Beneš decrees

The Beneš decrees have become a symbol for historic debates over the expulsions and their ramifications in today's politics.

The decrees are officially termed Decrees of the President of the Republic (in Czech, dekrety presidenta republiky).

Overview

#1940–1944 #:These decrees were issued during the government's London exile. They were mainly related to the creation of Czechoslovak exile government (including its army) and its organization. #1943–1945 #:Issued in exile. The main theme was the transition of control of the liberated area of Czechoslovakia from Allied armies and the organization of a post-war Czechoslovak government. #1945 (ending October 26) #:A new post-war government was created in Košice, Slovakia, consisting of parties united in the National Front, with a strong influence of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. As a new parliament had not been organized, the will of the government was implemented by decrees of president. Beneš signed decrees created by the executive government. The decrees included controversial laws connected with the nationalisation without compensation of businesses hiring more than 500 employees, and confiscation of property of ethnic Germans and Hungarians.

All of the decrees were retroactively ratified by the Provisional National Assembly on March 5, 1946 by constitutional act No. 57/1946 Sb.

List of decrees related to the expulsion of Germans and Hungarians

Deportation of Germans and Hungarians after World War II

The Beneš decrees are most often associated with the deportation in 1945-47 of about 3 million ethnic Germans and Hungarians from Czechoslovakia. Although the decrees do not directly refer to the planned deportation, they laid the ground for it. The Czechoslovak government-in-exile adopted plans to deport the Germans and Hungarians in 1943 and sought the support of the Allies for this plan, which agreed to it at the Potsdam conference.

Among the four Allies, the Soviet Union urged their British and US allies to agree to the expulsions of ethnic German citizens and of allegedly German-speaking Poles, Czechoslovaks, Hungarians, Yugoslavs and Romanians into their zones of occupation. France was no party to the Potsdam Agreement and never accepted exiles arriving after July 1945 into its Zone of Occupation.

In the Potsdam Agreement, the other three Allies agreed that they would accept the exiled persons, expelled from a number of eastern Central European countries, in their zones of occupation in Germany.

For the Soviet Union the atrocities and mass expropriation along ethnic alignments were just a beginning for later so-called class actions . The perpetrators and profiteers blundered into the situation, that they became dependent on a perpetuation of the Soviet rule in their countries in order not to be dispossessed again of their booty and to stay unpunished. Furthermore the mass expropriations loosened legal standards as to property rights of other Czechoslovaks, which was clearly intended for the future of Czechoslovakia as a state under Soviet influence.

Both advocates and opponents of the decrees generally believe that by their enforcement, Czechoslovakia collectively punished ethnic German and Hungarian minorities by expropriation and deportation to Germany, Austria, and Hungary for their alleged collaborationism with Nazi Germany and Hungary against Czechoslovakia. This occurred during their struggle for being incorporated into either Germany, Austria or Hungary. The Czechoslovak government described that struggle as irredentism, while representatives of the German and Hungarian minorities claim that the right of self-determination of minorities was denied after World War I and that their ethnic areas were made part of Czechoslovakia against their wishes.

Some of the decrees concerned the expropriation of the property of wartime traitors and collaborators accused of treason, but were applied to Germans and Hungarians collectively. (In 1948 such provisions were cancelled for the Hungarians.) This was then used to confiscate their property and expel around 90% of the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia.

The Germans were collectively accused of having supported the Nazis (through the Sudeten German Party– a political party led by Konrad Henlein)– and the Third Reich's annexation of the German-populated Czech borderland in 1938. Almost every decree explicitly stated that the sanctions did not apply to anti-fascists, though the term anti-fascist was not explicitly defined. Some 250,000 Germans, some anti-fascists and others judged people crucial for industries, remained in Czechoslovakia. Many of the anti-fascists of German native language emigrated under a special agreement stipulated by Alois Ullmann.

Revocation of Decree No. 33/1945

Status today

Impact on today's political relations

Those expellees organised within the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft (part of the Federation of Expellees) and associated political groups call for the abolition of the Beneš decrees as based on the principle of collective guilt. European and international courts have refused to rule on cases concerning the decrees, as most international treaties on human rights took effect after 1945/46.

On 28 December 1989, Václav Havel, at that time a candidate for President of Czechoslovakia (he was elected one day later), suggested that Czechoslovakia should apologize for the expulsion of ethnic Germans and Hungarians after World War II. In March 1990, President Havel stated that the expulsions were "the mistakes and sins of our fathers" and apologized for massacres of Germans during the expulsion on behalf of his people. He also suggested that former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech nationality to reclaim their lost properties. However, the Czech government never followed through on Havel's suggestion. The governments of Germany and the Czech Republic signed a declaration of mutual apology for wartime misdeeds in 1997.

In recent years, the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel and the Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber have demanded that the Beneš decrees be repealed, as a precondition for the entry of both countries into the European Union. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy eventually decided not to push the issue further.

In current terms, the expulsions are also described as "ethnic cleansing" (a term that entered usage in the early 1990s, referring to forced deportation/"population transfers"), as well as a crime against humanity and a genocide by some scholars; for instance Felix Ermacora concluded in an expert report commissioned by the Bavarian government in 1991 that the expulsion constituted a genocide and crime against humanity.

In 1993, Theo Waigel (chairman of the CSU and Federal Minister), suggested that the Czechs were hypocrites for condemning ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia while not condemning the Beneš decrees.

Former Czech Prime Minister Miloš Zeman insists that the Czechs would not consider repealing the decrees because of an underlying fear that doing so would open the door to demands for restitution. According to Time Magazine, former Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan argued, "Why should we single out the Beneš Decrees?... They belong to the past and should stay in the past. Many current members of the E.U. had similar laws."

On 20 September 2007, the Slovak parliament adopted a resolution proposed by Ján Slota, the chairman of the extremist ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party, that confirmed the decrees. All ethnically Slovak members voted for the decision; only Hungarian minority leaders voted against it. This prompted a strong negative reaction in Hungary, and Hungarian President László Sólyom thinks that it will put a strain on Hungarian-Slovak relations. Due to the decrees and postwar confiscation of property from the Prince of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein state did not recognise Slovakia until 9 December 2009.

In 2009, the right-wing and eurosceptic Czech President Václav Klaus demanded an opt-out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as he feared the Charter would render the Beneš decrees illegal.

References

External links

Category:Czechoslovak law Category:Czech history Category:Deportation Category:German diaspora Category:Hungarian diaspora Category:History of Slovakia Category:Minority rights Category:Slovak law Category:Czech law Category:History of Czechoslovakia Category:Antimagyarism Category:Anti-German sentiment