Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia[a] was a partially-annexed[3] territory of Nazi Germany that was established on 16 March 1939 after the German occupation of the Czech lands. The protectorate's population was mostly ethnic Czech.
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
After the Munich Agreement of September 1938, the Third Reich had annexed the German-majority Sudetenland to Germany from Czechoslovakia in October 1938. Following the establishment of the independent Slovak Republic on 14 March 1939, and the German occupation of the Czech rump state the next day, German leader Adolf Hitler established the protectorate on 16 March 1939, issuing a proclamation from Prague Castle.[6] The creation of the protectorate violated the Munich Agreement.[7]
The protectorate remained nominally autonomous and had a dual system of government, with German law applying to ethnic Germans while other residents had the legal status of Protectorate subjects and were governed by a puppet Czech administration. During the Second World War (1939-1945), the well-trained Czech workforce and developed industry were forced to make a major contribution to the German war economy. Since the Protectorate was just out of the reach of Allied bombers based in Britain, the Czech economy was able to work almost undisturbed until the end of the war. The Protectorate administration became deeply involved in the Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia.[8][9]
The state's existence came to an end with the surrender of Germany to the Allies in May 1945. After the war, some Protectorate officials were charged with collaborationism, but according to the prevailing belief in Czech society, the Protectorate was not entirely rejected as a collaborationist entity.[10]
Background[edit]
Hitler's interest in Czechoslovakia was largely driven by economic demands . The Four-Year Plan that Hitler launched in September 1936 to have the German economy ready for a "total war" by 1940 was faltering by 1937 owing to a shortage of foreign exchange to pay for the vast economic demands imposed by the ambitious armaments targets as Germany lacked many of the necessary raw materials, which had to be imported.[11] The British historian Richard Overy wrote the huge demands of the Four Year Plan "...could not be fully met by a policy of import substitution and industrial rationalization"..[12] In November 1937 at the Hossbach conference, Hitler announced that to stay ahead in the arms race with the other powers that Germany had to seize Czechoslovakia in the very near-future.[12] Czechoslovakia was the world's 7th largest manufacturer of arms, making Czechoslovakia into an important player in the global arms trade.[13]
After Czechoslovakia accepted the terms of the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938, Nazi Germany incorporated the ethnic German majority Sudetenland regions along the German border directly into Nazi Germany. Five months later, the Nazis violated the Munich Agreement, when, with Nazi German support, the Slovak parliament declared the independence of the Slovak Republic, Adolf Hitler invited Czechoslovak President Emil Hácha to Berlin and accepted his request for the German occupation of the Czech rump state and its reorganization as a German protectorate to deter Polish and Hungarian aggression.
Hitler's wish to occupy Czechoslovakia was largely caused by the foreign exchange crisis as Germany had exhausted its foreign exchange reserves by early 1939, and Germany urgently needed to seize the gold of the Czechoslovak central bank to continue the Four Year Plan.[14] The British historian Victor Rothwell wrote that the Czechoslovak reserves of gold and hard currency seized in March 1939 were "invaluable in staving off Germany's foreign exchange crisis".[14]
On 16 March when Hitler proclaimed the protectorate, he declared: "For a thousand years the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia formed part of the Lebensraum of the German people."[15]
There was no real precedent for this action in German history. The model for the protectorate were the Princely states in India under the Raj. In just in the same way that Indian maharajahs in the Princely states were allowed a nominal independence, but the real power rested with the British resident stationed to monitor the maharajah, Hitler emulated this practice with the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia as the German media quite explicitly compared the relationship between the Reich Protector, Baron Konstantin von Neurath and President Emil Hácha to that of a British resident and an Indian maharajah.[16] Neurath seems to be chosen as Reich Protector in because as a former foreign minister and a former ambassador to Great Britain, he was well known in London for his avuncular, but dignified manner, which were the personality traits associated with the popular image of a British resident. Hitler believed that emulating the Raj would make this violation of the Munich Agreement more acceptable to Britain, and as that proved not to be the case the German media launched a lengthy campaign denouncing British "hypocrisy".[17] The German authorities intentionally allowed the protectorate "all the trappings of independence" in order to encourage the Czech inhabitants to collaborate with them.[18] However, despite the protectorate having its own postage stamps and presidential guard, real power lay with the Nazi authorities.[18]
Education[edit]
In common with the other "submerged" nations of Eastern Europe, the Czech intelligentsia had an immense prestige as the bearers and protectors of the national culture, who would keep the Czech language and culture alive when the Czech nation was "submerged". No segment of the Czech intelligentsia faced more pressure to conform to the occupation policy than school teachers.[37] Frank called the teachers "the most dangerous wing of the intelligentsia" while Heydrich referred to the teachers as "the training core of the opposition Czech government [in exile in London]".[37] To keep their jobs, teachers were required to demonstrate fluency in German and were supposed to greet their students with the fascist salute while saying "Sieg Heil!" ("Hail Victory!").[37] School inspectors made surprise visits to the classrooms and all chairpersons of the exam boards had to be ethnic Germans.[37] Some teachers and students were Gestapo informers, which spread a climate of mistrust and paranoia across the school system as both teachers and students never knew whom to trust.[37] One teacher recalled: "The Gestapo even had informers and agents amongst the children. Uncertainty and mistrust destroyed any feeling of comradeship among the children".[37]
Despite these pressures, a number of Czech teachers quietly inserted "anti-Reich" ideas into their lessons while refusing to greet their students with "Sieg Heil!".[37] Especially under Frank, the teachers suffered harshly. In the first six months of 1944, about 1,000 Czech teachers were either executed or imprisoned.[37] By 1945, about 5,000 Czech teachers were imprisoned in the concentration camps, where a fifth died.[37] By the end of the occupation, about 40% of all Czech teachers had been fired with the figure reaching 60% in Prague.[37]
Informational notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading