CHRONICAL OF SUDETENLAND

The events happened more than 60 Years ago, but their effects can be felt even today. If we want to understand the present, we have to know what happened in the past.”
Juraj Herz, Director

The Sudetenland encompasses an area of 27,000 sq. kilometers (10,400 sq. miles / comparison: Maryland 10.577 sq.miles) in Bohemia, Moravia and Sudeten Silesia. Sudeten refers to a mountain range some 200 miles long and approximately 20 - 40 miles wide.

The term "Sudeten Germans" has been in use since the beginning of the century to describe the 3-1/2 million Germans in the three provinces which used to be known as the lands of the Bohemian Crown. The Sudeten Germans are ethnically related to the Bavarians, Franconians, Saxons and Silesians, thus containing elements of the major German tribes.

For more than 700 years Germans and Czechs lived together peacefully. It is true that from time to time there were tensions and conflicts, e.g., the Hussite wars in the 15th century, but they were fought for religious and social reasons, rather than on racial grounds.
Bohemia and Moravia had for centuries been part of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation", and Emporers such as Charles IV and Rudolf II had their seat in Prague, the capital of Bohemia. Charles IV founded the first German university in Prague in 1348. In 1526 the lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the regions in which the Sudeten Germans lived, came under the rule of the Habsburgs. They thus became part of the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" until 1806, and of the German Confederation from 1815 to 1866.
In 1848 the Sudeten Germans were among those who elected members of the first German parliament which met in the Church of St. Paul in Frankfurt. Until 1918 the Sudeten Germans were part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The end of WW I in 1918 resulted in the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian multi-national empire. The 6.7 million Czechs demanded a state of their own in which the highly industrialized Sudetenland (3.1 million Germans) was to be incorporated.
Even before the proclamation of the CSR on October 18, 1918, the Sudeten Germans invoked the right of self-determination and demanded that their homeland be united with Austria, which in turn expressed the wish to be united with the German Reich.
Exerted by the pressure of Hitler and in accordance with the proposal of Britain and France that the Sudeten region should be ceded to German, Czechoslovakia accepted this proposal on September 21, 1938.

After World War II, between 12-14 million Germans (Balkans and Sudetenland) were fleeing or driven from their homes where they had lived for centuries; about 2 million of them were killed. More than 3 million Sudeten Germans were "ethnically cleansed". About 240,000 Sudeten Germans (approx. one seventh of the German minority in Czechoslovakia) lost their lives during the expulsion, either by being brutally murdered (by a minority of Czechs) or by perishing en route, many were tortured. Some homeless Sudeten Germans wound up in Austria, but the majority resettled in war-torn Germany.
The Czech government passed amnesty laws in 1945, decreeing that Czech nationals committing a crime against the Germans will be exempt from punishment (“Benes Decrees”). These laws are still in effect today. It has been more than sixty years since the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, a historic event which is practically unknown to the world.
For more information please visit
>> http://sudetengermans.freeyellow.com/
>> top