Fighting Without Surrender: Czechoslovakia and WWII
As you are waiting for My Brother’s Mark to arrive…
Czechoslovakia was a young, brash nation that managed to survive a troubling beginning post-World War I. In under twenty-five years, after the end of the war, savage, polarizing leadership rose up on each of Czechoslovakia’s borders. During the Munich Agreement in 1938, part of southern Czechoslovakia was portioned off to appease Adolf Hitler and Germany. Without fair or in-person representation, Western Allie forces forfeited over the Czech, Slovakian, and Sudetenland German people and their homeland to the whims of Hitler.
Within weeks of the negotiation, the entire country was overrun by German forces and the country’s Jewish citizens were being confined to a ghetto outside of Prague called Terezín. The Czechoslovak government was banished to exile, and the people were squelched.
While Czechoslovakia spent most of the war overrun by Germans and then occupied by Russians after the Red Army’s “liberation,” the natural citizens played a critical part in the fight for freedom from Nazi domination. A landlocked European country, with foes at every border, Czechoslovakia was significant to the entire outcome of the war for 3 distinct reasons.
Project Anthropoid
Reinhard Heydrich, known as the “Butcher of Prague”, was a leading SS officer in Hitler’s inner circle. He was governor, boss, and executor in Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak Resistance set up an impossible assassination attempt on the brutal man in the spring of 1942.
The assassination was a success, but barely, and the repercussions for the Czechoslovak people were very high. Heydrich died in the hospital eight days after being injured by a tossed grenade. The bold actions of the ill equipped, unsupported resistance fighters stirred confidence in the Allie forces the tide of the war could be turned. Hitler and his men were mortal.
Diplomatic Council
At the start of the war, most of Czechoslovakia’s governing officials went into exile or became prisoners. Leaders like the country’s president Edvard Beneš, foreign minister Jan Masaryk, and ambassador Josef Korbel fled to the west. These Czech leaders’ relationships with Allie nations, would remain strong despite The Munich Agreement. It was not uncommon for a Czechoslovak diplomat to counsel an Allie leader on world politics and war time negotiations.
The Prague Uprising
Toward the end of the war, in 1945, the Czechoslovak Resistance was making a comeback. More Allie resources were coming in and news of the Red Army’s closeness was circulating on the foreign radio waves. From Prague, citizens could see the Soviet soldiers to the east and American soldiers to the southwest.
Project Anthropoid was almost three years in the past and the Czechoslovaks wanted to throw off the oppressive Nazi blanket. In short order, the collective decided not to wait one more day. May 5, 1945 homemade barricades went up, Czechoslovak police officers disarmed Nazi soldiers, and women began stealing weapons and ammunition from the enemy.
The leaderless Nazis, Hitler had committed suicide by this date, understood their retreat route was becoming closed off and fought back still in possession of firearms and bombs and ruthlessness.
Rebel leaders boomed, “Let every shot find a target, let every blow avenge the death of your brother, sister, father, or mother. Tonight let all men, women, boys, and girls build still more and bigger barricades which no tank can penetrate, no shell can pierce.” (From Madeleine Albright’s Prague Winter)
1,700 Czech citizens perished from the fighting on May 5th through the 7th. German troops worked toward a negotiation for a secure retreat which brought a cease fire throughout Prague. The point was made: Time to get out.
The history of Czechoslovakia’s resistance to the crushing force of the Nazi Army is a reminder to always fight against evil and oppression. The people fought from within, from outside, and never ceasing. The Czechoslovak spirit, bold and fiery, burns bright in the descendants of those who lived during and through WWII.
I have included some great resources about Czechoslovakia and WWII. To offer you a bit of background to the Prague Spring, watch a movie, dive into a book, or peruse a website to learn something new today.
Favorite Resource : National Czech & Slovak Museum
Holocaust Memorial : Terezin Memorial and Museum
