Exile, Return and Restitution in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The period of development of a new state brings with it many experiences spanning the political, social and economic. The individuals and communities that make up the new state together forge a path that does not always run smoothly. The movement of people within the new borders and across borders is often a result of reactions to events both internal and external, and the resulting experiences can impact on people's lives in very fundamental ways. The experience of exile, its causes and consequences, can shape the development of a state and change the course of history. The Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia as a newly created state in 1918 had in the relatively short span of about seventy years brought to the people residing within its territory a number of different experiences of exile. The focus of this paper is on the Sudeten Germans, a former minority in the Czech lands sent into exile at the end of World War 2, my specific interest being to analyse key periods in exile experiences between 1918 and 1995. The development of the relationship between the Czechs and the Sudeten Germans still remains problematic in the eyes of many of the protagonists. Among the many questions raised by that relationship is whether this form of exile was a legislated banishment or a form of mere displacement. In addition, the question of guilt has arisen over the years, both as a mechanism for invoking the forced transfer of a population and also as a justification for receiving recompense.The conceptual basis for this paper centres on nationalism, identity politics and minority rights as an underlying framework for analysing the experience of exile of the Sudeten Germans and their complex relationship with the Czechs, in the attempts to establish a homeland.The end of the First World War brought with it many changes to the geo-political landscape of Europe. It resulted in the defeat and dismantling of empires, and gave independence and new international standing in the form of statehood to territories which Vadura Exile in the Czech Republic had previously been under their jurisdiction. The peace settlements after the war resulted in the creation of a number of new nation-states including Czechoslovakia. As the granting of statehood had been based on the right to self-determination according to the principle of nationality, a common problem for all of the newly independent states was the place of minorities. This extended to how to include or integrate these sometimes-reluctant minority groups into the new state framework. The German minority in the Czechoslovak state found itself to be part of a state that it had not wanted to join, and in a subservient position, a reversal of its previous majority status.The exile experiences in the Czech lands occurred after significant political upheavals that destabilised the institutions and structures of the state. These population movements occurred after the two world wars and also as a result of border revisions and regime changes, and they impacted on all nationalities in the new sta...