Ethnic politics towards Germans during the period of their spontaneous eviction in 1945 in the state politics of memory of the Czech Republic

Abstract

The article examines the directions of the state politics of memory in the Czech Republic regarding the problem of recognising and understanding the violence by the Czechs against the German population in 1945 and the subsequent CzechGerman reconciliation, which became an important factor of the peaceful and productive interaction of the Czech Republic and Germany in the united Europe. The adoption of a new perspective of historical memory at the stage of post-socialist transformation was primarily due to the initiatives of Czech historians and activists to study the problem of violence at the final stage of World War II on the Czech lands and the subsequent expulsion of Germans. This approach in turn was reflected in the official position of the presidents of the Czech Republic V. Havel and V. Klaus during the signing of the CzechGerman agreements and declarations, which made it possible to eliminate conflicts of perception of a common traumatic past among the current generations of Czechs and Germans. The memory of the violence against German-speaking citizens of Czechoslovakia is broadcast both through the formation of memory objects (monuments, feature films) and within the framework of local public initiatives. The review of the initiatives to perpetuate the victims of the Brno death march, undertaken in the concluding part of the article, reveals the contradictory nature of reconciliation in relation to the memory of post-war violence in contemporary Czech society.

Keywords

• state politics of memory
• czech republic
• germans in czechoslovakia
• brno death march (1945)