Czech defences 1938

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Axis History Forum • View topic - German invasion of Denmark

In the link above you can find for example descriptions of several "battles" in which the Danes "halted" the German advance:

 

IMO Wilson's 14 points are the typycal "piece of paper". It all dependended on implementation, the devil is, as usual, in the details, and implementation was not good enough to prevent war starting again twenty years later (but of course this is 20/20 hindsight ).

The Czech dilemma was a choice between ethnic cleansing, an indefensible border, or the historical choice.

In practice the post 1918 final borders put just too many germans inside "versailles creations" or inside the winner's borders, allowed for the creation of Baltic states that had no hope of keeping their independance as soon as Russia stabilized, for a Finnish border that was practically on the outskirts of Russia's second largest city, did little to define a defensible Polish border, the actual ones were finally decided by force of arms but the "Danzig corridor" must be one of the most indefensible positions in history, and left the Balkans the usual mess.

Yougoslavia, was an attempt to create a multi-ethnic state, so clearly against the principles, for fear that smaller ones would be unable to protect themselves.

The "plan" was also used to invalidate the London agreements with Italy, and that created resentment and mistrust in Italy and a golden opportunity for Mussolini.

The problem is there in no such thing as "clearly recognisable lines of nationality", defensible borders are a much better guarantee for peace, but if you gor for "defensible borders", and that means either the sea, a major river or the breakwater line on a mountain range, you will get a lot of people on the wrong side of the line. The one point where he was right, and ahead of his times, is point 3, strong trade relationships are the next best guarantee for peace after defensible borders.

 

I wonder why German minority in Czech Republic did not emigrate to Germany after 1918 - like most of German minority in Western Poland did.

For example in Poznan in 1914 Germans were nearly 40% of inhabitants (Poles were over 60%) and 10 years later Poles were 95%, Germans 5%.

They voluntarily emigrated from Poland to Germany. Why German minority within the new borders of independent Czech state didn't?

 

I think the main point is being missed here.

On their own the Czech defences would not be adequate to stem a German attack - hence the reason why the Czech Government put up no resistance once the the Allies failed to support her.

However, France and Russia had a treaty with Czechoslovakia, admittedly this was not a strong one since the original concept had been watered down by a certain Pierre Laval. However there is evidence that not only France but Soviet Russia wanted to present a united armed front again Hitler. Litvinov had proposed to the French and British that a joint meeting of their respective Staffs should be arranged - he got no answer. And Russia was not invited to the negotiations with Hitler.

The French were prepared to honour the treaty provided the British backed them up. This was not forthcoming and as we know Chamberlain dominated the disastrous negotiations. A strong British response would have resulted in a joint declaration from all three Countries against German aggression against Czechoslovakia.


If there had been a united front of Britain, France and Russia, then even an opportunist like Hitler would have had to think twice and there was a very good chance that the Generals faced with a two front War (which Hitler promised would never happen) would have seriously opposed his scheme. At this point Hitler had had some foreign policy successes, Austria and the Rhineland, but had not established the overpowering reputation gained after Munich.

 

to Domen121.
Do you own a house or a flat ? do you own land ? do you have work ? do you have relatives living in the surounding? does your kind of people own the land for nearly a thousand years ? If you can say to only one point yes I think your question is obsolete. Why should we run away from what was ours ?

Sometimes I have the impression, all can happen to others (or in best case to the germans) but not to us??? think about it, I do not know you but if you were told GO AWAY or we supress you (or 25 years later we will do genozid to your people) would you go? I don't think so. So pls explain to me why the sudetengermans should had to go? And to speak of right terms the sudetengermans were no minority. The problem was, the Allied created an artifical state and put together different nations like the germans, chzech, slowaks, pols, hungarian , ukrainian. chzech people were about 6 million. sudetengermans were about 3,4 million. so this is NOT a minority !! til 1938 when the sudeten crisis started, there was no sudetengerman in the higher positions for instance of the railway company. only the lesser work were for the germans. according to the 3.4million germans, they should get over 40.000 state and government jobs. not one was given to a german ! in the sudeten areas only chzech police was recruted and so on and so on.

from the chzech government site there you can find alot of traces of the depression of the sudeten germans

as mentioned the railway complaint here:
Prag, am 30. August 1928.
J. Najman m. p., Eisenbahnminister


Plenarsitzung der Abgeordnetenkammer in Prag 1930 bezüglich des Eisenbahnzustandes (Auszug)
Hier: Diskriminierung Sudetendeutscher in der Tschechischen Eisenbahn
Bei der Eisenbahn ist die Ungerechtigkeit noch viel krasser. Sogar ein Mitglied der heutigen Regierungspartei, der Herr Abg. Pohl, hat festgestellt, daß von 600 Oberbeamten im Eisenbahnministerium nur zwei Deutsche sind. Von den 109 Oberbeamten bei den Staatsbahndirektionen ist kein einziger Deutscher. Unter 122 Vorständen der Bahnerhaltungssektion ist kein Deutscher. Von 37 Heizhausvorständen ist abermals kein Deutscher, und so geht es fort. Weiß von dieser Ungerechtigkeit, welche bei jedem Anlass an uns Deutschen begangen wird, auch das Ausland? Das wird wohl der Herr Minister Benesch dem Auslande kaum mitteilen.


it says not only one german chairman from 122 seats, from 37 engine houses no one german, from 109 high level state worker no german and so on. from 600 state workers only are 2 german.

strange behavior isn't it for a multi ethical state ? A nation with 1/3 germans in it ?

 

to scipio.

At present I read the very interesting book :
Akten zur Deutschen Auswärtigen Politik
1918-1945
Serie D(1937-1945)
Band II
Deutschland und die Tschechoslowakei
1937-1938

(sudetencrisis).
inside the british embassador stated several times, that the russians could not keep up the military support, because poland and rumania did not allow the russians to transport their military divisions trough their countrys to czech country.
even worse the french, what could they do ? there was no way to czech country, unless they would have a big air force ( which they did not have at this time) . they could only run against the german westwall. And the british stated that they would not help the french in case of the sudtencrisis if the germans would march into sudetenland, because they had no treaty with the french in case the french would keep up their treaty with czech country with an attack towards the german reich.
And another point to mention: the british knew and spoke cleary with the czech goverment about the injustice and suppression of sudetengermans and they were called upon to correct the situation asap in 1938.

It predominates in the public opinion, as the Munich Agreement was one of the many crimes of the Third Reich -. An absurd inversion of the facts "(Prof. Dr. Hellmut Diwald)


you write about german agressions against the czech state. this is very shortsighted. You have to go back to 1918 and than have a close look what really happened til 1938 under the czech authority. It was an inhuman suppression. even during the neogotiations between konrad Henlein from the SDP ( sudeten deutsche partei) and Hacha the state praesident from czech country in march 1938 to find a working solution for both people, the czech provoked with a dangerous action: arming the czech minority civilians in the sudetengerman areas with firearms. IN MARCH 1938 !! not in September or october 1938 !

here:

 

Sorry the piece above should have come within my reply but please read this first!

Czechoslovakia was an artificial creation in 1918 largely at the insistence of the French who naturally wanted to protect themselves against more German aggression.

Czechoslovakia ran against the self-determination principle set out at Versailles since it included German Sudetens as well as Hungarians and Poles - in addition and as we know Slovakia was not enamoured by the union.

As you will see above, a report on the Bad Godesberg meeting prior to Munich -taken from a Jochim Fest's book Hitler (German author)- Hitler was given everything he wanted with regard to the Sudetens BUT THIS DID NOT FIT HIS PLANS. He wanted the whole of Czechoslovakia as he had made plain in November 1937 to his top generals Blomberg and Fritsch. When they objected he maneuvered their downfall.

If Hitler had accepted the offer then they would have been incorporated into Germany - end of story and everyone happy ever after.

However, Hitler cynically used the Sudetens.

Consider if Hitler had left Czechoslovakia alone - what would have happened? At the very worst your family would still be living in the Sudeten under an oppressive regime. However optimistically the Czechs could have released them as was the case with Slovakia. In either case it was Hitlers action which set up the extreme bitterness which led to their forced eviction after the the War - an action which I condemn. I really think your prime anger should be directed at Hitler and only secondly at the Czechs.

 

Among all the statements about how the Sudaten Germans wer oppressed by the Czechs there remains an unanswered question. If Hitler and the Nazis were so concerned about them why was the Sudatenland never made an actual part of Germany and as soon as the rest of Bohemia and Moravia were taken over the Sudatenland remained a part of the Bohemian and Moravia n "Protectorate"?

 

Well.... In actual fact there was no "Self-Determination" principle in the Treaty, that was in the Fourteen Points, but never made it into the treaty.