No. III.-IV.
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Articles
Tomáš Staněk and Adrian von Arburg
Organized Spontaneous ”Transfers”? The Role of the Central State Organs in ”Evacuating” the German Population, May to September 1945
Part 3: The Attempt by the Government and Civilian Authorities to Manage the ”Wild Transfer”
Zuzana Krahulcová
Pioneers of Reconciliation:
The Emergence of the Ackermann-Gemeinde and the Beginning of Its Work in Post-war Germany
Horizons
Rainer Hudemann
Histoire du temps présent:
Between a National Perspective and International Openness
Discussion
Jiří Pešek and Oldřich Tůma
Legislation from 1938–48 Relating to the Germans of Czechoslovakia and the Rest of Europe
Milan Hauner
Beneš’s ”Germany and Czechoslovakia” Manuscript, Finally Published in Czech
Eva Broklová
Of Editing and Reviewing (and Reviewers)
Reviews
Martin Franc
Question Marks over a ”Magnum Opus” of Czech Oral History
Michal Kopeček
An Important Impulse and a Number of Questions
Daniela Kolenovská
A Kindly Guide to Soviet Culture
Jiří Friedl
Should the Warsaw Uprising Ever Have Started?
David Kovařík
A Problematic Account of the Sad History of the Borderlands
Chronicle
Mečislav Borák
The Future of a Lost Legacy:
The Documentation, Identification, and Restitution of Art and Antiques of Victims of the Second World War
Annotations
Summaries
Articles
Organized Spontaneous ”Transfers”?
The Role of the Central State Organs in ”Evacuating” the German Population, May to September 1945
Part 3: The Attempt by the Government and Civilian Authorities to Manage the ”Wild Transfer”
Tomáš Staněk and Adrian von Arburg
This long article is based on a large number of records that were till now either underused by scholars or completely unknown to them. Its aim is to outline the current state of what we know about the role of the top-level Czechoslovak authorities in the first phase of the mass deportations of Germans from the Bohemian Lands. The core of the problem, argue the authors, turns out to be how to determine the extent played in initiating and carrying out the expulsions in 1945 by, on the one hand, local ”spontaneous,” uncoordinated activity, not directly run by the central authorities, and, on the other, the instructions and orders of the central state organs. Which influences were ultimately decisive in each of the particular cases and in the overall process? Each act or event, as it appears in the records cannot, however, be clearly classified according to the criterion of ”central” versus ”decentralized” or ”local.” Among the actors in positions of influence one can distinguish different degrees and forms of responsibility, which were, among other things, manifested in the binding instructions, verbal incitements, more or less conscious acts rationalized by a whole range of arguments presented at the time, the formulating, pushing through, or at least acceptance or tolerance of the various standpoints and measures that were implemented.
Chronologically and concisely, the article attempts to present a basic overview of the important results of debates at the top level and the decisions resulting from them, which then in the form of set regulations also affected various sides of the preparations for, and carrying out, of the ”evacuation” of the German population from Czechoslovakia by the autumn of 1945. The authors also pose questions relevant to more detailed, deeper clarification of the subject. Is it possible to trace a certain development of opinion in individuals and bodies which were one way or another involved in the matter? What interactions came about amongst the participants and of what importance were they to the adopted solution to the ”German Question”? The article seeks to present a well-rounded picture of the whole complex of phenomena connected with the spontaneous expulsion or ”wild transfer” (divoký odsun) including its organizational and technical aspects, the local conditions, and its special features. Various acts of discrimination and limitation against those considered a potential threat to the state (státně nespolehlivý), acts of vengeance, post-war ”excesses,” and the conditions in the camps and prisons are not the focus of the article, since the authors consider them in other works.
In this, the final part of this three-part article published consecutively in the last three issues of Soudobé dějiny, the authors consider the attempts of the Czechoslovak government to influence the course of the expulsion, once it had already started. Also in the forefront of the authors’ interest is the activity of the Provincial National Committees (Zemské národní výbory or ZNV), that is the Bohemian National Committee in Prague and the Moravian National Committee in Brno, which previous researchers have unjustly neglected. This article includes the authors’ remarkable discovery that the first comprehensive expulsion decree from a civilian central organ was issued by the Bohemian National Committee, 12 June 1945. (The Moravian National Committee Decree issued in late May, described in Part One of this article, concerned only ”leading Germans out” of Brno.) After considering the importance that the Potsdam Conference had for the expulsion, the authors consider statistics in an attempt at a more complete outline of the quantitative dimension of ”spontaneous expulsion” in the first six months after the war.
Pioneers of Reconciliation:
The Emergence of the Ackermann-Gemeinde and the Beginning of Its Work in Post-war Germany
Zuzana Krahulcová
The article reveals the pre-war intellectual roots and personal ties from which the Ackermann-Gemeinde emerged in Munich in January 1946. This Roman Catholic organization was the first of the interest groups of expelled Sudeten Germans in post-war Germany. The article discusses its formation against the background of the ideological, political, and institutional differentiation of the Sudeten German representatives, familiarizes us with their basic principles, and concludes with a concise recapitulation of the development of the Ackermann-Gemeinde to the present day. The emergence of the organization eight months after the end of the Second World War in Europe – particularly at the initiative of Hans Schütz, a German Christian-Social deputy in the interwar Czechoslovak National Assembly, and Paulus Sladek, an Augustinian priest – primarily enabled, according to the author, intensive contacts between representatives of the Sudeten German Roman Catholics and the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, which took the Ackermann-Gemeinde under its wing in the early years of its existence, and continued to help to promote its aims later on. After most of its members rejected the conception of a mass Roman Catholic organization or political party of expelled Sudeten Germans, the Ackermann-Gemeinde oriented itself to close collaboration with the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union.
Despite the Ackermann-Gemeinde’s head start of several years in organizing itself and its broad activity through the Roman Catholic Church, the nationalist-conservative current suddenly became the most vocal in the umbrella Sudeten German organizations, particularly the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft. This current was able to push through its views far more strikingly, thanks to, among other things, the influence and enduring prestige of its representative, Rudolf Lodgman von Auen in this connection the author discusses some of Lodgman’s polemics in the press with other members of the organization. The minority position of the Ackermann-Gemeinde in the Sudeten German umbrella organizations was, however, balanced out – as in the Social Democratic current concentrated in the Seliger-Gemeinde – by its greater integration in the large political parties of the German Federal Republic, through which it was able to exert influence in a number of matters.
In its activities the Ackermann-Gemeinde aimed primarily to improve the dire straits of expellees and to help them to integrate into West German society. The fundamental document of their programme, which the article analyzes, is a declaration of the ”right to a homeland,” but it sees the achievement of this aim as possible only in the distant future, in a peaceful, democratically organized central Europe. It expressly rejects the idea of revenge, the use of violence to resolve problems, and extreme nationalism. From today’s perspective, the author argues, this programme can be criticized for an absence of critical self-reflection of the Sudeten Germans’ share in unleashing the catastrophe of the Second World War, the results of which had onerous consequences for them as well. Such a judgement should, however, take into consideration the difficulties they faced in the second half of the 1940s, and therefore also the fact that the Ackermann-Gemeinde’s initial activity was strongly influenced by the fresh trauma of expulsion. In this connection the article points to the critical views that the young generation of Sudeten German Roman Catholics had of its fellow expellees, in particular in the 1950s by the views of the Hochschulring der Ackermann-Gemeinde (Ackermann-Gemeinde University Circle) and its periodical Der neue Ackermann, whose leading spirit soon became the historian Ferdinand Seibt (1927–2003). On the whole, the author argues, the Ackermann-Gemeinde has sought to reconcile the nations of central Europe and bring about a New Europe.
Horizons
Histoire du temps présent: Between a National Perspective and International Openness
Rainer Hudemann
This article is a translation of ”Histoire du Temps présent in Frankreich: Zwischen nationalen Problemstellungen und internationaler Öffnung,” which was published in Alexander Nützenadel and Wolfgang Schieder (eds), Zeitgeschichte als Problem: Nationale Traditionen und Perspektiven der Forschung in Europa (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, pp. 175–200). Soudobé dějiny is publishing it as part of a series of articles about the field of contemporary history in Europe today.
The article first distinguishes between the terms histoire contemporaine and histoire du temps présent. The former is reserved for the period from the French Revolution or, sometimes, from the fall of Napoleon in 1815. The latter term is usually connected with the period from the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939. The establishment of the field of contemporary history, the article argues, took place quite complicatedly and late compared to its counterpart in Germany. This was mainly because of the political situation in post-war France and also the state of the social sciences. Under the influence of Charles de Gaulle, the French national ethos after the war emphasized the anti-German resistance and suppressed the fact of collaboration, which resulted in highly selective, state-run research into history. Struggling with its own problems, which soon included the Algerian War, contributed, the author argues, to the long-term reduction of French contemporary history to national history. The development of histoire du temps présent, on the other hand, was to a certain extent hindered by the dominance of the Annales School in the 1950s and 1960s, whose approaches – particularly the emphasis on long-term social trends – excluded political history into the short period of most recent history. Consequently, at least some innovative Annales School methods appeared in contemporary history, though not till quite a bit later. Moreover, historians had to come to terms with the strong standing of French political science, which was especially aimed at analysis of elections. In those circumstances research into contemporary history was long influenced by narrowly defined political history.
A conspicuous feature of French contemporary historiography, the author believes, is the strong influence of the state, which he observes in considerable detail in the development of the institutional framework of the field. He points, however, to the clear division between the universities, research institutes, and elite schools, which has to this day led to a number of conflicts over research topics, publication opportunities, qualified students, and funding. Since the late 1970s the Institut d’histoire du temps présent, Paris, has been the flagship of the field. Apart from it, however, a number of other research institutions carry on their work at state-wide, international, and regional levels. In terms of themes research into history of the Second World War stands at the forefront, having been profoundly differentiated in the 1980s. Today it includes the burning questions of collaboration, the deportation of the Jews, and the Vichy regime. The debate about the traumas of the Algerian War has developed even more grudgingly. In the sphere of political history, in addition to research into elections, the development of political ideas and party systems is the centre of attention, and in social history research into mentalities and the study of international relations, in particular European integration, surpass Franco-centric approaches. Rapid, methodologically stimulating development has been experienced by research into the culture of remembering and ”lieux de mémoire” (realms of memory). On the whole, French contemporary history has achieved considerable diversity of topics, methods, and genres, opening up to the world and thus largely overcoming its initial handicaps.
Discussion
Legislation from 1938–48 Relating to the Germans of Czechoslovakia and the Rest of Europe
Jiří Pešek and Oldřich Tůma
This article discusses the complicated history and conception of a Czech-German project, the aim of which is the research and comparison of post-war legislation used by individual European countries to resolve the problems faced by the German minorities living on their territory. The article mainly provides its own interpretation of the project results, and attempts a summary of the topic in the broader historical context. The main result of the project, which eventually included the post-war German minorities of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Italy and South Tyrol, Belgium, France (Alsace), Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein, and Allied-occupied Germany, is publications, in parallel Czech and German editions, comprising articles and documents related to the relevant countries: Německé menšiny v právních normách 1938–1948: Československo ve srovnání s vybranými evropskými zeměmi (Brno and Prague: Doplněk and the Institute of Contemporary History, 2006) and Deutschsprachige Minderheiten 1945: Ein europäischer Vergleich (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2006). The editors of the two volumes are Jiří Pešek with Oldřich Tůma and Manfred Kittel with Horst Möller. During the project, conflicting interpretations arose between the Czech and German sides, making it impossible not only to write joint introductions to the volumes, but also – owing to the resistance of the German side – to publish jointly the Czech and German introductions. The German version, by Kittel and Möller, was published as ”Die Beneš-Dekrete und die Vertreibung der Deutschen,” in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 54, (2006) no. 4, pp. 541–81. The Czech translation will come out in Střední Evropa. The Czech version will be published in German translation in Bohemia, the periodical of the Collegium Carolinum, Munich, and in the original Czech in Soudobé dějiny.
The authors of the Czech version put the emphasis on the hitherto largely neglected context of history and power politics, in which – at both the international level (amongst the Allies) and national level – the decisions were made and legislation passed regarding the German minorities in post-war Europe. The authors demonstrate the relative nature of the thesis that while the states east of Germany had acted unjustly towards German minorities (expelling them on the principle of collective guilt) and tried to gain territory at the expense of Germany, the Western democracies fairly. They point to the expulsion of the German minority from the Netherlands at the end of the war, and also to the French and Dutch claims to German territory, which were blocked by the Americans in view of the need to stabilize Germany and the beginning of the Cold War. They also point out the historical development of the German minorities after the First World War, when Germany – even during the Weimar Republic, and particularly after Hitler’s coming to power – used them to manipulate and indoctrinate the public. During the Second World War the victorious powers abandoned the idea of integrating the minorities, and instead took up the policy of moving them out of the majority countries in an attempt to guarantee political stability. The authors then discuss the general context and common features of making laws concerning the Germans and the punishment of war criminals. The Western Allies conceived, or at least adopted, principles for a solution, mainly the principle of collective guilt, which was rejected first by the UN Charter of Human Rights in 1948. The broad international comparison made in this project shows, the authors argue, a remarkably large measure of similarity in the attitudes to the German minorities in these countries and how these attitudes developed, as well as the international interconnections between provisional criminal law from the years during the war and just after it. In conclusion the authors point out that the aim of the project was not to find the lowest common denominator and compromises in interpretation, but to create a forum for various views.
Beneš’s ”Germany and Czechoslovakia” Manuscript, Finally Published in Czech
Milan Hauner
This contribution is about Edvard Beneš’s ”Německo a Československo” manuscript (1937), which was first published by the Masaryk Institute, Prague, 2005. The reviewer criticizes the editor of the volume, Eva Broklová, for having conceived her introduction to consider more or less solely technical problems while ignoring the reasons for the origin of this work of Beneš’s, its not having come out in Czech till now, and its having been initially published anonymously. He then describes the content of the work, and casts light on the historical circumstances in which it was written. Beneš, who had been president since 1935, published it in instalments in German in the daily Prager Presse in 1937, and then also in English translation. In reaction to the publishing of his memoranda from the Paris Peace Conference in Germany after the First World War and to the subsequent campaign in the press of the Reich, Beneš tried to defend Czechoslovak policy towards the German minority and also his positions at the Conference, and to diffuse tensions in Czechoslovak-German relations. The reviewer argues that the work is less well written and less valuable than the editor thinks. Beneš’s ”essay,” written on the defensive, while under pressure from Hitler’s Reich, did not, according to the reviewer, ever sound convincing, both because of the weaknesses in some arguments and because of the growing alienation of the German minority, which had already linked its goals with the aggressive plans of Hitler.
Of Editing and Reviewing (and Reviewers)
Eva Broklová
In a debate with Milan Hauner the author clarifies her own conception of the edition of Beneš’s Německo a Československo (Germany and Czechoslovakia), and upbraids him for attacking her instead of presenting his own views of this historical material in a systematic study. Unlike Hauner, the author did not want to influence the reader’s interpretation. She then takes issues with Hauner’s interpretation of Beneš’s conception of the Czechoslovak nation, his alleged manipulation of the statistics in the memorandum at the Paris Peace Conference, and also some of his claims.
Reviews
Question Marks over a ”Magnum Opus” of Czech Oral History
Martin Franc
Vaněk, Miroslav and Urbášek, Pavel (eds). Vítězové? Poražení? Životopisná interview, vol. 1: Disent v období tzv. normalizace; vol. 2: Politické elity v období tzv. normalizace. Prague: Nakladatelství Prostor, 2005, 1124 and 836 pp.
Vaněk, Miroslav (ed.). Mocní? A bezmocní? Politické elity a disent v období tzv. normalizace. Interpretační studie životopisných interview. Prague: Nakladatelství Prostor and Ústav pro soudobé dějiny AV ČR, 2006, 412 pp.
Together with the related collection of articles, these two volumes of biographical interviews both with former Czechoslovak dissidents and with Communist functionaries constitutes the main result of the work done so far by the Centre for Oral History at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. It is also the most important undertaking of Czech oral history ever. The volumes contain 50 of a total of 120 interviews conducted by a team of researchers led by Miroslav Vaněk. All the material is deposited in the Centre for Oral History. The reviewer appreciates that the interviewers have managed to obtain truly varied and rich collections of testimonies, which will long serve researchers as an extraordinary primary source, even though they are made problematic by the selection of narrators, which reflect rather narrow definitions of the terms ”political elite” and ”dissidents.” He also admires the manner in which the interviews were conducted, but has reservations about the editing. Some of the ten articles of the accompanying volume reveal hitherto overlooked topics, for example dissident activity outside the big cities, but unfortunately none of them attempts a comparison of views of the members of both groups. The authors of the articles tend to use the interviews as primary-source material or as illustrations to support their conclusions, instead of attempting real interpretations.
An Important Impulse and a Number of Questions
Michal Kopeček
Auer, Stefan. Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004, 232 pp.
The reviewer considers Stefan Auer’s investigation of the phenomenon of central European nationalism to have been undertaken from a very interesting angle. Auer rejects the dichotomy of Western nationalism (considered civil, tolerant) and Eastern nationalism (considered ethnic, xenophobic), and also tries to reassess the current scepticism about linking liberal democracy and national feeling. He then makes a comparison of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, measuring the rhetoric of ”liberal nationalism” against the social reality by considering the approach to ethnic minorities in these countries. Using his knowledge of secondary literature written chiefly in English, Auer nevertheless is highly selective and over simplifies. The principal weakness of the work, the reviewer feels, is that in outlining the ”liberal-national” tradition in the countries he considers, Auer seems unable to distinguish the individual streams, varieties, and importance.
A Kindly Guide to Soviet Culture
Daniela Kolenovská
Ryčlová, Ivana. Ruské dilema: Společenské zlo v kontextu osudů tvůrčích osobností Ruska. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 2006, 221 pp.
The work under review comprises eleven portraits of Russian writers in relation to the Soviet regime. The portraits were originally published in Revue Proglas, a Brno periodical, on various occasions. The volume, according to the reviewer, constitutes a highly unusual achievement, enhanced by exceptionally good graphic design. The strong point of the work is the author’s clear enthusiasm for the topic, yet on the whole the work suffers from a lack of a balance amongst the individual portraits in both conception and depth. The most successful essays here are those about Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold, as well as those about Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Should the Warsaw Uprising Ever Have Started?
Jiří Friedl
Davies, Norman. Boj o Varšavu: Povstání Poláků proti nacistům 1944. Trans. Miroslava and Aleš Valenta, Prague: Nakladatelství Prostor, 2005, 684 pp.
This is a review of the Czech translation of British historian Norman Davies’s Rising ’44 (London: Macmillan 2003). The work comprises three parts, the first of which presents the historical context and events preceding the Uprising. The second part considers the Uprising itself. The third discusses the gradual Sovietization of Poland and the Communist interpretation of the Uprising as ”bourgeois adventurism.” Although he grants the author a broad scope and great erudition, the reviewer reproaches him for exaggerated Polonophilia. Davies clearly supports the Uprising, and blames its tragic outcome more or less on the Western Allies alone. Referring to Polish historians, however, the reviewer claims that the failure of the Uprising was inherent in the erroneous assessment of the situation and poor preparations of its organizers. Moreover, in comparison with his thorough discussion of the key insurgents, the author pays scant attention to the key Germans involved. Lastly, unlike the Polish edition of this work, the Czech unfortunately contains all the factual errors of the English original.
A Problematic Account of the Sad History of the Borderlands
David Kovařík
Mlynárik, Ján. Tragédie Vitorazska 1945–1953: Poprava v Tušti. Třeboň: Carpio, 2005, 411 pp.
In this work the Slovak historian Ján Mlynárik is concerned with the dramatic fate of the regions on the Czech-Austrian frontier after the Second World War. After outlining its historical development from the Early Middle Ages onwards, he describes the two expulsions of parts of the local, Czech population, which were accompanied by injustice, violence, and executions ordered by ”revolutionary tribunals”: this appeared first in the spontaneous expulsion (divoký odsun) to Austria in May 1945, then again after the establishment of the border zone in 1952–53, when people who were considered potential threats to the state (státně nespolehlivé osoby) were forced to move to the interior. Written in an emotional journalistic style for the general public, this boo, the reviewer believes, is a missed opportunity. He reproaches the author with a superficial handling of the sources, poor knowledge of the local people and institutions, factual error, confusing presentation, fuzzy methodology, and, in particular, a tendentious interpretation based on sweeping criticism of post-war Czech society and current Czech historiography, as well as excessive moralizing instead of matter-of-fact assessment.
Chronicle
The Future of a Lost Legacy:
The Documentation, Identification, and Restitution of Art and Antiques of Victims of the Second World War
Mečislav Borák
This is a report on the second international scholarly conference organized by the Centre for the Documentation of Transferred Cultural Assets during the Second World War, which is part of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. The conference, which was held in Český Krumlov, 22–24 November 2005, had six panels covering the following topics: international collaboration in identifying confiscated and lost works of art; key problems related to research into these objects and restitution; books as a wrongly neglected aspect of confiscation and booty; artwork databases; research centres and institutions searching for lost and looted art; and successes in looking for artworks and returning them to their original owners or heirs of those owners. The author of the report describes the individual papers and some of the contributions to the discussion, as presented by participants from the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Great Britain, and the USA.
Adrian von Arburg (1974), a Swiss historian, is one of the chief researchers on the recent international publishing project ”Migration and Transformation: Documents on the Implementation and Impact of the Expulsion, Forced Resettlement, and Internal Settlement Policy in the Bohemian Lands, 1945–50.” In addition, he is conducting research into migration and population policy in east-central Europe in the twentieth century as well as modern nationalism and national identities.
Mečislav Borák (1945) is a senior researcher at the Silesian Institute of the Silesian Museum, Opava. His research interest is twentieth-century Czech history, particularly Czechoslovak, Czech, and Slovak relations with Poland since 1918, the Second World War, the German occupation, resistance in the Protectorate, judicial and extra-judicial persecution in Czechoslovakia after 1945, the fate of Czechoslovak citizens abducted and taken to the USSR, and current restitution of art and antiques of victims of the Second World War. Among his publications are Tábory nucené práce v ČSR 1948–1954 (co-authored with Dušan Janák, Šenov u Ostravy, 1996), Spravedlnost podle dekretu: Retribuční soudnictví v ČSR a Mimořádný lidový soud v Ostravě 1945–1948 (Šenov u Ostravy, 1998), and České stopy v Gulagu: Z výzkumu perzekuce Čechů a občanů ČSR v Sovětském svazu (Opava, 2003).
Eva Broklová (1939) is a Docent of History and Senior Researcher at the Masaryk Institute, Prague, concerned with the political system of the First Republic in comparison with those of other central European states, as well as the Czechoslovak electoral system and general elections in 1945–48, and the political culture of the German-speaking countries and pro-Czechoslovak German parties in the First Republic. Her publications include Československá demokracie: Politický systém ČSR 1918–1938 (Prague, 1992), Politická kultura německých aktivistických stran v Československu 1918–1938 (Prague, 1999), and Prezident Republiky československé: Instituce a osobnost T. G. Masaryka (Prague, 2001).
Jiří Friedl (1976) is a senior researcher of the Department of Twentieth Century History at the Institute of History, Prague. The focus of his research is nineteenth and twentieth-century Poland and Czechoslovak-Polish relations, the history of central and Eastern Europe in the last two centuries, and the fate of the Czechoslovak resistance abroad during the Second World War. His publications include the biography Příběh generála Lukase (Přerov, 2002) and Na jedné frontě: Vztahy československé a polské armády (Polskie siły zbrojne) za druhé světové války (Prague, 2005).
Milan Hauner (1940) read history at Prague and Cambridge, and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Since 1968, he has lived abroad. His chief research interests are the Second World War, modern German history and Czech-German relations, Russian and Soviet international politics, and the development of Asia and India. An expert on modern Middle Eastern history as well as aspects of the Second World War, he is author of eight books, including What is Asia to Us? Russia’s Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today (Boston, 1990, and New York, 1992) and Czechs and Germans: Yesterday and Today (Washington, 1991). He is editor of the volume Formování československého zahraničního odboje v letech 1938–1939 ve světle svědectví Jana Opočenského (Prague, 2000).
Rainer Hudemann is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the Institute of History, Saarland University, Saarbrücken. His area of scholarly interest is nineteenth and twentieth-century West European history with a focus on German-French relations and comparative study, the Saarland and Lorraine caught between two great powers, and the history of cities. Among his many publications are Sozialpolitik im deutschen Südwesten zwischen Tradition und Neuordnung 1945–1953: Sozialversicherung und Kriegsopferversorgung im Rahmen französischer Besatzungspolitik (Mainz, 1988) and, edited with Georges-Henri Soutou (vol. 1) and Louis Dupeux and Franz Knipping (vol. 2), Eliten in Deutschland und Frankreich im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1994 and 1996).
Daniela Kolenovská (1976) is doctoral student of modern history at the Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Prague. Her area of specialization is Soviet foreign policy in the 1930s.
Michal Kopeček (1974) is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. His chief research interests are the history of political and social thought in twentieth-century central Europe, from comparative perspectives, and the history and theory of historiography. With Zdeněk Karník he is co-editor of the five-volume Bolševismus, komunismus a radikální socialismus v Československu (Prague, 2003–05).
David Kovařík (1972) is a researcher in the Brno branch of the Institute of Contemporary History and a graduate student of Czech history at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University, Brno. His chief academic interests are Czech and Czechoslovak history after 1945, with a focus on developments in the borderlands and the modern history of Brno.
Zuzana Krahulcová (1980) is a student of German and Austrian history at the Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Prague. Her research entails the standing and importance of expellees in the politics of the German Federal Republic in the 1950s and 1960s.
Jiří Pešek (1954) is Professor of History and Deputy Director of the Institute of International Studies, Charles University, Prague, where he also heads the Department of German and Austrian Studies. His research covers a broad range, but is focused on topics in cultural history from the Middle Ages to the present and twentieth-century German history. He is co-author of several books and author of a number of articles. A thematically compiled collection of his reviews was published as Německé dějiny optikou recenzenta (Prague, 2004).
Tomáš Staněk (1952) is a senior researcher at the Silesian Institute of the Silesian Museum, Opava, and Docent at the Institute of Public Administration and Regional Policy, Silesian University, Opava. His research has long focused on the position of the Germans in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War and their expulsion from the country, the development of Czech-German relations in the broader central-European context, and aspects of public violence in post-war Czech society. Among his many publications are Odsun Němců z Československa 1945–1947 (Prague, 1991), Německá menšina v českých zemích 1948–1989 (Prague, 1993), Tábory v českých zemích 1945–1948 (Šenov u Ostravy, 1996), and Poválečné ”excesy” v českých zemích v roce 1945 a jejich vyšetřování (Prague, 2005).
Oldřich Tůma (1950) has been Director of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, since 1998. After the Changes of 1989–90 he began research on modern Czech and Czechoslovak history, particularly the years 1968–89. He is author of, among other things, scholarly articles on political regimes and opposition in Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic in this period.
