Second Czechoslovak Republic
The Second Czechoslovak Republic (Czech: Druhá Česko-Slovenská republika, Slovak: Druhá Česko-Slovenská republika) existed for 169 days, between 30 September 1938 and 15 March 1939. It was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and the autonomous regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus', the latter being renamed Carpathian Ukraine on 30 December 1938.[1]
Czecho-Slovak RepublicČesko-Slovenská republika
The Second Republic was the result of the events following the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the German-populated Sudetenland region to Germany on 1 October 1938. After the Munich Agreement and the German government made clear to foreign diplomats that Czechoslovakia was now a German client state, the Czechoslovak government attempted to curry favour with Germany by banning the country's Communist Party, suspending all Jewish teachers in German educational institutes in Czechoslovakia, and enacted a law to allow the state to take over Jewish companies.[2] In addition, the government allowed the country's banks to effectively come under German–Czechoslovak control.[2] On 2 November, by the First Vienna Award, the southern parts of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia were ceded to Hungary.
The Second Republic was dissolved when Germany invaded it on 15 March 1939, and annexed the Czech region into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. On the same day as the German occupation, the President of Czechoslovakia, Emil Hácha was appointed by the German government as the State President of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia which he held throughout the war.
History[edit]
Czechoslovakia had become a shell of its former self and was now a greatly weakened state. The Munich Agreement had resulted in Bohemia and Moravia losing about 38 percent of their combined area to Germany, with some 3.2 million German and 750,000 Czech inhabitants. Lacking its natural frontier and having lost its costly system of border fortification, the new state was militarily indefensible.
Hungary received 11,882 km2 (4,588 sq mi) in southern Slovakia and southern Ruthenia; according to a 1941 census, about 86.5 percent of the population in this territory was Hungarian. Poland acquired the town of Těšín with the surrounding area—some 906 km2 (350 sq mi), some 250,000 inhabitants, mostly Poles—and two minor border areas in northern Slovakia, more precisely in the regions Spiš and Orava – 226 km2 (87 sq mi), 4,280 inhabitants, only 0.3 percent Poles. The Czechoslovak government had problems in taking care of the 115,000 Czech and 30,000 German refugees, who had fled to the remaining rump of Czechoslovakia.
The political system of the country was also in chaos. Following the resignation of Edvard Beneš on 5 October, Prime Minister Jan Syrový took over most presidential duties—as per the Constitution—until Emil Hácha was chosen as President on 30 November 1938. Hácha was chosen because of his Catholicism and conservatism and because of not being involved in any government that led to the partition of the country. He appointed Rudolf Beran, the leader of the Agrarian Party since 1933, as prime minister on 1 December 1938.
Unlike most Agrarians, Beran was sceptical of liberalism and democracy. The Communist Party was dissolved, although its members were allowed to remain in Parliament. Tough censorship was introduced, and an Enabling Act was also introduced, which allowed the government to rule without parliament. Most of the non-socialist parties in the Czech Lands merged into the Party of National Unity, with Beran as leader.
