Hello everyone,

first – a word of warning, this article will be very long and full of historical facts, so if you are here for the World of Tanks stuff, you might want to skip it.

Still here? Very well then.

Remember the old Call of Duty – Modern Warfare? There was a line, saying “History is written by the victor, history is full of liars” – the “Captain Price’s speech”, from where the name of this blog comes as well by the way. Either way, despite being used in a videogame, these words are true in real life as well.

There are a lot of lies being told about WW2. The history was written by the victors – I am not complaining about that fact, it is simply the way world works. Everybody lies after all, as House would say. In time however, it is only prudent for the worst myths to be debunked. Not every Russian was a patriotic partisan. Not every Russian soldier was a brave hero, fighting for the Motherland. Not every German was a bloodthirsty monster. And not every Czech was a collaborator, certainly not in the way that they are often depicted and mentioned even is serious literature.

The myth of massive Czech collaboration started very prosaically – as a nazi propaganda to subdue the newly captured Czechoslovak republic. After all, the Germans had no need for proud and independent people of course. Neither did Stalin, that’s why this lie was allowed to survive and was accepted as “the truth” after 1948, when Stalinist lackeys, during a coup took over Czechoslovakia and threw it into the decades of Soviet control, reinforced 20 years later by Soviet “brotherly help” – but that is a story for another time. Let’s return to the desperate days of the Heydrichiad (the term for the aftermath of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious nazi butcher, culminating with the mass murder at the villages Lidice and Ležáky).

This article will be mostly a translation of a long historical article series “Inconvenient Heroes” by Václav Vlk sr., who took time to debunk one of the nastiest prevalent WW2 myths. I had to modify the article several times in order to make sense in English and in order to improve the formatting of the post, so the translation is not perfect, but I tried to keep it as authentic as possible. The references will be posted at the end of the article.

Enjoy.

Part I

The German propaganda shouted ever since 1940 about the Czech nation being content with its “journey with the Third Reich hand in hand”. Ever since Autumn 1941, the propaganda became very professional, because at that point, Heydrich summoned SS-Sturmbannführer Paul Martin Wolf, a philologist and historian, to lead the IV. Department of the Reichsprotektor office (propaganda). The collaborators then, just like they were ordered to, spat venom in the press at the “vile and irresponsible monster, Mr.Beneš” (SS: the wartime Czechoslovak president in exile), who “brings chaos into the national-socialist work.” If we compare today’s articles about Beneš from some modern “politologists”, or the modern movies – or even the opinions in internet discussions, they all seem to come straight out of the kitchen of the “Cultural Politics department” of the Reichsprotektor office (1), (2), (3).

The communists, as well, started singing the same old nasty song about the “irresponsibility of Beneš” and the “futility of the resistance” (non-communist resistance of course) and about the “pointless losses”. Nazis and stalinists do love the fairy tale about the “cowardly Czech nation”, after all, they didn’t need a free self-confident nation for their plans.

After 1989 in Czech media, slowly at first, but then louder and louder, the idea of the nazi Protektorat as a “relative oasis of peace and prosperity” started to appear, along with slandering of president Beneš as a war monger. From saying that Czechs were cowards and collaborators (invented at first as a part of the nazi propaganda), the media moved on to say that the entire Czech nation was criminal – see for example the “discovering the graves” (of only some), the “building of monuments” (only to some) and the declaration of Beneš as a “war criminal” creator of the “German genocide”. Let’s have a look then at how it really was. We owe it to the 294 murdered people, who helped the Czechoslovak commandos assassinating Heydrich, victims of one of the worst crimes, committed by the nazi regime.

The Assassination of Heydrich

They say that the day, that would decide about the life and death of thousands of people and about the fate of the entire Czech nation as well was sunny. It was Wednesday, 27.5.1942 and Reinhard Heydrich was sitting in his black Mercedes, travelling to Prague. His little chateau at Panenské Břežany, north of Prague, embodied for him, as a deputy Heinrich Himmler and second most powerful of the SS (rank of Obergruppenführer) and since 1941 the acting Reichsprotektor für Böhmen und Mähren, a perfect example of how the Czech lands would look in the nazi future. High nazi officials (Reichsdeutschen (Reich Germans), the nazis didn’t count on the Sudeten Germans much) will control their “kingdoms” and the Czech slaves will work on them, just like Madame Heydrich liked it. And there will be a plenty of slaves (to be objective, we have to add that according to confirmed testimonies, Mrs. Heydrich was treating her staff well).

And “Prag” would after the “final solution” become the “old German town” again.

The trip to Prague was uneventful until that fateful curve in the road came. Slovak soldier Gabčík tried to shoot him with his submachinegun and the Czech, Kubiš, threw a specially modified bomb at the car, used in Africa by British soldiers to tear off the tracks of tanks. Sandard grenades were deemed too weak and a heavy frag grenade would in turn kill not only Heydrich, but also Gabčík and Kubiš. The bomb on the other hand killed not by fragments, but its sheer explosive power. After a week, on 4.6.1942, Heydrich died.

With that being said, a lot of info about the assassination, repeated over and over to this day, is made up. It is confirmed by meteorological entries for that day (4) that the day was cloudy, proving that the favourite detail of the story of Valčík giving a sign with a mirror to the two commandos could not happen. By the way, both nazi and communist propaganda was spreading that Heydrich was so sure with the pacification of the Czechs that he was just driving around openly without protection. It is not true. All along the road from the chateau to the Prague Castle, a state of alert was declared, the road was guarded by Waffen SS troops, Gestapo agents and local police. Heydrich knew from Sicherheitsdienst (secret service) ever since 18.4.1942 about the possibility of the assassination attempt. There were several shootouts with the commandos, their weapons and parachutes were found as well. Very thorough measures were taken to protect Heydrich, but they were badly organized on the German side. After Heydrich entered the inner city of Prague, noone was protecting him anymore. He also insisted on driving almost daily at the same hour.

Do notice that when some of the sources describe Heydrich’s last journey, the communist and nazi sources practically match. A trip through the serene countryside, an open vehicle, everything is calm an peaceful… how beautiful it was, only to be ruined by the assassins and the criminal president Beneš (minister of propaganda, one of the worst Czech collaborators, the infamous Emanuel Moravec, called him “bloody Beneš”). The reality however was quite different than what the communist and nazi propaganda was spouting.

The “safe Czech lands”

Czechoslovakia (mostly Czech lands) are politically and ethnically a very specific piece of Europe. Our people have centuries of contacts with Germans behind them. They survived the protestant defeat, violent re-catholization and the resurrection of the nation. We have experience with fighting as well as getting along with the German people. Latest DNA results also show that the vast majority of Czechs has at least some German ancestors, sometimes even more than in some regions of Bavaria and Austria.

Therefore it is possible that only thanks to this thousand-year experience, the prime minister of the Protectorate government, Karel Eliáš, willingly, a lot and with his own initiative worked with the leadership of the foreign resistance. It went so far that he actually personally took part in the killing of one of the worst collaborators, a “journalist” by the name of K.Lažnovský.

The Czechs as general were resisting the nazis both peacefully and actively en masse and repeatedly. Even before the assassination there were many shootouts in Prague, we had strong resistance, the allied spy network was very efficient and there were commandos from Russia and England both operating in former Czechoslovakia (they did find many willing helpers, ready to fight the Germans). There were roughly 12 large public manifestations with the attendance of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people, ever since the famous “pilgrimage to Říp” on 30.4.1939 (SS: Říp is a mountain in Bohemia of great mythological and historical significance for Czechs) and the “anti-occupation people’s camp” st Sv.Hostýn on 20.8.1939. On 28.10.1939 (SS: the date is celebrated as the founding of Czechoslovakia) there were manifestations in Prague and in large Czech and Moravian cities. The burial of Jan Opletal (SS: a student, murdered by the nazis during a manifestation) on 15.11.1939, became a demonstration against German occupation. Two days later, following the order of Adolf Hitler, the nazis forcibly closed Czech universities, the student leaders were arrested and executed and hundreds of Czech students were sent to the concentration camps at Oranienburg, Dachau and Mauthausen. After that, the German authorities issued a ban on all public gatherings.

The first Reichsprotektor für Böhmen und Mähren, Konstantin von Neurath, is often incorrectly depicted as a “classical diplomat”. In reality, he was a member of the SS, he held the rank of Obergruppenführer. He however was fully aware of the fact that when it comes to the industrial potential of Czech lands, including “human resources”, the Reich has no replacement. The German men went to war and the Reich needed the Czech industrial workers. No prisoners or slaves can provide an effective and quality production. And so it was not in the German national interest to destroy the economic potential of the industry-wise advanced Czech society by a brutal reign of terrors, like they did in Poland or Serbia. Hitler was made aware of this “pseudoautonomy” of Czechs, in a sense, this “lax” regime (compared to the murderous behavior of nazis in Poland) lasted even after Heydrich’s death. Hitler however insisted that this solution was only temporary. After his “victory”, he demanded “total germanization of this area”, as it was called by the nazis. This plan included for example only basic 4-year education for Czechs. Those Czechs, who were found “racially worthless” were to be liquidated, racially “worthy” Czechs (“wiedereindeutschungsfähig” – “capable again of becoming a German”) were to be germanized. That was the reason why a limited amount of Czech students was allowed to study in the Reich.

In the Protektorat, a privileged “high society” was created by an official order. Czech Germans, Sudeten Germans and Reich Germans were the “Oberschicht” (“high layer”), the Czechs became the “Unterschicht” (lower layer) of the society (this was never publicly blared out by the Germans, on the contrary – the German propaganda was sucking up to the Czechs in words, especially to the worker class). The Jews and the Gypsies stopped being human by an official order, they were called (and this is a technical term, not a slur) “Untermenschen” (sub-humans). Food rations were also split into classes – D for Germans (highest), T for Czechs (lower) and J for Jews (lowest). Forced labor was implemented by law as well, as were the double language inscriptions, the bells were confiscated from churches (SS: for steel), the streets were renamed, in culture, everything German was preferred and the culture and social life was limited. Slowly and in silence, physical liquidation of Czech intellectuals has begun, for example in Brno, the majority of the university professors was arrested and sent to Auschwitz and Mauthausen concentration camps.

Despite the fact that Neurath closed the Czech universities and forced the Nurnberg Laws (SS: racial anti-semite laws) into effect on the Protektorat territory, while keeping the Czech industry supporting the German war economy, he was replaced September 1941 by Reinhard Heydrich on Hitler’s order. Allegedly the reason was his “lenience”, but it was mostly because of him not being able to deal with the Czech resistance movement. For example, ever since 1940, the nazis knew that Gen.Eliáš is only pretending to work with the Germans. From the torture and interrogation of Prague mayor Klapka by Gestapo they did not learn too many things (he kept mostly silent), but after capturing another Czech-Jewish resistance member, Miloš Bondy, they finally came to the right conclusion. Bondy was organizing the extractions of Czechs from the Protektorat and was forced by torture to state that Klapka was financing these extractions (which was actually true). The Germans found out that Eliáš was in connection with the exile government. Hitler however ordered his arrest to be delayed, because in 1940, it was not profitable for him politically.

Furthermore, more and more Czech patriots were fleeing the Protektorat, often the former soldiers of the Czechoslovak army. To German dismay, they fought the Germans in Poland in 1939, in 1940 in France, in Africa with the French Foreign Legion, in the Middle East, with the RAF in England and so on. The local resistance, despite Gestapo and SD efforts, was constant and clear danger to the nazis. SD and Gestapo were reporting that the resistance is actually stiffening (5). Even according to Hitler himself, the situation in the Protektorat before the assassination was bad. Horst Böhme, the commander of the SD in the Protektorat between 1940-1942 complained, that the Czechs are unwilling to “snitch” for money (5).

The Germans were fully aware of the situation, because – amongst other things – hundreds, even thousands of Sudeten Germans served in the Protektorat offices, Gestapo and SD, who, thanks to the First Republic, could speak Czech very well. They liked to pose as agent-provocateur “resistance members” (for example a German from Brno, Wolfgang Dyck or Rudolf Schetke – both Gestapo officers in Brno). The nazis were not kidding themselves. They were spreading the propaganda about “collaboration” and about a huge number of “snitches”, but the reality was far more modest. For example, the Volksliste (official proclamation of the claimant that he is a German) were signed by only a few people, despite the fact practically every Czech had some German “Oma oder Opa” (ancestors).

That was why the creator of the “final solution”, Heydrich, was sent to the Protektorat. Practically immediately after arriving, he stated: “After all, no Czech has a place in this area anymore”. And nazis never joked about such matters – see the “final solution of Czech question”. The whole plan was a followup to the infamous Wannsee meeting, where the final Czech solution was discussed as well as the final Jewish solution (6). And what was the “final Czech solution” – logically, it was the concentration camps. After the “victorious war”, they would be waiting for “more fodder”. We, Czechs, would be next.

Tactically however, it was needed to keep the Czech workers working for the interest of nazi Germany. That was why it was stated by Heydrich: the Reich has no interest in the immediate germanization of the Czech territory, since the Reich needs Czech workforce for war purposes. He also stated the following in one of his speeches:

“I need peace in this area, so that a Czech worker offers his working strength for the German war effort …. and a part of it of course is to give the Czech workers enough grub, if I am to say it directly, so they can do their job.”

This official attitude, proclaimed by the nazis, was however just a camouflage. For example, when it comes to the matter of Czech schools, Heydrich wrote to Martin Bormann: “…such measures (as the closing of the school in Kladno) I am planning for all the higher Czech schools, when the opportunity presents itself, in order to complicate acquiring higher education for the Czechs” (he meant high schools, the universities were already closed).

Shortly after his arrival, on 28.9.1941, Heydrich declared martial law. The very next day he had the prime minister Alois Eliáš arrested. Furthermore, he had 5000 (five thousand!) hand-picked Czechs arrested – alleged resistance members, sentenced to be murdered by Heydrich’s decree from Fall 1941 in the Mauthausen concentration camp. These murders were not published in press at all and if any of the names were mentioned in the newspapers, the sentencing was always written as “sentenced to be transferred to secret police”. Eliáš was sentenced to death, but – despite the pleas of Heydrich and Sudeten Germans, Hitler personally postponed his executing indefinitely. In the end, it was carried out on 19.6.1942 in Kobylisy by shooting. Mayor Klapka was however shot publicly in September 1941 and his death was announced.

The official news spoke of an execution of 404 Czechs, but thousands more were murdered by the nazis “silently”, without any news. The concentration camp Mauthausen near Linz was designated by Heydrich for the extermination of Czechs (but also for example the Dutch) and was led by SS members from Bavaria. These murders were carried out in person for example by Thomas Roth (Bavarian), Ludwig Schultz (Bavarian), MUDr. Krebsbach, but also by the commander of the camp, Franz Ziereiss (also Bavarian). These were, using the nazi terminology, the “socialists of deeds, not saloon talkers”. Despite the fact the camp was in Austria, Austrian SS members were “only” serving as guards. According to the witness and survivor, Mr.Čeřenský, they were all recruited from the ranks of hard criminals. The “shift leaders” were also Austrians.

The Resistance

The incessant writing and talking of massive Czech collaboration, which – even today – fills (not only) the internet has no historical foundation. The reality is described by D.Brandes, a known German historian (7): on 4.2.1942, Heydrich personally characterized the (Czech) national resistance with these words:

“…it was much more widespread and dangerous than anyone could have expected… within 4 months, we captured roughly 90 short wave radios …. the amount of executions is between 400 and 500, the amount of arrested is between 4 and 5 thousand people… the people, who were arrested or sentenced to death, are usually people of high moral standards…”

However, the nazi propaganda was working very well at that point. It managed to convince the West that the Czechs are happily collaborating (it was very convenient for the West, because it gave them an excuse for the Munich treason). President Beneš showed remarkable foresight in knowing that the “Allies” had no interest in getting into trouble because “of some Czechoslovakia”. After their victory, they’d probably just think about creating some form of Czech-Moravian state. They were not ready to admit that they lied to the world, sacrificing everyone to save their political skins.

That was one of the reasons why Anthropoid, Silver A and Silver B came to be. But commandos are worthless, when they don’t have the support of the people – and they managed to get that despite all the trouble. The successful elimination of Heydrich is proof enough.

At that point, despite the offensive of Gestapo against the resistance, several commando groups were already operating on Czechoslovak territory. Especially in the Moravian region, Soviet commandos were operating ever since 1941, the western ones came later. There were also local resistance members (UVOD, PVVZ, Obrana Národa, V Boj, Lvice, Zelený Kádr, Flora) and a large nuber of smaller groups. After the German attack on Soviet union, even communists (who were actively fighting the western resistance, practically collaborating with the nazis) started attacking the Germans. The UVOD and Obrana Národa organizations were practically destroyed by the Germans, but the resistance did not falter – one of the strongest elements in it was the pre-war Sokol organization (a sports/scouting organization with members of very high moral standards). D.Brandes states (7):

“Nazi overlords in the Protektorat were stunned, how shortly Heydrich’s measures (including the martial law) were effective….”

On 10.1.1942, K.H.Frank wrote a letter to Heydrich. By that time, the resistance was supposed to be pacified (8):

“It looks like everything was already forgotten. The 300 executed, the martial law in Brno and Prague. We have new resistance forces activating themselves, the wide masses of the population are now showing hostility…”

And so, the documents, written by the nazis themselves, speak clearly: no nation of cowardly collaborators, but a nation, whose existence was physically and spiritually threatened, a nation, aware of the situation, actively preparing itself for what comes next. As Edmund Burke wrote: “a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered”.

Wehrmacht was freezing near Moscow, the raw materials were running out, the attempt to conquer Britain failed. Another round of the struggle was looming on the horizon in the Protektorat and neither the Germans nor the resistance underestimated their enemies. It was only the nazi propaganda, that babbled on about the “collaborating Czechs”. And in some people, this nazi crap stays until these days.

To be continued…

References
(1) Řízení tisku v letech 1939-1945 – Končelík, Cebe, Köpplová
(2) Pražané pod tlakem nacistické propagandy během druhého stanného práva na území tzv. protektorátu Čechy a Morava – V.Šustek
(3) Organizace nacistické propagandy a její působení v Protektorátu – J. Milotová (Historie a Vojenství 1/2000)
(4) Někomu život, někomu smrt – J.Čvančara
(5) Gestapo v boji proti první vlně výsadků vyslaných z Anglie (1941–1942) – O.Sládek
(6) Germanisierung und Genozid – „Hitlers Endlösung der tschechischen Frage” – B.Čelovský
(7) Češi pod německým protektorátem – D.Brandes
(8) Atentát na Heydricha a II. stanné právo na území tzv. protektorátu Čechy a Morava 27. 5. 1942 – 3. 7. 1942 – V.Šustek