Czech Hell

File:Herbert Smagon - Lebende Fackeln.png

Burning of German children in Prague (Lebende Fackeln); The provisional government of Czechoslovakia was proclaimed on 5 April 1945. The Communist Party seized a third of the national government, including the ministers of the Interior and Defence. Communist propaganda and actions contributed to large-scale atrocities against Germans and their allies, including Estonians. Czech communist (terrorists) demanded that German units surrendered their arms, which the Estonians did. The surrendering German troops included thousands of officers and soldiers of the Estonian volunteer division who had not committed any war crimes. Regardless, the terrorists hunted them down and took some of the unarmed men prisoner, tortured and humiliated them. The number of prisoners of war killed has been estimated as 500−1000, but the actual number is unknown.

Czech Hell (Estonian: Tšehhi põrgu) refers to the massacres and atrocities committed by Czech communists and fanatical fascists against German civilians, and Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS soldiers in and after May 1945.

Bohemia and Prague had been under the reign of Austria for centuries and was at times the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Germans and Czechs had lived together in peace during that time, and during WWII the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had a very quite time.

History

The terrorism began on May 5, 1945, in the last moments of the war in Europe.

Uprising of communists

At about 1:00 am on the May 5, armed Czech communist and fascist terrorists overwhelm the Waffen-SS defending the radio buildings. The radio announcer broadcast a call to the "Czech nation" to rebel and asked the people in the streets of Prague to build barricades. Elsewhere, Czech terrorists occupied the Gestapo and Sipo Headquarters.

German forces outside Prague started to move toward the city center in order to relieve their trapped countrymen. During May 6, the Germans attempted to recapture the radio station building. As the German advance ran into significant resistance, both in the building itself and at the barricades in nearby streets, the Germans decided to use bombs instead. This attack was a success. However, the Czech terrorists managed to continue to broadcast their messages of insurrection from another location.

On May 7, Waffen-SS armoured and artillery units stationed outside of Prague, frustrated by the lack of decisive progress made by the German Wehrmacht infantry, launched several tank attacks on the terrorists.

On May 9, 1945, the Soviet Red Army arrived in Prague. American Army units had been closer to Prague than the Soviets, and their reconnaissance units were already in Prague suburbs when the insurrection began. However, the Americans did not help the Czech terrorists. Instead they overlooked the uprising, and all carnage that followed.

Massacres

German civilians residing in Prague, administrators, officials, and family members of the German military were the easiest targets of the Czechs. They had to flee by any means, including in stolen vehicles, in order to save their lives. Many atrocities were committed against them if caught, including the burning alive of German children in the Wenzelsplatz in Prague on May 20, 1945.

The local Czech population resumed their attacks also on the surrendered Waffen-SS troops regardless of the fact that the Czech Republic was a signatory to the Geneva Conventions protecting POWs. The soldiers of the 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian), who had mistakely laid down their weapons in May 1945, were humiliated and tortured by both the terrorists and local civilians, who murdered more than 500 Estonian POWs, among them Sturmbannführer Paul Maitla.

See also

• Documents on the Expulsion of the Sudeten Germans
• Killing in the Czech way (documentary)
• Czechoslovakia
• German Expellees

External links

• Waffen-Sturmbannführer der ϟϟ Paul Maitla
• Tod der Nichte (Czech atrocities in German)

Sources

• Schneider, Professor Theodor, et al: The Expulsion of the German Population from the Territories East of the Oder-Neisse-Line, vol. 1, German Federal Ministry for Expellees, etc., Bonn 1954
• Schneider, Professor Theodor, et al, The Expulsion of the German Population from Czecho-Slovakia, vol. iv., published by the German Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, Bonn, West Germany, 1960
• Dr. Austin J. App: The Sudeten-German Tragedy, Maryland, U.S.A., 1979.
• de Zayas, Professor Dr. Alfred Maurice, A Terrible Revenge - The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1986, UK 1994, paperback edition, New York, 2006. [(https://de.metapedia.org/wiki/Zayas,_Alfred_de de)]
• Dedina, Sinonia, Edvard Beneš - The Liquidator, U.S.A., 2001, ISBN: 0-9663968-4-7