceless relics back to Sweden.
• This marks the end of the Thirty Years’ War, so
it both begins and ends in Bohemia, and in
Prague.
18. A History of the Hapsburgs
• Founded the “First Reich” in 800 – crowned by
the Pope.
• Holy Roman Empire includes modern France,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, part
of northern Spain, northern Italy, and much of
Germany and Austria.
• His “empire” was not hereditary, which will
cause problems later…
19. The First Reich –
The Holy Roman Empire
• Charlemagne’s empire is split among his grandsons
after the death of his son, Louis.
• The “Eastern Kingdom”, under the influence of the
Franks, develops a Germanic language, while the
Western Kingdom develops into Old French.
• Eventually, the Eastern Kingdom is weakened by the
growth of strong, independent duchies and
kingdoms.
20. The Hapsburgs
• HRE’s now came from the three most powerful royal houses:
• Luxembourg (Bohemia), Wittelsbach (Bavaria), and Hapsburg
(Austria)
• Rudolf I begins Hapsburg control of Austria in 1278. By 1453, the
Hapsburgs have a monopoly on the Holy Roman Empire.
• Hapsburgs have control from mid-fifteenth century until 1806 and
are the dominant Germanic country – Austrian, and later the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
• One lasting contribution of the HRE is the rise of a competent class
of professional officials and administrators in many German
kingdoms.
• Defense of Vienna against the Ottoman Turks in 1529 and 1683
gives Austrian longstanding pride as “defenders of the faith.”
• Gelassen anderen Kriege, aber Sie, glückliches Österreich,
verbindet, oder, Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube
21. The Hapsburgs as a Bulwark
Against Islam
• Ottoman Turks had advanced against the West in 1682 for a second time
(the first was in 1529) and laid siege to Vienna in July 1683. At this time
the Turks controlled nearly all of Hungary and Transylvania, which they
had taken from the Austrian empire.
• The Austrians under Leopold I and the Poles under Jan III Sobieski routed
the Ottoman forces on September 12, raising the siege of Vienna and
starting a 16 year process by which the Ottomans were slowly driven out
of Hungary and Transylvania, and the Austrian Empire gained firm control
over these regions.
• Austrian success in lifting the siege gave the Austrian Empire hegemony
over central Europe for the next one hundred and eighty years.
• To this day the Austrian are quite proud at having been the defenders of
the Christian faith against the forces of Islam.
22. The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 – The
First Fissure in the Empire
• Charles VI of Austria will die with no male heirs and
declares that his daughters will now be able to succeed
him, which they were not supposed to be able to do – only
male heirs.
• The Habsburg line in Spain had died out in 1705 and there
had been a war over the succession to the throne, which
the Hapsburgs lost to the French and Louis XIV.
• Charles gets the other great European powers to agree to
accept his sanction.
• Maria Theresa accordingly ascends to the throne in 1740
ushering in a fairly golden age for Prague and the Empire.
23. Hapsburg Nadir, 1792-1806
• Revolutionary France attacks several German states, seizing the Rhineland in 1794.
• Austria and Russian armies crushed by Napoleon at Austerlitz in 1805 – “The Battle
of the Three Emperors”. The HRE is abolished, leading Archduke (and HRE) Francis II
to become Francis I of the Austrian Empire..
• Prussia defeated by Napoleon at Jena in 1806 and is forced to submit to French
occupation.
• Napoleon occupies Berlin and modernizes the Prussian legal system.
• The seed of social and military reform is carried out by men like Gerhard von
Scharnhorst and Alexander von Humboldt. Merit was now to count more than birth.
• The Prussian army, under Blücher, helps to defeat Napoleon at Leipzig and Waterloo,
only seven years after the disaster at Jena.
• When Napoleon is finally defeated, the HRE is not reestablished. Instead, out of 300
states in the HRE in 1789, only 40 remained in 1814 after the Congress of Vienna.
Smaller states and Duchies are amalgamated into larger ones. Francis II of Austria
renounced his title as HRE in 1806 rather than see it pass to Napoleon.
• Napoleon can be said to be the person who in some ways began German
unification.
• Bavaria had allied with Napoleon, and the Emperor rewarded the Wittelsbachs by
creating the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1806 and awarding Bavaria land at the expense
of Austria. Bavaria kept these gains at the Congress of Vienna.
• Prague’s status is essentially unchanged, but it marks the beginning of the end for
Austria as the dominant middle-European power. Prussia is on the rise.
24. Prague to 1848
• Attempting to reclaim lost glory, the Hapsburgs
redouble efforts to keep their polyglot empire together.
• Metternich, the Austrian Foreign Minister, is universally
despised by non-German members of the Empire.
• Revolts spread throughout Europe in 1848 calling for
liberal reform and most dangerously for the dynastic
houses, representational government.
• Metternich is forced to resign by the Emperor and flees
to London. The Austrian Emperor, Ferdinand,
abdicates in favor of his nephew, Franz Joseph, who
will rule Austria, and then Austria-Hungary, until his
death in 1916.
25. The Revolutions of 1848
• After Napoleon was defeated, Austria allows the Hungarian parliament to meet in
1820 for the first time in decades. A reform movement comes out of this, leading
to Hungarian attempts to industrialize, against the wishes of the Hapsburgs.
Hungarian is also promulgated as the official language of the country, as opposed
to German or Latin.
• Events continue to simmer until the spring of 1848, when revolution wracks many
European countries, including France and Austria.
• Led by Lajos Kossuth, a Hungarian journalist and member of the Diet, peaceful
demonstrations in Buda and Pest eventually involve much of the remainder of
Hungary, and a democratic government is formed.
• Austria, with troubles of its own and with an incapacitated Emperor in Ferdinand I
(this is why you don’t marry your double-first cousin), acquiesces to the new
Hungarian government and focuses on rolling back the revolt in Austria.
• In the meantime, Ferdinand appoints liberal ministers and dismisses longtime
Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich to appease the crowds.
• Ja, dürfen's denn des? and Ich bin der Kaiser und ich will Knödel!
26. Radetzky’s March
• After the revolt lead Ferdinand to dismiss Metternich
and other conservatives, it did not take long for the
forces of counterrevolution to arrive on the scene,
embodied by Joseph Radetzky and Alfred, Fürst zu
Windisch-Grätz, who defeat the rebels in Vienna and in
Prague, respectively.
• The “liberal” appointments that were forced on
Ferdinand flee and reactionary ministers are appointed
in a return to the status quo antebellum.
• What had started in the “June Days” in Paris had by
October fizzled out, and reaction ruled.
27. Felix and Franz
• When FJ took over as Emperor following the abdication of Ferdinand I, he had a
competent Prime Minister (Chancellor) in Felix zu Schwarzenberg, who helped FJ
to maintain Hapsburg control, bringing in the Russians to crush the Hungarian
revolt and allowing FJ to renege on many of the reforms instituted in the midst of
the 1848 revolutions.
• Schwarzenberg creates the opportunity for the Hapsburgs to rule as absolute
monarchs once again, and actually manages to push back Prussian attempts to
surpass Austria as the dominant power in central Europe by getting the Prussians
to agree to Austria maintaining control over the German Confederation.
• Schwarzenberg is a chancellor in the Machiavellian mold, and is not well-liked or
well-trusted by the rest of Europe – “(Austria) will shock the world by the depth of
its ingratitude”, but he does what is best for the Hapsburgs.
• Things seem set up for Franz Joseph to have a relatively peaceful and productive
reign, but Schwarzenberg dies of a stroke in 1852, and there is no one of his
stature or abilities to advise FJ, who essentially takes over the duties of prime
minister himself…
28. Prussia Ascendant
• Austria’s decline, and the Czech’s eventual opportunity,
is accelerated by the disastrous Austro-Prussian War of
1866, the Bruderkrieg.
• The Prussian Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, drives
Austria into a corner and into declaring war in 1866
over Schleswig-Holstein.
• In a matter of six weeks the Austrians are forced to sue
for peace. A peace treaty is concluded at Prague on
August 23, 1866, signaling Austria’s permanent eclipse
by Prussia in the leadership of the Germanic nations.
• Bismarck offers benign terms, but the balance of power
has now shifted decisively to Prussia, and results in…
29. The Rise of “Kakania”
• There is discontent in the Austrian Empire after the disastrous 1866 Austro-
Prussian War, particularly among the Hungarians.
• There is great concern among the Hapsburgs that the multi-ethnic empire may
well tear itself apart. They come up with a compromise with the most active and
troublesome ethnic minority (and also the most politically powerful) – the
Hungarians.
• The compromise granted the Hungarian government in Budapest equal legal status
to the Austrian government in Vienna, while the common monarch retained
responsibility for the army, navy, foreign policy, and customs union.
• Under the dual arrangement, Vienna and Budapest each ruled half of a twin
country united only at the top through the Emperor-King and the common
Ministries of Foreign Affairs and of War. Each half of the country had its own Prime
Minister and parliament.
• The Empire’s bureaucracy is now known as “Imperial and Royal” (Kaiserlich und
Königlich - K u. K) – hence the pejorative term “Kakania” to describe the
bureaucratic muddles it often created.
• The Czechs, being less noisy ands less numerous than the Hungarians, see little
change n their status.
30. The Czech National Revival
• With the fabric of the Austrian Empire starting to shred
in the 19th Century, a national identity began to
emerge in Bohemia, which for the past two hundred
years had been subject to forced Germanization under
the Hapsburgs.
• Primarily, the revival was language-based; with the
publication of Czech-German dictionaries and Czech-
language textbooks. Czech reemerged as the dominant
language in the region.
• Also significant was the building of the Czech National
Museum on Wenceslaus Square and the National
Theater in the late 19th Century.
31. The Rebirth of a Language
• Josef Dobrovsky creates a Czech language grammar
book, the first of its kind, in 1809.
• Josef Jungmann published the five-volume Czech-
German dictionary in 1834–1839. Jungmann borrowed
words not present in Czech from other Slavic languages
or invented others. He also inspired development of
Czech scientific terminology, thus, making it possible
for original Czech scientific research to develop.
• It now became fashionable for “nationalist” Czechs to
speak the language and dress in traditional Czech
outfits, as opposed to wearing styles more common to
Vienna.
32. • The rise of a Czech national sentiment, which
had lain mostly dormant since the 17th
Century, combined with the fissures in the
Hapsburg Empire, creates the possibility of
greater autonomy for the Czech people –
notice I did not say “Czechoslovak”.
• The rudimentary concept of a “Czech nation”
begins to take hold among many of the
thinkers in Bohemia.
33. The Start of World War I
• Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie assassinated in Sarajevo on
June 28, 1914 by Serbian Nationalists.
• Franz’ morganatic marriage to Sophie.
• Austria-Hungary and Germany see this as a chance to blunt Serbia’s rise.
• Wilhelm II allows a “blank check” to be given to Austria-Hungary.
• Serbia originally gives in to most Austrian demands, but assurances by
Russia that she will assist the Serbs result in the Serbs taking a harder, but
still conciliatory, line.
• Austrian demands so harsh that war is a certainty and Europe begins to
mobilize.
• The Central Powers (Germany, Ottoman Empire and Austria) square off
against the Entente Powers (Great Britain, France and Russia).
• Austria declares war on Serbia on August 1, 1914. Her war is mostly in the
Balkans, Russia, and later Italy, and generally does not go well for her…
She suffers humiliating defeats against the Serbs in 1914 sand the
Germans will eventually have to rescue their Austrian allies.
• Many Czech soldiers facing the Serbs and Russians defect to their Slavic
kinsmen rather than fight them. This will have consequences for the
coming Czech state.
34. Czech Nationalism
• As the Austro-Hungarian Empire slowly trundled toward the 20th Century
under the aging Franz Josef, Czech nationalism continued to flourish, in
large part due to the efforts of Tomas Masaryk, an educator who would
become the father of modern Czechoslovakia.
• Masaryk founds Athenaeum, a Czech-language journal that covers all
aspects of Czech culture and science, in 1883.
• Masaryk originally wanted to reform the Hapsburg empire into a federalist
state, but turns more and more to Czech independence.
• Masaryk serves in the Austro-Hungarian parliament until 1914, when he
has to flee the empire when the first World War breaks out or face
charges of treason.
• He escapes to London, and begins to work for Czech independence.
• Masaryk travels to Paris and Washington pleading the case of Czech
independence and the need to break up the A-H empire.
• Masaryk’s big break, however, comes in 1917 with the overthrow of the
Russian Tsar and the later Bolshevik seizure of power…
35. The Ceska Druzhina
• Masaryk finds a bargaining chip with the Allies in the form of the
60,000-plus Czech deserters who are in Russian internment camps.
• When the Russian Tsar is overthrown in 1917, a small Czech unit
numbering about 1000 men is expanded into the Czechoslovak
Legion (Ceska Druzhina) to fight the Germans and Austrians.
• Masaryk uses the Legion’s exploits to popularize his call for an
independent Czech state.
• The Legion’s military prowess is his best calling card, as Czechs fight
on both the Western front in small numbers and the Eastern front
in large numbers.
• Trouble arises for the Druzhina, however, when the Bolsheviks
overthrow the government of Alexander Kerensky.
• When the Bolsheviks sue for peace, the Legion is (supposedly)
disarmed and will be sent to Vladivostok to be repatriated to fight
in France. It never gets there…
36. The Legion Moves East
• With the conclusion of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ends fighting
between Germany and Austria and now-Bolshevik Russia, the Czechs are
shipped on the Trans-Siberian Railroad toward Vladivostok.
• A confrontation with Hungarian POW’s who view the Czechs as traitors to
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, leads to the Czechs seizing their trains and
rearming themselves. Soon, open combat with the Bolsheviks ensues as
the Czechs slowly make their way toward Vladivostok.
• In the beginning, the various parts of the Legion were strung out and
separated on the railway. A complicated series of battles took place with
the primary objective of re-connecting the various groups and getting to
Vladivostok - for their exit to the Western front. As it became clear that
this was the only organized fighting force in Russia (the Red Army under
Trotsky was still small and disorganized), the Allied governments largely
agreed that the Czechs might be useful re-opening an Eastern Front.
• Some, including Winston Churchill, wanted to use the Legion to overthrow
the Bolsheviks as well.
37. • The Czechs eventually control a wide swath of Russian territory all the way
to Vladivostok, using armored trains, like the Orlik here - but are
persuaded by the Allies to turn around and head west once more – the
idea of a new Eastern Front.
• Their approach to near Ekaterinburg is thought to be one of the main
reasons the Bolsheviks murdered the Tsar and his family – to prevent their
liberation by the Czechs.
• Masaryk and other Czecho-Slovak leaders sign the Pittsburg Agreement
which is the founding document of the Czechoslovakian state, in October
1918.
• The Agreement paves the way for recognition of the Czechoslovak state
and by extension, the Legion. Supplies flow in, and Allied troops are sent
to Siberia to extricate the legion, including over 70000 Japanese, 1000
British and French and 3800 American servicemen. Rather than pulling
the Legion out, they become embroiled in the Russian Civil War, and do
not leave Russia until 1920.
38. Rudolf Gajda, My Favorite
Legionnaire…
• Along with Jan Syrovy, one of the two most famous commanders in
the Czech Legion.
• Rose from private in the Austro-Hungarian Army to Lieutenant
General in the White Russian forces of Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak,
who hires him on after Gajda leads Czech and Russian forces in the
capture of the Siberian city of Perm. He is 28 years old, and his
ruthless leadership eventually helps to unite all the scattered Czech
forces on the Trans Siberian Railway.
• Gajda eventually plots against Kolchak and his revolt is put down by
the Allied troops, particularly the British and Japanese, in
Vladivostok.
• He then flees Siberia for Prague. We will see him again, however…
39. Karl’s Letter
• On November 11, 1918, the same day the Armistice goes into effect, Karl
writes a letter to his subjects “withdrawing” from active participation in
Austro-Hungarian politics.
• Nowhere does it say that he will abdicate his throne, which is a calculated
decision that will cause problems in a few years both for him and for
Hungary.
• Karl initially retreats to his country estate outside of Vienna and waits for
his people to call upon him to return to lead the country.
• In the interim, Austria-Hungary falls apart. The age-old Hapsburg
nightmare becomes reality.
• Karl will try twice to regain his throne, but will fail both times. Hungary
then repudiates the Pragmatic Sanction, which invalidates Hapsburg rule.
• Karl dies in exile on Madeira in April, 1922, survived by his wife Zita and
their eight children, including the Crown prince, Otto, who will shall meet
later…
40. Austria’s Versailles – The Treaty of St.
Germaine
• The Austro-Hungarian Empire is fragmented in November 1918 – Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia will emerge from the wreckage.
• Emperor Karl I, Franz-Joseph’s successor (Franz-Ferdinand was his uncle),
renounces his throne but does not abdicate. He will die in 1922.
• Austria loses 75% of its imperial territory and 80% of its population.
Vienna is an imperial capital without an empire.
• Austrian union with Germany (Anschluss) , which the Austrians wanted, is
forbidden both in the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St. Germaine.
It will be a major source of contention over the next nineteen years.
• Hungary, seen as the successor state of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
signs the separate Trianon Treaty, which will then create Czechoslovakia as
well as give Hungarian territory to Romania and Yugoslavia.
• “Ce qui est laissé, est l'Autriche. ’’
• The new state of Czechoslovakia now has nearly 3.2 million Germans
within its borders. So much for Wilson’s 14 points and the principle of
national self-determination.
41. TGM
• Masaryk was a progressive for his day – the son of a Slovak father
and Moravian/German mother, he had an affinity for both cultures
and regions.
• Masaryk married an American, Charlotte Garrigue, and in a very
unusual step for the time, adopted her last name as his middle
name.
• Had any other man worked to form a Czech state, it is doubtful that
the Slovaks would have been included as readily as they were under
TGM.
• The Slovak lands were not something that Masaryk really sought for
his new state – they were more or less appended to the Czech lands
at Versailles as most diplomats did not think the backwards Slovak
regions would be politically viable. Masaryk, eager to see his new
country unfold, did not object to the inclusion of Slovakia.
42. • TGM’s popularity allows him to rule relatively unchallenged
from 1920 to December 1935, when ill health forces him to
resign. He dies of natural causes in 1937.
• Constitutionally, the office of Czech President was (and still
is) ceremonial. Strong figures, however, could go outside
the lines to establish greater authority and control.
• Masaryk was able to run the country in large part through
an unofficial political machine called the Hrad (as in the
castle), with representation from like-thinking political
parties but most importantly the military, entrepreneurs,
journalists and former members of the Czech Legions, who
carried immense authority in the country.
• “As long as Masaryk is alive, Hitler won't start war.”
43. The First Republic
• With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire and the abdication of
Emperor Karl (Franz Josef’s succesor), Masaryk returns from exile and is
elected the first Czechoslovak president while his close colleague Edvard
Benes was chosen as Foreign Minister.
• The Treaty of Versailles legitimizes the Czechoslovak Republic, which states
that there are no Czechs or Slovaks anymore, only Czechoslovaks. It is
illegal to spell the country’s name with a hyphen. Many in defeated
Germany and the former Hapsburg lands are unhappy with this little
republic, which they see as a fraudulent creation of the victorious Allies,
especially a recently discharged Austrian corporal named Adolf Hitler.
• Czechoslovakia was divided into four regions, Bohemia, Moravia/Silesia
(roughly the Czech Republic today), Slovakia, and Ruthenia.
• Relations with Hungary are not good, and the Czechs enter into the “Little
Entente” with Yugoslavia and Romania to protect them against Hungarian
expansion and any possible chance of a Hapsburg restoration.
• Under Masaryk, the “President Liberator”, the Czechoslovak Republic
flourishes, but troubles are only a few years away.
44. The New State
• Czechoslovakia as it is created encompasses all the
former lands of the Kingdom of Bohemia, including
Moravia-Silesia and Slovakia, with Subcarpathian
Ruthenia added to give the state a common border
with Romania, thought by the Allies to be important in
protecting those two countries against Hungary.
• The Czechs are not completely satisfied and take over a
small part of Poland by force in 1920, which does not
endear the Czechs to the Poles.
• Some regions of the new republic had only 25% Czechs,
which will lead in short order to problems with these
“minority” groups.
45. Politics in the First Republic
• The Constitution of 1920 sets the guidelines for
representative government, Czech-style.
• The government is ruled by a coalition of five political
parties for most of the 20 years of the First Republic (“the
Petka”): The Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants
(“The Agrarian Party”), Czechoslovak Social Democratic
Party, Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (not to be
confused with the Nazis), the Czechoslovak Popular Party
and the Czechoslovak National Democratic Party.
• Parties outside the governing coalitions that would prove
problematic were the Sudeten German Party (SDP), and the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPC).
46. Czechoslovak Cultural Icons
• Gregor Mendel – father of modern Genetics
• Jaroslav Hasek – Author of The Good Soldier Svejk (and a Legionnaire)
• Franz Kafka – Author of Metamorphosis and Amerika (both he and Hasek
died young of Tuberculosis)
• Antonin Dvorak – The Slavonic Dances and New World Symphony
• Bedrich Smetana – The Bartered Bride. Smetana’s music became
synonymous with the Czech national movement and independence: Ma
Vlast (“My Country”) was an unofficial national anthem.
• Lida Baarova, a Czech actress who emigrated to Germany, became Joseph
Goebbels’ mistress in 1936, nearly ending his career.
• Milan Kunderla writes The Unbearable Lightness of Being in 1982, but it is
not published in his homeland until 2006, having been published by Czech
exile publishing houses prior to that.
47. The Hollywood of the East
• Czech theatrical movies are considered to have been
amongst the best produced and critically acclaimed since
the dawn of motion pictures.
• Silent films such as The Golem series from 1914 to 1920 are
considered silent-era masterpieces world-wide.
• Barrandov Studios is one of the largest film studios in the
world, and has survived since 1921 in various forms,
recently seeing the production of movies such as Amadeus,
Mission Impossible, XXX, Blade II, Casino Royale, and The
Chronicles of Narnia.
• A darker side of the studio was its use in the 1940’s for Nazi
propaganda films, including Jud Süss in 1940.
48. To 1938…
• Masaryk is reelected twice to the Presidency, finally resigning in 1935 due to ill
health. He dies in September 1937. Edvard Benes, his longtime Foreign Minister,
succeeds him.
• The centralized political system in Czechoslovakia has many of the same problems
with nationalism that the Hapsburgs faced, and Sudeten Germans and Slovaks are
unhappy with Czech control, even though they are granted considerable
autonomy.
• The Sudeten German Party, headed by Konrad Henlein, begins to agitate for
complete autonomy, de facto independence, supported by the Nazi German
government of Adolf Hitler. To grant this would mean the end of Czechoslovakia as
a viable entity.
• Rudolf Gajda, the former Czech Legionnaire, founds a Czech fascist party based on
the Italian model and is elected to Parliament. He is stripped of his military rank
and pension after a failed right-wing coup in 1938, arguing for war with Nazi
Germany over the Sudetenland.
• As the SDP ramps up its demands on Prague, supported by the Nazis, it appears
that there is a very real chance for war in Central Europe as Czechoslovakia has
mutual defense treaties with both the French and the Russians.
49. Großdeutschland
• After foreign policy successes with regard to rearmament and
the Rhineland, Hitler turns to the age-old dream of a “Greater
Germany” – Großdeutschland.
• Austria, with a large and active Nazi party, is annexed (die
Anschluss) in March 1938. Once again, this had been
prohibited by the Versailles treaty.
• The Germans next sign a non-aggression treaty with Poland,
no friend of the Czechoslovaks, which further isolates the
Czech state.
• Czechoslovakia, principally Prague, sees itself become the last
democratic state in Central Europe, as Hungary, Poland,
Germany and Austria all have authoritarian regimes in place.
Left wing, Jewsih and democratic refugees find refuge in
Prague as they flee from Germany and Austria.
50. The Sudeten Crisis, 1938
• Home to roughly 3.2 million ethnic Germans, the Sudetenland had asked to remain
with Austria after the First World War but the Allies instead assigned the region to
Czechoslovakia in order to give the new nation an industrial capability – roughly
70% of all Czech industry was located in the region. 90% of the region, however,
was German.
• Worse for the Czechoslovaks state, the mountainous Sudeten region was also the
backbone of any possible defense against German aggression, with the majority of
Czech defensive works in the region.
• In Mein Kampf, Hitler characterized Czechoslovakia as a “bastard state” and a
“construct of the Versailles diktat”.
• As he moved from bloodless triumph to bloodless triumph, reclaiming the
Saarland in 1935, remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936 and then taking over Austria
in the 1938 Anschluss, Hitler eventually sets his sites on the Sudeten Germans and
Czechoslovakia.
• Benes, realizing the danger that the Czechs were in, turned to Britain and France
and Soviet Russia for guarantees of assistance in case of German aggression. A
defensive pact was signed with the French in 1925 that called for the French to
intervene if Czechoslovakia was attacked by a third party.
51. The Munich Conference
• As Nazi-orchestrated violence increases in the Sudentenland, Benes
cracks down with martial law, which plays into Hitler’s hands.
Henlein now calls for outright autonomy for the Sudetens. Hitler,
however, is using Henlein in an effort to take over the entire
country.
• Fall Grün is prepared in Berlin for the military occupation of all of
Czechoslovakia.
• The French, with a very weak caretaker government in place, have
no stomach for another war with Germany and begin to get cold
feet about honoring their commitment to the Czechoslovaks. They
appeal to Britain to come in on their side if the Germans attack.
• Unfortunately for the Czechoslovaks, the British, lead by Neville
Chamberlain, are practicing appeasement (before it was a dirty
word) toward the fascist governments in Italy and Germany, and
Chamberlain urges the Czechs to give in to German demands:
52. “How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that
we should be digging trenches and trying on
gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-
away country between people of whom we
know nothing.”
-Neville Chamberlain, September 27, 1938
53. Dénouement in Munich
• Concerned about German troop movements toward the Czechoslovak
border, Benes orders a partial mobilization of Czechoslovakia’s military in
May 1938 – it ends up being based on faulty Czech intelligence..
• Britain and France are furious with Benes – his actions give them a
convenient excuse not to intervene militarily.
• Hitler, furious, steps up the propaganda campaign against Benes and the
Czechoslovaks at the Nuremburg Party Rally in September 1938.
• Benes, under pressure from both the British and the French, eventually
agrees to cede the Sudetenland to Germany (with the details to be worked
out by a multinational commission) on September 21.
• Britain and France essentially issued an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak
government, that unless they gave in to German demands, the French,
and by extension the British, would not honor their treaty obligation to
Czechoslovakia.
54. • Chamberlain immediately calls for an international
conference to settle the issue for good, and Benito
Mussolini agrees to chair it. The Czechoslovaks are not
invited as the European Great Powers dissect their country.
• The parties meet in Munich, Hitler’s home turf, on
September 28, and finalize the agreement on September
29. Germany will begin to occupy the Sudeten region on
October 7 – three days before Hitler had decided he would
invade Czechoslovakia if he didn’t get his way.
• Benes, realizing that Czechoslovakia is not a viable entity
any longer, resigns on October 5 rather than oversee his
country’s dismemberment and goes into exile in Chicago.
55. “Peace in Our Time”
• Chamberlain’s ulterior motive in meeting with Hitler in
Munich was to secure from him a promise to work with
Britain to secure a general European peace – sacrificing the
Czechs was fine by him if it brought him to that end.
• Hitler signs a handwritten note for Chamberlain which he
triumphantly carries back to England, claiming it represents
“peace in our time.” He will be forced to declare war on
Germany only eleven months later.
• Munich only emboldens Hitler. Just prior to his invasion of
Poland, he tells his generals to not worry about the
reaction of the British and French: “Our enemies are small
worms – I saw them at Munich.”
56. The Czechoslovaks: Only Victims?
• The Czechs caused added stress to their country by being very
Czech-centric and Prague-centric, ignoring or outright oppressing
many of the other minorities – Germans, Poles, Ruthenians,
Hungarians and Slovaks, as well as Catholics, Jews and other
religious groups.
• This abuse left the predominantly Czech government and those
allied with it internally with few friends and allies within
Czechoslovakia when German agitated for the Sudetenland, and
gave Hitler a ready-made – and relatively accurate – causus belli.
• Internationally, Bene’s foreign policy during the 1920’s and 1930’s
prove to have disastrous consequences for the Czech state –
Czechoslovakia is essentially alone when Hitler comes calling.
• This not so savory aspect of the Czechoslovak Republic is often
ignored today, and has in fact led to many of the problems that will
result in Czechoslovakia’s “Velvet Divorce” in 1993.
57. Partition, the Second Republic,
and Occupation
• Immediately after the Munich Conference, the Czech government’s
chickens come home to roost as the First Vienna Award further
fragments the rump Czech state by ceding areas of southern
Slovakia – about 35%, to Hungary and the small region conquered
by the Czechs in 1920 is returned to Poland.
• The rest of Slovakia and Ruthenia is granted virtual autonomy
(remember the Hapsburgs?), and Czecho-Slovakia is now
hyphenated – a crime under the First Republic. Joseph Tiso, a
Catholic priest, is chosen to be Slovak premier, while Emil Hacha
replaces Benes as Czecho-Slovak president.
• The Sudetenland is the most Nazi of all regions taken over by the
Germans – almost 18 percent of Sudeten Germans join the Nazi
party, compared to less than eight percent in Germany itself.
• Hitler now sets his sights on Poland, but first, he needs to finish off
the Czech state once and for all.
58. The Beginning of the Protectorate –
March, 1939
• Hitler gets Tiso, essentially a Nazi puppet, to declare complete Slovak
independence on March 14, 1939. Hungary then gobbles up the rest of
Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia from March 15-23.
• Hitler calls Hacha to Berlin, where he browbeats him into a physical
collapse – he has to be revived by injections from Hitler's personal
physician. Hacha then agrees to turn the remainder of the Czech state
over to Germany as a “protectorate” – essentially a central European
colony of the Third Reich. German troops march into Prague to a less
rapturous reception than they got in the Sudetenland on March 15. The
Reichsprotektorate Böhmen und Mähren is officially declared on March 16.
• Former German Foreign Minister Constantin von Neurath is selected by
Hitler as Reichsprotektor.
• Germany thus began to utilize the massive Czech armaments industry for
its own forces. Poland, France and the Low Countries were overrun with
Czech tanks making up the majority of tanks in many German Panzer
divisions, and Barbarossa began with thousands of Czech tanks in the
front rows of Panzer units driving into Russia.
59. Jan Opletal
• Opletal, a Charles University medical student, is shot during
a student protest on October 28, 1939 marking Czech
Independence Day. He dies on November 11 and is buried
on the 15th.
• Von Neurath closes all Czech Universities for the duration of
the war and has 1200 Czech students sent to concentration
camps for “reeducation” after the incident. Nine students
are executed on November 17, which has since been
observed as International Students Day.
• Opletal’s sacrifice will play a large role later in Czech
history…
• Even though von Neurath reacts harshly, Hitler and
Himmler consider him to be too soft for the job.
60. Collaboration and Resistance
• Hitler is not impressed with Neurath, considering him too soft on the
Czechs, and replaces him in September 1941 with Reinhard Heydrich (left),
Himmler’s deputy in the SS and architect of the “Final Solution” regarding
the Jews. Karl Hermann Frank (right), a Sudeten German and virulently
anti-Czech, serves as his assistant.
• Heydrich immediately raises salaries and rations for Czech workers while
at the same time ruthlessly executing thousands of resistance members
and black marketeers as “enemies of the state”. The Protectorate’s Prime
Minister, Elois Elias, is executed for ties to Benes.
• Industrial and military output in Bohemia and Moravia jumps considerably,
embarrassing Benes, who has established a “government in exile” in
Britain. The Czechs seem to be pretty accommodating to their German
masters.
• Heydrich refers to his subjects as “My Czechs.” Hitler is so pleased with
Heydrich’s progress that he next considers moving him to Paris as military
governor.
61. Operation Anthropoid
• Fate has another rending in store for Heydrich, however. Benes and
the Czech exiles, embarrassed by Czech passivity n the Protectorate
and desperate to show the Allies that they deserve to be taken
seriously, organize Operation Anthropoid along with the British SOE.
• Heydrich, who was fond of riding in an open convertible to show
how safe he was among the Czechs, was attacked by two British
trained Czechoslovak agents, Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik, a Czech
and a Slovak, respectively, on May 27, 1942. The two men toss a
bomb at Heydrich in his car. Heydrich dies seven days later from
infection (no Penicillin).
• SS revenge, in Operation Reinhard, involves destroying the Czech
village of Lidice, murdering all its men and sending its women and
children to concentration camps. Lidice is completely razed to the
ground.
62. • Hitler had originally wanted the SS to “wade in
blood” and wanted 10,000 Czechoslovaks killed.
Frank managed to appeal to reason, and only
1,300 were murdered in cold blood, ten times
that number being arrested and in some cases
tortured.
• The call is put out to destroy any village that had
harbored the assassins and to kill or imprison
anyone who lived there. The Gestapo and SS take
this as a warrant to terrorize and eliminate
potential opposition as well…
63. Lidice
• Lidice is chosen for destruction not because it harbored the assassins
but because the Gestapo thought it to be a resistance hotbed and its
citizens had shown opposition to the regime.
• Himmler’s orders to avenge Heydrich’s assassination as transmitted by
Hans Frank:
• Execute all adult men.
• Transport all women to a concentration camp
• Gather the children suitable for Germanization, then place them in SS
families in the Reich (only seven are chosen as “Aryan” enough) and
bring the rest of the children up in other ways – eventually they are
gassed on order form Adolf Eichmann.
• Burn down the village and level it entirely.
• Altogether, 340 people in the village are murdered.
• German propaganda plays up the destruction of the town and the
execution of the residents as a means of cowing their subject
populations.
64. • Because the Germans used Lidice’s fate as a
propaganda instrument, the city became one of
the first symbols of Nazi atrocities, long before
the concentration camps were exposed.
• Cities, streets, roads and avenues throughout the
world began to bear the name Lidice.
• The original site is preserved as a memorial, with
the new town of Lidice having been built a
quarter of a mile away.
65. • Kubis and Gabcik, with several other agents, are finally
cornered in the crypt of the Church of Saints Cyril and
Methodius in Prague. They are betrayed by another
member of their group for the one million Reichsmark
bounty on their heads.
• The SS, after a two hour gun battle in which Kubis is
killed, use fire hoses to try to fill the crypt and drown
the surviving men. Running low on ammunition, the
surviving members of Anthropoid, including Gabcik,
commit suicide.
• Both men are considered heroes today in the Czech
and Slovak lands.
66. • Karl Hermann Frank, always the bridesmaid, is
passed over as Reichsprotektor yet again for Kurt
Daluege, an SS and Police official with close ties
to Hitler and Himmler. Daluege was the person
who ordered the destruction of Lidice.
• Frank eventually suffers a heart attack in May
1943 and retires from active duty. He is arrested
by the Americans in 1945 and hung by the Czechs
in 1946 for war crimes committed while he was
Reichsprotektor.
67. 1943-1945
• After Anthropoid and the German defeat at Stalingrad, the
Czechs suffer through another two and a half years of
German occupation.
• Although the Protectorate remains relatively quiet, the
Final Solution to the “Jewish Question” is in full swing.
• Nominally independent Slovakia persecuted and rounded
up its Jewish citizens quite readily, while the Czechs were at
best indifferent to the plight of “their” Jews in Bohemia and
Moravia.
• Jews had been, since 1938, in an extralegal status in both
the Protectorate and in Slovakia. Bereft of basic rights,
they were easy prey for those who sought to eliminate
them.
68. Theresienstadt
• The fortress, built during Maria Theresia’s reign, is converted to a prison
in the latter half of the 19th century and actually houses Gavrilo Princip.
• Therisenstadt (Terezin) is taken over by the SS as a ghetto for “privileged”
Jews (ie, Jews who would be noticed if they simply disappeared).
• Theresienstadt becomes a “showcase” concentration camp in that the SS
uses it to show their “humane” treatment of the Jews, sprucing it up and
even digging a swimming pool and building a library and gardens for the
inmates.
• The camp is shown to the International Red Cross, who grade it favorably,
and is also the setting for a propaganda film: Terezin: A Documentary Film
of the Jewish Resettlement. It is better known as The Führer Gives a
Village to the Jews.
• The reality, however, is quite different… Terezin is simply a transit camp,
holding Jews until they can be sent by rail to Auschwitz in the
Generalgouvernment of Poland.
69. Myth and Reality
• Terezin was an anomaly among the camps as there was
actually a decent cross-section of “regular” life, if you
didn’t mind the rats, cramped conditions, starvation-level
diet and SS guards.
• A symphony performed concerts, there were chamber and
choral groups and jazz ensembles, book clubs and
professional-level lectures. The camp’s children were
afforded as much an education as possible on the side, as
education was expressly forbidden by the authorities.
• Czech boys between the ages of 12 and 15 publish Vedem,
a magazine full of art, literary reviews and poetry. The
various copies of the magazine were created by hand and
distributed n the Ghetto. Of the 100 boys who worked on
Vedem, only 15 survived deportation to Auschwitz.
70. Die Endlössung
• A pre-war population of 6,000 grew to over 50,000 Jews in the
walled-off ghetto.
• 144,000 Jews found their way to the ghetto, 85,000 were Czech.
• 33,000 actually died in this “model” camp (many from a typhoid
fever epidemic in 1945 shortly before the camp was liberated),
while another 88,000 died at their final destination: Auschwitz-
Birkenau. Fewer than 18,000 survived the war.
• Sigmund Freud’s sister dies in Theresienstadt, as does
• In addition to Jews, the Roma (Gypsies) were rounded up and
assigned to camps in the Protectorate. Extermination of Czech
Gypsies was so thorough between the “local” camps at Lety and
Hodonin and their eventual transit to Auschwitz that the Czech
Gypsy (Roma) dialect became extinct, and any Gypsies in the Czech
Republic today are actually migrants from other regions of central
Europe who settled in the CR post-war.
71. The White Busses
• Although many concentration camps provided a source of goods
and free labor to the Nazi regime, Terezin was the centerpiece of
Himmler’s efforts to rehabilitate his image at the end of the war.
• Himmler enters into negotiations in late 1944 with several
humanitarian groups, including the Swedish Red Cross, to first
ransom and then to outright release concentration camp prisoners
from several camps, including Theresienstadt.
• Denmark had actually agitated for the Red Cross to inspect camps
where Danish citizens were interned.
• At first the Swedes, and later the Danes, were only interested in
Scandinavian prisoners, but eventually would take on Poles, Czechs
and others. Danish Jews had been sent to Terezin in 1943 and were
evacuated in April 1945. Over 400 Scandinavian Jews were rescued.
72. War’s End
• The Slovak Army rebels against the Tiso regime in August 1944, but
the Slovak National Uprising is brutally crushed by the Germans and
comes to naught.
• With Patton’s Third Army approaching from the west and the Red
Army coming from the east, Prague’s citizens rise up against the
Germans on May 5, 1945, barricading the streets and fighting with
the roughly 50,000 Germans still in the city.
• The Germans counterattack desperately, not to retake Prague, but
to keep the rail lines open toward the west so that they can
surrender to Patton and not the Red Army.
• A cease-fire is agreed upon that restores the railways to German
control on May 8, VE Day.
• The Red Army enters the city on May 9.
73. Revenge
• Benes returns to Prague and is confirmed as the once and future President
of the Republic.
• Due to his feelings of mistrust toward the British and French, Benes seeks
close, but not suffocating ties to the Soviet Union to ensure
Czechoslovakia’s viability. Klement Gottwald, a Czech communist with
close ties to Moscow, becomes his Prime Minister.
• The Benes Decrees pave the way for the expulsion of over three million
Germans, Poles and Hungarians from the Sudetenland and the rest of
Czechoslovakia. They are deported only with what they can carry with
them and their property is expropriated by the state, their citizenship
revoked.
• The trains still run out from Prague, but instead of Jews they now carry
dispossessed Germans, Poles and Hungarians.
• Benes’ actions give the reunited state a much more homogeneous
population, but the underlying issues between Czechs and Slovaks remain.
74. • Over the next two and a half years, nearly anyone
who settled in Czechoslovakia from 1938 on was
liable to forced deportation.
• Rudolf Gajda is imprisoned and tortured by the
Soviet NKVD in 1945 and charged with
propagating Nazism and Fascism.
• He is tried in 1947 but released, blind and
penniless, that same year. He dies a few months
later, aged 53.
• Benes will not have long to savor his triumph,
however.
75. The 1948 Coup
• The Communist Party in reconstituted Czechoslovakia (less Sub-Carpathian
Ukraine, which went to the USSR) is very popular after the war due to Communist
resistance during the war and propaganda after it.
• With urging from Stalin, the CPCz adopts a hard line posture in the Czech
government, and when the democratic members of Benes’ government resign in
an attempt to cause new elections, the Communists are able to appoint othe CPCz
members to fill those empty seats as proposed by Gottwald. This proves to be
perhaps Benes’ greatest mistake in a political career littered with them.
• Benes remains aloof from the Czech Communist party’s slow takeover of the
government until it is too late. His last Foreign Minister, Jan Masaryk, son of the
President-Liberator and the only non-Communist in Benes’ last government, is
found dead outside the window of his bathroom at the Foreign Ministry. It was
ruled a suicide by the authorities, but many to this day refer to it as the “Third
Defenestration of Prague”.
• Benes, already in ill health, realizes that his position is no longer tenable. He is
forced to resign in May, 1948. The Communist Party Leader, Klement Gottwald,
replaces him and declares Czechoslovakia a “people’s republic”.
• For the next forty one years, the Communist Party will rule Czechoslovakia and the
country will , except for the Prague Spring, remain in the Soviet Bloc.
76. Stalinization and the Cold War
• After the Communist coup, Czechoslovakia began to follow the Stalinist
model of economic and social development with crash programs to build
up their industrial infrastructure and defense industries.
• Heavy industry is emphasized throughout the country with no attention
paid to the affect on the environment or the Czech people. Farms are
collectivized, and the cult of the leader is brought into being just as in
Russia.
• By the early 1960’s, the Czech state is in trouble. Excessive spending and
financial stagnation lead to unrest. Even Moscow, under Nikita
Khrushchev, orders the Czechs to be less hard line and Stalinist.
• The reform movement within the Czech Communist party leads to
younger members attaining positions of authority and older, hard-line
Stalinists who date back to the twenties and thirties being put out to
pasture.
77. How Did It Happen?
• The National Assembly passed a new constitution on 9 May 1948. Because
a special committee prepared it in the 1945–48 period, it contained many
liberal and democratic provisions. It reflected, however, the reality of
Communist power through an addition that discussed the dictatorship of
the proletariat and the leadership role of the Communist party. Benes
refused to sign the Ninth-of-May Constitution, as it was called, and
resigned from the presidency.
• Any commercial or industrial business with more than 50 employees were
nationalized.
• Private ownership of lands of over 100 acres was forbidden, and 16% of all
agricultural land was directly owned by the Czech state.
• Massive production quotas in both agriculture and industry were
demanded by the CPCz, but the goals were never met. Production and
agriculture failed to rise to pre-war levels despite massive “voluntary”
drafts of students and white collar workers to help meet quotas.
78. De-Stalinization
• After Stalin dies, Nikita Khruschev gives his “Secret Speech”
denouncing Stalin in 1956. Stalin's policies, at least those
that could be tied directly to him, are done away with, as
are many of the symbols or his rule.
• Bad news for Czech sculptor Otakar Svec, who had created
the world’s largest statue of Stalin only a year before on the
Letna Plain overlooking Prague.
• Svec, getting a steady stream of hate mail form Czechs and
under pressure at the time by the CPC and secret police to
complete the statue, kills himself three weeks before the
statue is unveiled.
• A source of acute embarrassment to the CPC, the statue is
destroyed with nearly a ton of TNT in 1962.
79. Say it Ain’t So, Joe…
• The base of the statue is still visible across the
Vltava on the Letna Plain today and once held
Prague’s first rock club.
• It is still the site of various summer concerts
and festivals.
80. The “Prague Spring”
• One of the young members of the Communist party who is elevated
to a higher position is the Slovak Alexander Dubcek, who clashes
with the Stalinist old guard in the winter of 1967-68, eventually
rising to become First Secretary of the Czech Communist Party, de
facto leader of Czechoslovakia in January 1968.
• Dubcek, who was a committed communist, realized that the
country’s current path would lead to ruin and sought to liberalize
the Czech economy and loosen the draconian restrictions on the
public and press put in place by the Stalinist old guard.
• Dubcek’s reforms are watched carefully by the West, and very
nervously by the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union.
• The “Prague Spring” is the most liberal political experiment in the
Soviet bloc until the Solidarity movement in Poland in 1980.
• Media censorship is lifted and the media used to disseminate
pro0reform propaganda.
81. • Dubcek and his supporters create the Action Programme
which defines Czech socialism as being different than that
of the USSR and other communist nations.
• A call is put forth that “Socialism With a Human Face” was
to include freedom of speech, a more liberal market
economy, and a truly federalized state with respect to
Slovakia, which still had weak sister status in the People’s
Republic.
• Soviet and Warsaw Pact opinion was split between those
who wanted to take a wait and see attitude and those who
pushed for direct military intervention to roll back reform.
82. August 1968
• Five nations of the Warsaw Pact, spearheaded by the Soviet Union, invade
Czechoslovakia on August 20, 1968. 200,000 troops and 2,000 tanks
overrun the country in less than two days while the Czech military was
confined to its barracks. This is the military expression of the Brezhnev
Doctrine.
• The East Germans, mindful of their recent history with the Czech nation,
stop their combat troops at the border.
• 72 Czechs are killed resisting the invasion and several hundred are
wounded and then refused medical treatment as punishment. Swastikas
are painted on Soviet, Polish and Bulgarian tanks.
• Dubcek is deposed, and hard-line Communists return to power, beginning
the process of “normalization” – in other words, a return to strict control
of the media and economy.
• Dubcek is eventually relegated to a job with the Czech forestry service and
disappears from the political scene – until 1989, that is…
83. Jan Palach
• Palach, a 21 year old Czech university student, signs a suicide pact
with several other students to protest the Soviet invasion.
• Palach sets himself on fire in front of the National Museum in
Wenceslaus Square on January 16, 1969. He dies in agony three
days later.
• His deathbed pleas for his fellow students to not go through with
their plans to kill themselves result in only one other student, Jan
Zajic, doing so, in February 1969.
• The Czech secret police, realizing that Palach is becoming a martyr
to the regime’s opponents, disinter Palach’s body from his Prague
resting place in 1973, cremate it and send the urn to his mother.
Not until 1990 are his remains returned to his original gravesite.
• Palach’s sacrifice becomes yet another rallying point for those
opposed to the regime.
84. • Czechoslovakia enters into the drab stasis of all Eastern Bloc
countries after the Prague Spring is crushed. As the 1970’s
move into the 1980’s the dissident movement begins to
pick up steam, particularly after the Solidarity movement in
Poland forces concessions from the Polish communist party,
showing that reform is possible.
• One positive aspect of this time is that the Slovak part of
the country was at long last given equal standing with the
Czech half, which redressed many decades-old grievances.
• Underground literature, music and plays are distributed in
Samizdat form.
• One of the primary movers and shakers in the Czech
dissident movement is Vaclav Havel, a Prague playwright.
85. Vaclav Havel
• Due to his wealthy family background, Havel was
denied formal education in communist Czechoslovakia,
instead interning for a chemical company.
• His true talent was in writing plays, for which he gained
a good deal of international acclaim n the mid 1960’s.
• Havel was a commentator and government critic on
Radio Free Czechoslovakia in 1968, but after the
Prague Spring was crushed, Havel was prevented from
working in theater by the Czech authorities.
• Forced to work in a brewery, Havel continues to write
plays in Samizdat form, many of which make their way
to the West.
86. Charter 77 – All This Over a Rock
Band?
• Havel and several other dissidents distribute the Charter in January
1977 in part as a response to the arrest of a Czechoslovak
psychedelic rock band, the Plastic People of the Universe.
• The Charter is a critique of the Czech government for failing to
observe basic human rights as defined by the 1975 Helsinki
Accords.
• An advocate of peaceful resistance, Havel adopts the motto "Truth
and love will prevail over lies and hate.“
• Havel serves several jail sentences, the longest being nearly four
years.
• Charter 77 and its proponents will play a large role n the upheavals
in the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980’s.
• Apparently repressing rock bands is still in vogue in Eastern Europe
these days – has anyone heard of the band Pussy Riot?
87. Glasnost Comes to Czechoslovakia
• As the Eastern Bloc countries lag further and further behind the
West in terms of economic and social development, the crushing
national debts brought on by command economies, excessive
defense spending and lack of marketable exports put the Eastern
Bloc on the verge of collapse (sound familiar?). Only the repressive
police and military presence prevents outright revolt.
• The Soviet Union sees three leaders die within a period of less than
four years from 1982-1985 – the Stalinist era old guard is dying off
rapidly. Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko
all succumb to the ravages of old age and/or cancer, and a new
General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, is elected to head the USSR.
A moderate, Gorbachev hopes to preserve the Soviet Union by
liberalizing it’s policies and its hold on its Eastern European
satellites.
• The results will be revolutionary.
88. • Gorbachev begins to loosen Russia’s command
economy and also to lower tensions with the West,
particularly the United States, who under Ronald
Reagan had initiated a massive arms build-up in an
effort to bankrupt the USSR – it worked.
• Gorbachev’s reforms are planned to only liberalize one-
party (ie, communist) rule – he approves multi-
candidate elections, but they are all communists. Once
the genie is out of the bottle, however, events take
their own course, starting in Eastern Europe.
• Poland is the first domino to fall…
89. Hope and Change and Socialism…
• The Soviets have each of their Eastern Bloc neighbors embark on crash
industrialization programs after the Second World War in order to try to catch up
with the West, which is getting a massive infusion of Marshall Plan $$$.
• Socialist progress, Soviet style, will result in reallocation of wealth on a grand scale,
lowering the aggregate standard of living for Czechs by 30% by 1968 compared to
pre-1938 figures. This is what leads in many respects to the Prague Spring reforms
of Alexander Dubcek.
• Industrialization, particularly in Slovakia, results in incredible damage to the
environment. Northern Slovakia is part of the “Triangle of Death” encompassing
that region, southern Poland and Southeastern East Germany, where
environmental damage has still not been reversed.
• Much of the Czech Republic and Slovakia’s revenues since 1993 have been devoted
to trying to clean up the environmental, political and infrastructure programs that
are the legacy of over forty years of Communist rule.
• A great deal of the resentment that would boil over in 1989 was related to
economic issues that directly resulted from socialist and communist policies.
90. • The underground Solidarity trade union in Poland
eventually forces the Polish government’s hand in 1988,
when they agree to a popularly elected Senate.
• Gorbachev abandons the Brezhnev Doctrine for the
“Sinatra Doctrine” – Eastern Europe could now do things
“Their Way”.
• China is next, but the Tiananmen Square protests are
crushed by Chinese tanks in June, 1989. The protests serve
as a catalyst to further unrest in Eastern Europe, however.
• Solidarity is legalized in Poland as a political party and
sweeps democratic elections. The USSR stands aside and
does not intervene.
91. • Czecho-Slovakia’s neighbor and former Hapsburg
bedmate Hungary is the next to liberalize, and its
May 1989 removal of a 150 mile long border
fence with Austria is seen as the most important
step in the liberalization process in the Eastern
Bloc until the fall of the Berlin Wall.
• Hard-line governments in East Germany and
Romania resist change and insist that they are
still building a worker’s paradise via old-school
communism, but events soon overtake them.
92. Winds of Change
• As other Warsaw Pact nations begin to experiment with greater freedoms,
only Romania and the GDR hold back.
• Hungary allows East Germans “vacationing” in Hungary to traverse the
formerly sealed Austrian border on their way to West Germany.
• Thousands of Ossis seek shelter in West German embassies in Prague,
Warsaw, and Budapest.
• The GDR, in an effort to rid themselves of the most troublesome of these
refugees, allows them to be shipped in sealed railway cars to the West.
• Erich Honecker is levered out of power by the Central Committee of the
SED and replaced by Egon Krenz on October 18 in an effort to pacify the
protestors.
• On November 7, the entire GDR government resigned, followed by the
entire Politburo on the 8th. On the 9th, following a spectacular blunder by
the propaganda minister, the borders are opened and the wall
symbolically came down.
93. The Last Hapsburg
• Otto Hapsburg, son of Emperor Karl and the last Crown Prince of
Austria, had more of an impact on Austria as a private citizen than
his father did as emperor.
• Exiled with his family in 1919, Otto was a staunch anti-Nazi and
early proponent of pan-European union. In 1941, Hitler personally
revokes Hapsburg citizenship, and Otto is stateless, eventually
moving to Paris in time for the Germans to invade in May 1940…
• The Hapsburgs flee to the United States from 1940-1944, and Otto
is seen by the Austrian people as a protector, keeping Allied aircraft
from bombing Austria (not true).
• After the war, Otto renounces his claim to the throne and his
citizenship is restored. He becomes involved in European politics
and the EU, working to integrate former Eastern Bloc countries into
the EU. Maybe not such a bright idea…
94. The Velvet Revolution
• The Czech CPCz government hangs on desperately after the fall of the
Berlin Wall, but its time is coming.
• On November 17, 1989, Czech riot police suppressed a peaceful student
demonstration in Prague. The protesters are observing the 50th
anniversary of Jan Opletal’s burial: The police use force.
• One person lay down in the street after the riot dispersed, pretending to
be dead. The most commonly accepted explanation is that it was in fact a
Czech secret police agent, Ludvík Zifčák, but the motive is unknown to this
day. The rumor, of course, was that it was in fact a student that had been
killed by the authorities – one Martin Smid. That event sparked a series of
popular demonstrations from November 19 lasting into late December.
• The number of protesters would swell to nearly half a million in Prague’s
Wenceslaus Square on November 20.
• A nationwide strike on November 27 brings the country to a complete
standstill for two hours.
95. The Revolution Rolls On…
• Czech universities to include many faculty go on strike, as do many
Czech theaters, who only open their doors to host public forums.
• Protestors rattle their keys in the streets as a symbol of their desire
to be freed from one-party authoritarian rule.
• Vaclav Havel and others form the Civic Forum, which is intended to
be the organ of mass peaceful protest for the Czechoslovak people
and unites most Czech dissident groups under it’s umbrella.
• The Forum demands the resignation of Communist leaders who
authorized violence against the protesters and the removal of the
CPCz from singular control of the country.
• By the end of November, both television and newspapers were
publishing reports at odds with the official party line put forth by
the CPCz, but the party’s hardliners struggled to stay in control.
• Czechoslovakia was one of the last Eastern Bloc countries to abolish
one-party rule.
96. The End of the CPCz
• On November 28, 1989, the last Communist Czech government,
led by Gustav Husak, announces it will dismantle the one-party
state.
• Vaclav Havel and Alexander Dubcek, the heroes/victims of the
1968 Prague Spring, appear together on a balcony overlooking
Wenceslaus Square to address a crowd of over half a million
Czechoslovaks.
• On December 10, Husak appoints the first non-Communist
government since 1948, and promptly resigns.
• Dubcek is elected Speaker of the Czechoslovak federal
parliament on December 28, and Havel is elected President on
the 29th.
• Democracy returns to Czechoslovakia after forty years, but
would it last?
97. So What’s In a Name? 1989-1993
• After the initial euphoria dies off, the problems that had
plagued the First Republic come to the fore.
• Czech GDP is roughly 20% higher than Slovak, and power
once again resides in Prague, with the Czechs, as opposed
to being shared equally. Subsidy payments from Prague to
Slovakia, de rigueur during Communism, stop in 1991.
• A majority of neither Czechs nor Slovaks want a dissolution,
but Slovaks want a looser confederation and more
autonomy.
• For a time in 1992, there are two names for the country:
Czechoslovakia in the Czech lands and the hyphenated and
the formerly forbidden Czecho-Slovakia in Slovakia.
98. The Rise of Political Parties
• With the demise of the CPC, at least in name,
Czechoslovakia sees a proliferation of political parties,
to include the “Friends of Beer Party” that worked to
promote Czechoslovakia’s national drink, Pivo, and to
reduce it’s cost for the common man (don’t sweat it – a
liter of Pilsener Urquell is still around one dollar).
• The down side of this explosion of democracy is that
Czech parties have no membership in Slovakia and vice
versa, so it becomes more polarizing politically.
• Eventually the “5% Rule” has to be adopted with
regard to representation in parliament.
99. The Velvet Divorce
• Vaclav Klaus, a Czech and proponent of strong
centralized control of the country from Prague, is
selected as Prime Minister in 1992.
• Conflict between Prague and Slovakia continues, and
the Slovak premier, Vladimir Meciar, will not buy into
Klaus’ limited federation concept.
• Without a referendum in either region, Klaus and
Meciar decide essentially between themselves to
divide the two countries, even though the majority of
both Czechs and Slovaks are essentially content with
the country the way it was.
100. Are Two Countries Better Than One?
• At midnight on December 31, 2002, The Republic
of Slovakia is born. The world yawns.
• It is a defining moment for the Slovaks, however,
who since their independence have outstripped
their slower neighbor to the west in terms of
integration into the European Union and
increased per capita income and GDP.
• Relations between the Czech and Slovak
Republics are probably better now than at any
time in their long history, as they are each other’s
most important trading partners
101. The Czech Republic Today -
Government
• Vaclav Klaus ascends to the Czech Presidency in 2003
after Havel retires.
• The Czech President is the head of state while the
Prime Minister is the head of the government – as both
are roughly equal in power and influence, there is
always potential conflict, as there was between Klaus
and Havel.
• Jan Fischer is the current caretaker PM, replacing Mirek
Topolánek, who resigned in March 2009 after several
ill-advised gaffes that evoked memories of the Nazi
protectorate. Fischer will serve until the next round of
elections slated for June 2010.
102. Czech Politics
• The largest party in terms of membership and
representation is the Civic Democratic Party (CDP),
which gained 35% of the votes in the last election. The
CDP is a center-right party that is similar in outlook to
the British Conservative Party.
• The Czech Social Democratic Party (CSPD) is the other
major player with about 32% of the votes cast in the
2006 election. The CDP and the CSPD enter into
coalition governments with some of the smaller parties
in the system, including the Christian Democrats and
the Greens.
103. Ya Gotta Give ‘Em Credit…
• The Communist party of Bohemia and Moravia,
although it generally pulls around 13% of the vote
in general elections, is a bit of a pariah and has a
difficult time entering into ruling coalitions,
although its numbers allowed them to
manufacture the vote of no confidence that
brought down the Topolánek government in
2009.
• They are the only political party in Eastern Europe
that retained the word “communist” in their title
after 1989.
104. NATO and the West
• The Czech Republic once more turns to the West for a
defensive alliance, entering NATO in March 1999.
• The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, famously
stated the organization's goal was "to keep the
Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans
down". Now, of course, the alliance serves a
completely different purpose the Germans are up and
in, some Americans want out, and many of the former
Warsaw pact countries are members.
• The Russians, of course, do not like this one bit.
105. It Never Ends…
• Even within the truncated Czech state as it exists today,
there are still ethnic tensions, particularly with regard
to the transplanted Roma/Gypsy population.
• 60% of inmates in the Czech prison system are
estimated to be Roma.
• Far right Czech political parties (the National Party) are
openly anti-Roma, a sentiment shared by roughly 80%
of the dominant Czech population.
• A communist-era pig farm still sits over the site of the
original WWII Lety camp, and has become a symbol to
Roma and their supporters of governmental
indifference and bias.
106. Euroscepticism
• The current Czech President, Vaclav Klaus, does not believe that the EU is
good for the Czech Republic and has either actively worked to prevent full
Czech ascension to the EU or at best has not spoken in favor of the EU
when given the opportunity.
• Concerns that the EU will weaken Czech sovereignty too much are often
cited as his reasons, but In 2005 he remarked to a group of visiting U.S.
politicians that the EU was a "failed and bankrupt entity” and advocated
that the Union be scrapped.
• Klaus’ signature was the last on the Lisbon Treaty, which strengthened the
governing ability of the EU Parliament and ministers.
• In addition to sovereignty issues, Klaus does not believe in man-made
global warming, somewhat of a cause célèbre in Euro circles.
• Klaus is obviously not the most popular man in Europe right now, but is
popular enough in the Czech Republic to have narrowly won a second
term in 2008.
107. End of the Line
• Otto had been offered the crown of Spain by Francisco Franco
when he decided to restore the Spanish monarchy in 1961 but
declined, instead working for a unified and peaceful Europe.
• Otto dies on July 4, 2011. He is buried in the Kupuzinergruft
in Vienna in a formal ceremony as befitted a deceased
monarch, even though he was never Emperor. He becomes
the 149th Hapsburg royal entombed in the crypt.
• With Otto’s death, his son, Karl von Hapsburg, becomes
Archduke of Austria and head of the Hapsburg dynasty,
although he is not considered heir to the throne.
• Otto Hapsburg had served longer in the European Parliament
than any other member.
108. You’re In Prague… Now What?
• http://maps.google.com/
• There are five main districts in “Old Prague” –
Old Town, New Town, Josefov, Hradcany and
Mala Strana, or the Lesser Quarter
109. Josefov
• Named by local Jews in honor of Josef II, who
relaxed anti-semitic laws during the Hapsburg
era.
• Jewish Cemetery
• Old/New Synagogue
• Spanish Synagogue
110. Stare Mesto – The Old Town
• The original “city” of Prague, Old Town is
home to our Hotel on Na Porici (almost) and
Old Town Square with it’s Hus statue and Our
Lady Before Tyn Church. It is also the gateway
to Charles Bridge, Mala Strana and the Hrad.
• Check out the Old Town Hall Clock in Old Town
Square on the hour
111. The Hrad
• St. Vitus Cathedral
• Czernin Palace
• Golden Lane
112. Mala Strana
• The “Little Quarter” is the home many
countries’ embassies as well as where we will
have our meetings on Monday.
113. Nove Mesto – The New Town
• “New” is relative – Charles IV founded it in
1348.
• It is home of most of Prague’s famous
Squares, including Wenceslas here, and
Republic Square.
• The Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius is
here, as well as U Kalice, one of th emore
famous beer halls.
