Border fortifications of Czechoslovakia in the Cold War
The border fortifications of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) were mainly the border fortifications to the Federal Republic of Germany (total length 356 km) and the Republic of Austria (total length 453 km) during the Cold War . They resembled the inner-German border on the GDR side .
The paramilitary border force Pohraniční stráž (PS) was responsible for guarding the Czechoslovak state border during communist rule . The primary task of the border fortifications belonging to the “ Iron Curtain ” was to prevent escapes from the Eastern Bloc countries to the West.
history
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In 1945 and 1946, Czechoslovakia had driven the expulsion and expropriation of the Sudeten Germans on the basis of the so-called Beneš decrees ; these lived mainly in the Czech outskirts. Although the expulsion was not a result of the East-West conflict or the communist seizure of power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, it was an essential prerequisite for the large-scale fortification of the western borders. These were still relatively permeable until the communist regime ( government Zápotocký ) established border zones there in 1950, which one could only enter with permission.
Traffic routes to the west were barricaded and many of the once numerous border crossings were closed. Even buildings and entire towns were torn down or blown up. In May 1955 the victorious powers of World War II signed the State Treaty with Austria; a few months later they withdrew their occupation troops from Austria.
In November 1956, the Hungarian uprising was suppressed by Soviet troops; subsequently many Hungarians fled to the west . That is why the surveillance of the Czechoslovak western border was reorganized and massively strengthened. The plants were originally built relatively close to the border line; now these have been moved further inland. In doing so, greater attention was paid to using the advantages of the site. As part of Operation Grenzstein , false border fortifications were built in the hinterland, which it was planned to overcome.
In the mid-1960s, the borders became a little more permeable again, especially for ČSSR citizens who wanted to leave the country permanently (until mid-1968, when troops from some Warsaw Pact states put down the Prague Spring ). The high-voltage fences along the border were replaced by simple barbed wire fences. Around the same time, the organization of the Czechoslovak border troops was reformed again. Until the 1970s, more modern barracks were built using prefabricated panels for most of the border companies .
In the course of the revolutions of 1989 it was to be assumed that a political upheaval was imminent in the ČSSR, which would lead to the end of the Cold War and ultimately make the border fortifications to the west superfluous. At the beginning of November 1989, shortly after the events in the Prague embassy and the beginning of the turning point in the GDR , events rolled over: On November 1st, the GDR lifted the visa requirement for Czechoslovakia again, which was a short-term one, and on November 3rd 5000 people were already in the Prague embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. On the same evening, the deputy foreign minister of the Czechoslovakia, Pavel Sadovský, informed the GDR leadership that GDR citizens can now travel directly from Czechoslovakia to the Federal Republic of Germany without consulting the GDR authorities. With that the Czechoslovak part of the Iron Curtain fell de facto . According to the popular saying “How are you? From now until the opening of the inner-German border on November 9th (“ Fall of the Wall ”) thousands of GDR citizens traveled unhindered to the West via the ČSSR.
According to reports from the Interior Ministry of the Czechoslovak Republic, there were around 62,500 GDR citizens from November 5 to 9, 1989.
Demonstrations on November 16 in Bratislava and November 17 in Prague on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Special Action Prague initiated the Velvet Revolution in the Czechoslovakia . On December 5, 1989, work began on dismantling the barriers to the Republic of Austria and, from December 11, also the border fortifications on the border with the Federal Republic of Germany.
Construction of the border fortifications
The actual border fortifications usually consisted of two rows of fences. The distance between them was several meters; the inland fence (made of metal) was originally designed as a high-voltage fence with a high voltage of 5 kV . The two-row barbed wire fence with high-voltage feed was replaced in the mid-1960s by a single or two-row barbed wire fence with so-called T-beams. Signal mines and other security elements such as light barriers and infrared blocking systems were later installed in the area of the fences. Between the rows of fences there were also tripwires connected to flares; A harrowed strip several meters wide (“trace strip”) should make traces of possible refugees visible and facilitate their pursuit. Inland, the border fortifications were also preceded by tank barriers and concrete curb barriers up until the 1980s to prevent vehicles from breaking through the border.
Landmines were laid in some sections of the border, especially in the period from 1952 to 1957 . The mines were integrated into the lock in rows of one or two. Pedal mines, anti-personnel mines with wire release or with electrical release and dummy mines were used.
The border troops also controlled the border strip by means of watchtowers , which were mostly in visual contact with one another. At first mainly wooden watchtowers were built on the western border of the CSSR; In the course of the modernization of the border in the mid-1960s, they were gradually replaced by steel lattice towers . The border fortifications - especially after 1956 - no longer ran directly on the border line, but mostly at some distance in the hinterland, which could be between 100 meters or even a few kilometers, depending on the border section. So it happened again and again that hikers and walkers from the west unintentionally ended up on Czechoslovak territory.
In the “no man's land” between the border line and the barriers there were also so-called alarm stations that were only manned by border guards when the alarm was triggered. The alarm statuses were mostly within sight of the neighboring alarm statuses.
course
From Trojmezí at Hranice u Aše the border triangle where the border installations of the GDR gave way to that of Czechoslovakia, the attachments to the Federal Republic of Germany ran across the eastern foothills of Fichtelgebirges , from here along the outer boundary of the Upper Palatinate Forest and the western edge of the Bohemian Forest along . Thus, the fortified border between the ČSSR and the Federal Republic of Germany was mainly to the south in an area that was largely undeveloped and difficult to access. From 1964 the Czechoslovak border troops (Pohraniční stráž) on the border with the Federal Republic of Germany were divided into a total of three sections with the 5th Brigade PS ( Cheb ), the 9th Brigade PS ( Domažlice ) and 7th Brigade PS ( Sušice ). The 7th Brigade PS also took over the surveillance of the border strip with the Republic of Austria across the border triangle near the Plöckenstein up to the level of Vyšší Brod , which is located on the southern edge of the Bohemian Forest on the border with the Upper Austrian Mühlviertel , also through very sparsely populated areas and Partly difficult to access sections ran.
The 15th Brigade PS ( České Budějovice ) then took over the monitoring of the border from Vyšší Brod up to the level of the border between the South Bohemian and South Moravian regions east of Rancířov , which also included large parts of the fortified border with the Lower Austrian Waldviertel . The 4th Brigade PS ( Znojmo ) guarded the east of it lying boundary portion of the entire southern border of the South Moravian region of Lower Austria Forest and Weinviertel involved and through the middle of today's National Park Thayatal / podyjí national park led to the mouth of the Thaya in the March at today's tri-border region between Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The last section of the border to the Hungarian border at Rajka , which belonged to the 11th Brigade PS ( Bratislava ), initially ran along the March to its confluence with the Danube near Bratislava and led directly in the section south of the Danube ( Pressburger bridgehead ) along the suburbs of Bratislava. Since the border strip ran directly past a heavily populated area with a correspondingly very limited upstream border zone and could also be seen relatively well from both sides of the border, an above-average number of escape attempts took place on this section measured in length. The Czechoslovak border troops also used patrol boats to monitor the state border running through the Danube.
Between the GDR and the ČSSR, the green border ran mainly along the Ore Mountains . This border became of political importance in October 1989, when the GDR temporarily introduced a visa requirement for travel to the ČSSR in order to curb the flow of GDR refugees into the Prague embassy . Now GDR border soldiers also had to prevent illegal border crossings into the ČSSR.
Border dead
It is estimated that between May 1945 and November 1989 more than 1000 people died in the area of the border between Czechoslovakia and the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Austria .
Civilians killed
| Documented border deaths at the western borders of the ČSR / ČSSR by country of origin between 1948 and 1989 |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | to the Federal Republic of Germany | to Austria | to the GDR | Total |
| ČSSR (ČSR) | 105 | 73 | 9 | 187 |
| Poland | 4th | 25th | 0 | 29 |
| GDR ( SBZ ) | 10 | 3 | 3 | 16 |
| Austria | 0 | 15th | 0 | 15th |
| West Germany | 12 | 1 | 0 | 13 |
| Hungary | 1 | 6th | 0 | 7th |
| Unknown | 5 | 2 | 0 | 7th |
| Yugoslavia | 1 | 3 | 0 | 4th |
| France | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Morocco | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Total: | 139 | 129 | 12 | 280 |
This includes an estimated 390 civilians, most of whom were killed trying to escape, but also occasionally when accidentally crossing the border or as a result of accidents. In particular, the number of civilian deaths between May 1945 and January 1948 is unclear. This number is estimated at between 80 and 110, depending on the source. This comparatively high number of those killed is often explained by the smuggling system that was flourishing at the time. In addition, a large number of German-speaking expellees are said to have tried to return to their former homeland illegally, for example to get their property back or to visit relatives and friends who remained in Czechoslovakia.
It is documented that along the entire length of the Czechoslovak western border (including the border with the GDR) between February 1948 and 1989 a total of 280 people died as a result of attempting to cross the border; this number also includes deserters.
- Of which died:
- 139 people on the border with the Federal Republic of Germany,
- 129 people on the border with Austria (including 40 people on today's border with Slovakia) and
- 12 people on the border with the GDR (the last recorded death on this border section occurred in 1963).
Of the 280 proven deaths, died:
- 143 people through the use of firearms,
- 95 due to electric shock on the high-voltage fence
- 17 by suicide before arrest
- 11 as a result of drowning in border waters (the statistics show at least another 50 people whose drowning cannot be demonstrably linked to an attempted border crossing)
- 5 by shooting down their aircraft or aircraft
- 5 as a result of accidents with motor vehicles in the course of attempted border breaches
- 2 by mine action
- 1 before being accessed by border troops from heart failure
- 1 was mauled alive by guard dogs of the border troops during his attempt to escape ( Hartmut Tautz , 1986)
Killed Czechoslovak border guards
The majority of the people killed on the Czechoslovak border were accounted for by the Czechoslovak border troops , who had an estimated 650 deaths in their ranks between 1948 and 1989. The majority of them died as a result of accidents (including traffic accidents, gunshot accidents, improper manipulation of the high-voltage fence, self-triggering of mines, etc.); a total of 208 soldiers also committed suicide. A total of 67 members of the border troops were shot by comrades. Twelve border guards were killed by border violators.
German border officials killed
Between 1945 and 1989, a total of three Federal German customs and border protection officers died on the border between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Czechoslovakia. In addition, at least one soldier of the border troops of the GDR was killed on the border between the GDR and the ČSSR during the same period .
Known cases:
- Georg Nirschl, a customs assistant, was shot on July 5, 1951 at the Grünsteig bridge near Pfeiffermühle near Hohenberg an der Eger under unexplained circumstances. The entry in the journal of the Czechoslovak border troops suggests that Nirschl surprised Czechoslovak border soldiers when two agents were smuggled into the Czechoslovakia, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
- Alois Huber, a Bavarian border guard, was allegedly shot by Czechoslovak border guards on November 17, 1953 at the border near Untergrafenried (Waldmünchen municipality , Cham district ). According to two strollers who happened to observe the crime, the border guards apparently wanted to inspect the post hut on the German side, which was hidden from view by their own watchtower, while hunting illegal loggers in the border area. The soldiers were presumably provided by Huber, whereupon these Huber mortally wounded with their submachine guns and fled back to the Czechoslovak side. The Czechoslovak border troops subsequently denied any involvement of their organs in the incident and claimed that no patrols had taken place at the said time. However, this representation is refuted by the file note made on this incident.
See also
- Czechoslovak Wall
- Czech border crossings to neighboring countries
- Upheavals in 1989
- Velvet revolution
- Barracks Peršlák # Border Museum
literature
- Stefan Karner , Dieter Bacher: Stop! Tragedies on the Iron Curtain. The lock files , Ecowin, Salzburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-7110-0049-1 .
Web links
- MODERN BORDER OPERATIONS 1970–1983
- Sketch of the ČSSR border fortifications
- ČSSR watchtower
- Genscher in Prague
- Iron Curtain Museum in Valtice (Czech)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Roman Sandgruber Norbert Loidol: The Iron Curtain. The story - the end - the warning. In: Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (ed.): The Iron Curtain. Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna 2001, p. 11. See below. a. PDF ( Memento of the original from May 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ^ Karel Vodička : The Prague Embassy Refugees 1989: History and Documents. V & R unipress , Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3847103455 , p. 259 .
- ↑ Martin Pulec: Organizace a činnost ozbrojených pohraničních složek - Seznamy osob usmrcených na státních hranicích 1945-1989. Úřad dokumentace a vyšetřování zločinů komunismu, Prague 2006, ISBN 80-86621-18-9 , p. 94 ff. ( PDF ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ).
- ↑ Martin Pulec: ibid., P. 174 ff.
- ^ Radio Praha, December 13, 2004 ( online ).
- ↑ Martin Pulec: ibid., P. 173.
- ↑ Martin Pulec: ibid., P. 109.
- ^ Luděk Navara: Incidents at the Iron Curtain . ISBN 978-3-936511-30-7 , p. 33.
- ^ Radio Praha, December 13, 2004, ibid.
- ↑ Martin Pulec: ibid., P. 297 ff.
- ↑ Martin Pulec: ibid., P. 299
- ↑ Twenty years ago today at the CSSR border: Alois Huber died in a hail of bullets from Czech submachine guns ( memento of the original from February 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 879 kB), Chamer Zeitung , November 17, 1973.
- ↑ Martin Pulec: ibid., P. 299
