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Czechoslovakia Munich and After
After the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in early
1938, the fear of a similar fate increased in Czechoslovakia; the
authorities, however, were determined to fight rather than to
submit quietly as the Austrians had done. President Benes ordered
a partial mobilization, and the country began to prepare for the
war that appeared to be inevitable. At that time, treaties
pledged French, British, and Soviet aid to Czechoslovakia, but at
Munich in September Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Britain
and Premier Edouard Daladier of France capitulated to Hitler's
demands and agreed to sacrifice Czechoslovakia in exchange for
the peace promised by Hitler. Because the Soviet Union's pledge
depended on whether or not France abided by its commitment,
Czechoslovakia was left without allies. Hitler promised at Munich
to take only the Sudetenland, but less than six months later, on
March 15, 1939, German troops marched into Prague. Bohemia and
Moravia became a Nazi protectorate; Slovakia was granted a
measure of autonomy but, in effect, became a puppet state
(see The War Years, 1939-45
, ch. 1). The Czechoslovak army, which
could have mobilized as many as thirty divisions, was disarmed
and disbanded.
During the occupation of the Czech lands, acts of resistance
and sabotage were met with vicious reprisals. Persecution became
particularly severe under Reinhard Heydrich, who was appointed
Reich protector of Bohemia and Moravia in September 1941. Less
than nine months later Heydrich, who had previously been deputy
to the infamous Heinrich Himmler, was assassinated by two
Czechoslovak commandos who had been trained in Britain and
parachuted into their homeland to carry out the mission. Nazi
retribution was swift and frightful. The village of Lidice,
selected as the target for punishment, was completely
obliterated. All male inhabitants over age sixteen were shot, all
women were sent to concentration camps, and all children were
sent to German orphanages. Even Lidice, however, did not end
Czechoslovak resistance
(see Czech Resistance
, ch. 1).
In Slovakia conditions were little better for the average
citizen than in the Czech lands. Despite its ostensible position
as an autonomous state administered by Slovaks, this puppet state
had quickly taken on the characteristics of a police state, and
the occupying forces pressed the Germanization of the people. All
opposition was suppressed, and before long underground resistance
groups arose as they had in Bohemia and Moravia. The various
Slovak resistance forces coalesced into a single command and
staged the Slovak National Uprising from August through October
1944. Although unsuccessful, this uprising was one of the most
significant rebellions in Nazi-occupied Europe
(see Slovak Resistance
, ch. 1).
In addition to those fighters who devoted their energies to
the resistance movements in various parts of the country, many
other Czechoslovaks escaped abroad to join Allied armed forces or
to form all-Czechoslovak units. Various contingents, including
the First Czechoslovak Corps under the command of General Ludvik
Svoboda, fought alongside Soviet formations as they liberated
eastern Europe. However, these forces arrived in Slovakia too
late to relieve the resistance units, which suffered heavy losses
during the Slovak National Uprising. In western Europe, a
Czechoslovak infantry brigade and three air squadrons accompanied
the British forces in the invasion of the continent.
President Benes, in the meanwhile, had spent most of the war
years in London. In March 1945 he traveled to Moscow for
negotiations about the program and composition of the new
Czechoslovak government that would be formed as the country was
liberated. The town of Kosice in eastern Slovakia was designated
as a temporary capital, and the Kosice Program, which outlined a
detailed plan for government, was published there. Eight key
governmental posts were designated to be filled by members of the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Komunisticka strana
Ceskoslovenska--KSC), including the Ministry of National Defense,
which was put under the charge of Svoboda. The government moved
from Kosice to Prague on May 10, 1945, and, as defense minister,
Svoboda began organizing the armed forces along Soviet lines as
agreed to in the Kosice Program. Svoboda, a genuine war hero, had
fought in both world wars. As a twenty-year-old conscript in the
Austro-Hungarian army in 1915, he had been sent to the Russian
front, where he deserted and joined the forces that eventually
became the Czechoslovak Legion. After returning to civilian life
briefly in the early 1920s, Svoboda joined the new army and spent
the rest of his life in service, which included the presidency of
the republic from 1968 to 1975.
As World War II neared its end in 1945, the American Third
Army under the command of General George S. Patton was in
Czechoslovakia near Plzen (Pilsen) and was fully capable of
liberating Prague, but prior political arrangements had reserved
that highly symbolic act for the Red Army. Over four decades
later, Czechoslovak citizens were still frequently reminded that
the Red Army had paid a high price in lives and wealth to secure
their freedom from the Nazis. They were constantly told that they
owed an everlasting debt of gratitude to their liberators. That
many in the Czechoslovak Legion died fighting alongside Russian
soldiers in Russia during World War I was rarely publicized.
The armed forces that Svoboda began to rebuild in 1945 were
heavily influenced by the Soviet forces in which many
Czechoslovaks had served, including many officers and
noncommissioned officers (NCOs) who had become members of the
KSC. Svoboda had not yet become a party member, although he
certainly sympathized with the Soviet cause, and approximately
one-third of his top commands were held by communist generals.
That communist officers had taken over the posts of troop
education officers at all levels, almost without exception, was
perhaps of even greater significance. In the election of 1946,
military garrisons voted heavily for the communist candidates.
Because of the intense political activism of the communists,
however, antagonism arose between the communist-influenced
officers from the eastern front and those air force officers from
the western front who had been based in London during the war.
These two groups constituted the bulk of armed forces personnel
in the early postwar period.
Data as of August 1987
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