At Least Coffee 113, or: The Border Regions Are Not the Sudetenland.
So Posselt’s Sudeten Germans held their own assembly in Brno. Germans who contributed to the destruction of the state and were rightly expelled as a result are suddenly claiming their rights again. On top of that, our president, Petr Pavel Pávek, speaks of apology and reconciliation. Apparently, it was an act linked to collective guilt.
It wasn’t. I lived for a time in the borderlands, where there used to be more Germans than Czechs. But even here, after that “collective” expulsion, a few Germans remained. While walking through Český Krumlov, I would occasionally encounter older women speaking a sort of German among themselves. You could call it a Krumlov dialect. To me, it was a completely mysterious language, because personally, I consider German to be a throat disease. And that’s why I never even studied it.
I personally knew several German families. We lived in the same village, after all. Yes, there was an old lady there who absolutely refused to use any Czech words, so her son handled everything that needed to be done. And even he was somewhat unapproachable. Then there was a family that was very friendly and chatted warmly with everyone. I have a wonderful memory of them. When my first son was born, naturally I celebrated properly with my coworkers at the end of my shift. I made it home safely by bus and went to the local store to buy something. I didn’t buy anything, but I joyfully shouted to the whole store that I had a son. Well, the lady was also there shopping, and later she said to me in a wonderful Czech-German phrase: “ Tákova štástna tatínek sem eště nevydela.” Another German from the village worked at the same company as I did, and if it weren’t for the other locals, I would never have recognized him. Another worked at a local small business as a production foreman. Including his sons.
I didn’t know them before I moved there, so I didn’t know their stories from the time of the German occupation. But apparently, there was no reason for them to be expelled.
So who would our president want to reconcile with, and to whom would he want to apologize? After all, those Germans who hadn’t committed any crimes could have stayed here just fine. Conversely, there are known cases of families who left of their own accord, even though they could have stayed.
My Bavorovna also has mixed origins. Her father was the son of a German and a Czech woman. They never lived in the borderlands; they spent most of their time in Prague and later here near the Otava River. After the war, the German man left voluntarily, leaving his wife and two sons behind. It was the harsh postwar period, but despite that, my father-in-law managed to learn a trade and become a sought-after craftsman. And this despite the fact that his native language was his father’s German and he never really learned to write in Czech.
The expulsion itself was actually a humanitarian act. And since war crimes have no statute of limitations, there would have been a long struggle ahead. For if the Sudeten Germans had remained here, most of them would have been brought to trial, and a large number would have ended up on the gallows. Because it was they who committed grave crimes against humanity here. Starting with the expulsion of Czechs from the border regions, when they were allowed to take almost nothing but the bare essentials. And many of them also participated in violence during the occupation. So if they had stayed, not only would there have been a lot of trials, but many of the affected Czechs would have wanted to find those who had harmed them, which would have led to further violence. Yes, the expulsion was necessary for both sides of the conflict. For us, because we got rid of enemies of the state. And for them, because in many cases it saved their lives.
Well, and in the end, a paradox actually emerged. The expelled Germans were—and still are—better off than we were under the former regime.
So let’s sit down in a peace and have a good cup of coffee.
