Historian: May 8 marked the end of the war and the arrival of trauma iRADIO

We commemorate the anniversary of the end of the war on May 8, but the Soviet army did not arrive in Prague until May 9. In the Příbram region, the fighting even lasted two days longer. What was happening on May 8, 1945 in the territory of the present Czech Republic? In which areas was it still fought at that time?
Just to give you an idea, on May 8 there were still almost one million Nazi soldiers armed to the teeth in the territory that was gradually liberated, I mean the Czech and Moravian part of Czechoslovakia.

This was a huge mass trying to fight their way westward to get into American captivity, fleeing the Soviet troops.

And here it is interesting for us that not only the Red Army men helped to liberate this territory, but also other army units were here. These were, for example, the Romanian army, the Polish army. Actually, all these army units had huge losses on our territory.

Just to give an idea, almost 550 thousand Soviet soldiers were wounded or killed. 134,000 soldiers were killed directly, of which 65,000 Romanians fell on our territory and approximately 18,000 Czechoslovaks who took part in the army’s operations to liberate the entire territory of Czechoslovakia.

In today’s interview for Lidovky.cz, historian Jindřich Marek recalls that the liberation of Prague was not a military operation, but rather a political one, that the Soviets wanted to liberate Prague for political reasons, that the Americans offered that they could arrive in Prague earlier. How much earlier could the American army have arrived in Prague? How many hours or days earlier could Prague have been liberated?
In the historical context, let’s imagine that the act of capitulation in Reims was signed by General Alfred Jodl at two hours and 41 minutes on May 7, i.e. early in the morning, and such a moratorium was created until the evening of May 8, when all detached German units were to receive this information .

So the surrender should have taken place during this period. And precisely at these moments, early in the morning of May 7, a convoy of American vehicles sets out and takes this information – absolutely essential – to the Velichovka Spa, across essentially the entire already revolted Prague, to the German general Schörnerwho, based on this decision, was supposed to surrender and force his troops not to fight any longer.

The Americans would be able to get to Prague within a few hours as early as May 7. It would have been possible to help liberate Prague with Western troops, but that very decision, the Allies’ mutual respect for the division of spheres of influence, unfortunately caused the Soviet troops to arrive in Prague earlier, i.e. on May 9, before the American army even wanted or could begin the operation.

As a result, this entire part of the republic was already in the Soviet sphere of influence. To this day, this creates such a special atmosphere between the celebrating Pilsen, which is very proud of the fact that, as one of the largest Czech cities, it was liberated by American troops, and Prague, which still looks a little sadly towards the west.

What are the biggest myths associated with the liberation of the Czech territory in May 1945 that remain in the general consciousness after 79 years?
I think that this is precisely the share of the individual armies in the liberation.

We have completely left out of our historical memory that it was precisely the very numerous Romanian army or the Polish army that took part in the liberation. This is one of those levels that remains poorly explained, for example, in schools.

The second such point is the final fights. The Prague Uprising by itself could not have succeeded if the German occupiers were no longer in danger of being pushed out by either the Soviets or the Americans.

The Prague Uprising would have had no success had it not been for the threat of this external military force that pressured the German troops to try to get to safety as quickly as possible, or that is, to the American Western captivity.

And at the same time, the fact that the war as such ends on May 8. Yes, of course, from the legal point of view, yes, but the consequences that the victims of the Second World War bore in themselves are still felt by the witnesses today.

Because May 8 marked the end of war operations, but many people are returning from concentration camps, Jewish victims are returning from extermination camps. They are suddenly free, but they return to their homes, where no one is waiting for them, the majority of the population perhaps rejects them, or they come with various traumas that manifest themselves only 60, 70 years after the war.

And this is the kind of story that remains as if forgotten in our historical memory, because even among students or the general population, May 8th is a celebration quite rightly, but we don’t realize the consequences, and at the same time they have a huge impact. And it doesn’t matter if we are talking about the Second World War or the consequences of the current war in Ukraine, when Ukrainian civilians are coming to our territory again.

Tomas Pancír

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