I will begin with the book's own back cover review first and a brief summary of the Contents found in the front along with my thoughts. The rest will be how I feel it relates to my genealogy.
The full name of the book is "Prague in Black - Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism." by Chad Bryant. Copyright 2007 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Printed in the United States of America by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England www.hup.harvard.edu. Chad Bryant is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Winner of the Hans Rosenberg Prize, Conference Group for Central European History
Honorable Mention, Wayne S. Vucinich Prize, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
"Chad Bryant's fine book sheds much light on why, in the Czech land, the national struggle is over and why Central Europe is no longer such a wonderful mosaic of people and cultures." - Istvan Deak, English Historical Review
"Bryant writes well about misery in the [Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]-about, in particular, the deadly essay of the Germans and their local marionettes to apply madcap ethnic and national concepts to what had long been a hopelessly complex checkerboard of identities." - Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs
"Bryant's book is best at synthesizing the development of policies and laws and summarizing changing popular attitudes over the period 1939 through 1947 and well deserves a wide English-reading audience for that." - Gary B. Cohen, Slavic Review
"As the first English-language study of the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in thirty years, Prague in Black represents an important contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of Nazi rule in eastern Europe and to the history of nationalism more generally." - Tara Zahra, Central European History
In September 1938, the Munich Agreement delivered the Sudetenland to Germany. Six Months later, Hitler's troops marched unopposed into Prague and established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravoa - the first non-German territory to be occupied by Nazi Germany. Although Czechs outnumbered Germans thirty to one, Nazi leaders were determined to make the region entirely German. Czech leaders were even more determined to make it entirely Czech.
The book begins with A Note on Place-Names which briefly addresses the differences between two names as spoken between Czech and Germans referring to the same place. Near the end of the book, is a more detail reference as well as a couple pages of Abbreviations that are used throughout the book. Also near the end of the book are nearly 100 pages of source references. There are also Archival Sources, Acknowledgments, and Index on the last 10 pages.
The Illustrations includes three maps of the boundary changes from 1930, 1942, and 1949 as well as the administrative districts There are also about a dozen photos reproduced of people and events.
The Introduction covers much detail about the historical background and perspectives that led to the opening Hitler needed on March 10, 1939. What I found most interesting was the term" amphibians." It was a term used by 19th century patriots and the social anthropologists [Protectorate's] to refer to people who could switch public nationalities or to people whose nationality was unclear. Labeling individuals as members of one or other nation, or race, was a requirement of nation-building. It created the most documentation and was most confusing for officials because of an array of often contradictory criteria.
Amphibians expose the absurdity of reducing human diversity to simple nations, of placing individuals who were more than just Czechs and Germans into neat categories. Their sheer numbers aside, amphibians are also important for what they represent - the right and ability to chose a public nationality that existed in principle, if not always practice, before 1938.
In the Contents, there are six chapters:
1. A Hopelessly Mixed People - In this chapter, are the sad details of the events in Czechoslovakia under their president, Emil Hacha after March 14, 1939 in the New State. The first half of the year was described as one of the nation's finest moments where Czech's drew from practices borrowed from the past, acted nationally with an energy and unity rarely seen after WWI. In great detail is explained how the Nazi authorities beat them down with their own nationality from within until the German national movement ascended.
2. The Reich Way of Thinking - I found this chapter to be very confusing yet it carefully laid out the progress of the Nazi leaders and their forced ways as well as organized underground resistance. It was confusing to me because it was hard for me to see any systematic plan; yet it was there.
3. Plans to Make the Czechs German - This chapter is where the confusing aspects turn quickly to nausea when Hitler's Mein Kampf ideas are played out beginning in Bohemia and Moravia. The idea was the complete expulsion of all Czechs from the country to make room for Germans. Because there were not enough Germans to fill the land and have skills to run the successful Czech economy, the politics of Germanization came into being. Acting Czech meant going hungry. Resistance took an interesting aspect in the form of jokes to cope. I have to smile at this survival humor.
4. Heydrich Imposes Racial Order - Now it really gets ugly under Reinhard Heydrich who ...pushed Nazi rule toward radical "solutions" to various "problems," toward the realization of vague goals laid down by his only superiors in the Reich: Himmler and Hitler. Heydrich emerged. In May, Hitler got mad at an assassination attempt that was made on Heydrich and ordered the execution of 10,000 Czechs. In June, Heydrich died from his wounds and Hitler ordered the village of Lidice destroyed, then all adults in the village of Lezaky. Benes was the longtime foreign minister of Czechoslovakia and in 1938 gave the order for Czechoslovak troops to stand down when he found himself outmaneuvered at Munich. When Benes returned in 1945, he found an economy and society that had been utterly transformed, and he found a "nation" that he barely knew or wanted to understand. What they shared was an overriding desire to expel all Germans from Czechoslovakia.
5. Surrounded by War, Living in Peace - The German military misfortunes beginning in the spring of 1943 required that Germanization plans be put on hold. The Czech workers were well-paid and coddled, yet cowed, because they were invaluable at producing tanks, artillery and other armaments. Resistance meant choosing a worthless death over embarrassing complacency. Yet the Czechs affirmed their identities more and more by spreading rumors and telling jokes creating a moral universe in which acting nationally was the highest good. These jokes were used to make sense of a confusing situation while providing shared comic relief. During the later part of 1944, the Soviets come into the picture during an uprising in Slovakia where 15-19,000 defenseless and unarmed Slovaks were killed. They happened to be in the middle of the Allied Soviet east forces meeting the Nazi's from the west. Something evolved after this time that pulled what was left of the Czechoslovakian nation towards the Soviets and it likely was because their hatred of the Germans.
6. All the Germans Must Go - Late 1943, the London-exiled Czechoslovakian "President" Benes, announced he signed a treaty between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. In it was pledged to fight Germany together and have economic relationships after the war while the Soviets promise to respect the sovereignty and independence of Czechoslovakia. The plan was clear to expel all Germans and Slovak-Hungarians. Churchill and Roosevelt gave vague support on the expulsion plans. During the period known as the "Wild Transfer" 19-30,000 Germans died and between 600-900,000 were driven from Czechoslovakia. There were beatings, rapes and murders during this chaos when passions and opportunism was unchecked. The violence had Stalin's blessing and the new Czechoslovakian government in power pardoned vigilantes and robbers. Then there was the period known as the "Organized Transfer." The Big Three (Stalin, Truman, Churchill) divided Germany into four zones under the control of the three Allies and France. The German population transfer would be orderly and humane. At this point, the Czechoslovak leaders were led by the Communists.
The Conclusion lays out a comparison between what six years of Nazi rule did to the Czechoslovakians and then what the Czechoslovakians did to the Germans. The lessons learned showed that raw power and violence won over fundamentally democratic values of negotiation and compromise...violence could best achieve political gains. The vacuum created allowed the Communist Party to win 38% of the vote in 1946 election. Communist ideology provided a rational interpretation of the occupation years; a grandiose program for a brand-new world in which everyone would find his place. Of course, they were backed by the Soviet Union. Even so, 60% of Czech voters did not choose the Communists. It wasn't until actions made in 1947 did larger geopolitical forces come into play. The U.S administration announced the Truman Doctrine which granted Greece and Turkey aid to fight Communists insurgents, thus initiating a foreign policy strategy that would reign until 1989 - the "containment" of Communist rule around the world. Then they announced the Marshall Plan for Economic Recovery where Stalin, Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European governments politely refused the offer of help. The Iron Curtain had come down.
In many ways Nazi rule had made the Communists' task easier. Nazi rule had created an economy largely coordinated by the state and empowered the working class. It had destroyed civil and political society, which emerged weak and deformed after 1945. It had created citizens practiced in the art of denunciation. The occupation years had fostered public enthusiasm for socialism and the Soviet Union. The occupation experience had discredited the past, left a value system in disarray, and encouraged hateful political rhetoric. Nazi rule in the Bohemian lands had not necessarily led to the establishment of Communist rule, but it certainly gave it a good start.
The occupation likely produced cowards as well as heroes. Young people who were growing up during this time likely had inverted morals where evil was often shown to be more powerful than the truth. Today, however, there is a difference as 1989 marked the return of confrontations with diversity, the return of debates over what it means to be Czech, and the return of questions as to who has authority over the construction of identity. Through travel and communication with other countries, many Czechs have absorbed foreign ideas, especially the younger ones.
I found this book to be an informative source that will be helpful in genealogy work I plan to increase in my retirement years. It will help me understand the world my parents lived in when they left Czechoslovakia and their motivation to became U.S. citizens.
I know my mother came over in 1939 as a 21-year old single woman born near Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. She had a large family that had plenty of land to farm at the time she left. My mother went back only once to visit her family (1974). I have family tree information that goes back six generations now. I have a good relationship with an English-speaking relative in Slovakia that I hope to increase as time becomes available in my retirement.
I am at a standstill with my father's people. I know my father came over in 1932 when he was 16 years old; born in Vienna, Austria during WWI (1916). He was 8 years old when Hitler's Mein Kampf was commonly given to newly married German couples as a wedding gift. My father was born to a teenage single woman in Bohemia and he had cerebral palsy from birth. I was told he went to boarding schools. His mother came to the U.S. shortly after his birth and lived as a single woman until he was 16. She married in 1932 and her new husband adopted my father. I also heard that my father's family was wealthy and political. I would like to find out their story.
No comments:
Post a Comment