Area: 78,864km2
Population: 10.5 million
Capital: Prague
Official language: Czech
Currency: Czech krone
Germans and Czechs: fruitful and fearful differences
In the 12th and 13th centuries, numerous German craftsmen, peasants, miners and merchants migrated into the Bohemian lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, which were ruled by the West Slavic Přemyslid dynasty. They reclaimed land for cultivation and established a tightly knit network of towns and cities under German law. While the peripheral areas of Bohemia were inhabited almost exclusively by settlers from German-speaking regions, Germans and Czechs lived together in many other towns. Under the Bohemian king and emperor Charles IV, in the 14th century.the country and its capital Prague became the centre of the Holy Roman (German) Empire The revolution of the followers of the reformer Jan Hus in the 15th century revealed the differences between Czechs and Germans, although there were also German Hussites and Czech Catholic nobles. From 1526 on Bohemia belonged to the Habsburg Empire, which drastically imposed the Counter-Reformation in 1620. Bohemia remained part of the Empire until 1918, leading to a marginalization of the Czech language and culture. In the early 19th century there arose on the one hand the so-called national rebirth of the Czechs, and on the other hand the idea of a Bohemian national patriotism, which put the binational element in the foreground.
Germans get minority status
From the middle of the 19th century, the emergence of the concept of national identity led to a political-social and cultural divide. In the first Czechoslovak Republic, founded in 1918, the Germans were granted minority status. In the course of this, they felt that they had been unfairly treated in many areas by the Czechoslovak Government. This later attracted many supporters to the Nazi-oriented »Sudeten German Party«. 1938 the »Sudetenland« was resigned to Hitler’s Germany and later on, after the dismantling of the Czechoslovak Republic, the »Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia« was Established. Czechs and anti-fascist Sudeten Germans were terrorised, Czech and German-speaking Jews were murdered. After the end of the Second World War, most Germans, whose families had lived in Bohemia and Moravia for centuries, were forcibly expelled.
From Ploughman to Kafka
During the High and Late Middle Ages, the mutual fertilisation of Czech and German culture had already become apparent. The Emperor Charles IV, who was from the Luxembourg dynasty, turned the Bohemian capital Prague into a political and cultural centre of Central Europe, where the German and Czech cultures influenced each other mutually. There were versions in both languages of the early New High German epic Der Ackermann aus Böhmen (The Ploughman from Bohemia). The Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque monumental architecture of Bohemia and Moravia include works by Czech, German(including Austrian), and even Italian masters. Numerous personalities of European intellectual life come from the German-speaking language circle of Bohemia and Moravia, among them Adalbert Stifter, Sigmund Freud, Bertha von Suttner, Gustav Mahler, Rainer Maria Rilke and Franz Kafka. The cross-fertilisation of cultures demonstrates the distinctive magic of the landscapes and towns of today's Czech Republic – even in the socialist era this was more than just a backdrop for the famous series of Czech fairy tale films (popularly shown on TV at Christmas).
German population
By 1800, the German-speaking population was 38 percent in Bohemia, 27 percent in Moravia and 47 percent in Austrian Silesia. With industrialisation, the number of Germans in the Czech countries increased, but not as much as that of the Czechs. In 1937, the so-called Sudeten Germans (as they were known after the First World War) made up 22 percent of the country's inhabitants. After the expulsion, the remaining Germans often no longer confessed to their origins for fear of being disadvantaged. In the 1991 census, 53,500 citizens reported German nationality, although their actual number is reckoned to be about double.
Literature
Roswitha Schieb: Literarischer Reiseführer Böhmisches Bäderdreieck. Karlsbad • Marienbad • Franzensbad, Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa 2019
german
František Frýda, Jan Mergl: Pilsen/Plzeň. Ein kunstgeschichtlicher Rundgang durch die westböhmische Metropole. Deutsches Kulturforum östliches Europa in Kooperation mit dem Verlag Schnell + Steiner 2015
german
Koschmal, Walter, Nekula, Marek, Rogall, Joachim (Hrsg.): Deutsche und Tschechen. Geschichte – Kultur – Politik. München 2001
german
Prinz, Friedrich: Böhmen und Mähren. München 1993
german
Seibt, Ferdinand: Deutschland und die Tschechen. Geschichte einer Nachbarschaft in der Mitte Europas. München 1998
german