Prague uprising
Monument to the Prague Uprising in Prague
| date | May 5 to May 8, 1945 |
|---|---|
| place | Prague |
| output | Armistice liberation of the city |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
| Commander | |
|
|
|
| losses | |
|
|
|
| Unknown number of deaths in the German and Czech civilian population | |
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The Prague Uprising ( Czech Pražské povstání ) describes a military uprising of the Czech resistance against the German occupiers in Prague at the end of the Second World War . It began on May 5, 1945 with a message on the Czech radio and ended with an armistice and the withdrawal of the Wehrmacht from Prague on May 8, 1945. One day later, the Red Army entered the liberated city.
Starting position
By the Munich Agreement which was Czechoslovakia crushed been and on large parts of their territory from the German Reich under Adolf Hitler , the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was built. The name should remind of the time of Austrian rule and describe the political situation harmlessly ( euphemism ). Czech intellectuals were arrested and deported , the Charles University closed and the public life in Nazi Germany into line .
In addition to the persecution of the Jews , the Czech population experienced massive reprisals during the retaliatory measures following the murder of the Deputy Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovaks in May 1942. Furthermore, many German exiles who had sought protection in the liberal neighboring country were arrested and deported by the Gestapo .
At the end of April 1945 the Red Army had surrounded Berlin . In the east it pierced the Carpathian Mountains and liberated Slovakia (see Slovak National Uprising ). In the southeast the battle of Budapest ended and the former Austrian capital Vienna was taken. In the West, reached the first US Army at Torgau the same and met the Soviet troops. Munich and Nuremberg had also fallen. The 3rd US Army advanced on Pilsen in western Bohemia . A large part of the former Czechoslovakian territory was taken by Allied units.
In the spring of 1945 there were smaller and larger partisan units in Bohemia and Moravia with a total strength of 7,500 men who systematically attacked the supply routes of the German front. In some areas, Germans were no longer able to enter them at night without harm.
The riot
.jpg)
From April 30 to May 1, 1945 the SS-Obergruppenführer (General) and General of the Police, Karl Hermann Frank, had it spread over the radio in Prague that every attempt at an uprising would end in a "sea of blood". The reason for this was that the Allies were already near the former Czechoslovak capital, and the unrest that came with it. Much of the Prague population flocked to the streets to welcome the coming liberators. Frank therefore ordered the streets to be cleared and issued an order to shoot if anyone opposed the order.
On May 5th, the uprising was triggered by the morning broadcast on Czech radio. In a mixture of German and Czech, the presenter Zdeněk Mančal began his program with the words je six hodin (German: It is six o'clock ) and from then on only ran the program in Czech. In doing so, he undermined the strict instructions of the German artistic director about bilingual broadcasts. The intendant Ferdinand Thürmer then called German soldiers to the transmitter, who met Czech resistance fighters there. The noise of the battle could be heard on the radio, whereupon more and more Prague residents rose up against German rule. German signs were torn down, Czechoslovak flags were hoisted and barricades were built. The fighting was commanded on the Czech side by General Karel Kutlvašr , who was supported in particular by the combat units of the resistance groups Alex (Commander General František Slunečko ) and Bartoš (Commander General František Bürger-Bartoš ).
During the day of May 5, the Czech resistance defeated the SS units at the radio building and took the Gestapo and Sipo headquarters. In the afternoon the National Resistance Committee moved into the town hall . Meanwhile the uprising continued to spread. More and more German units in the city were attacked and disarmed. The Prime Minister of the Protectorate Government, Richard Bienert , was also arrested on the way to the radio station. Officially, he wanted to announce the end of the protectorate there. A German counter-attack with heavy armored forces began in the evening and night hours of the day. These were located outside the city, wanted to establish a connection with the units in the city and finally put down the uprising. The attack changed the balance of power; the German military units forced a stalemate and a stabilization of their situation.
On the morning of May 6th, over 1,000 barricades had been erected. The Czech troops had managed to get half of the city under their control. The German garrisons scattered all over the city had been surrounded. The insurgents cut their electricity, water and telephone connections. At this early stage, riots against unarmed victims began on both sides.
German counterattack
The German units outside the city immediately moved into the city and tried to support the forces there. The main objective was to capture and secure the city's railway lines and communication centers in order to be able to establish a safe and rapid retreat to the American front in good time before the Red Army reached the city.
On May 6, the German forces tried to retake the radio building. Heavy Czech resistance in the building itself and at the barricades on the neighboring streets let this project fail, so that the use of bombers followed. As a result, the Czechs had to relocate the leadership of the uprising elsewhere.
When the US Army reached the West Bohemian city of Pilsen on May 6, the insurgents had high hopes that American spearheads would soon reach the capital. Unknown to them was the allied demarcation line , which ran 70 km from Prague. Calls by the Czech radio to the Americans to support the uprising went unanswered. The location of the Soviet front was just as unknown as the fact that the German Wehrmacht was in retreat due to the Prague operation .
On May 7, Schwerin von Krosigk , a member of the last Reich government in Flensburg - Mürwik , announced the impending unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht via the Reich broadcaster Flensburg . The Prague I radio station , which was also still broadcasting that day, claimed that the reports from Flensburg were based on an Allied propaganda trick and called for the fight to continue.
Attack by the Waffen SS
Because of the poor progress made by the Wehrmacht, units of the Waffen SS intervened in the fighting with heavy weapons on May 7th . Armored units penetrated the city, artillery and air force caused severe damage to numerous historical buildings. After just a few hours, the German forces had an advantage over the insurgents, who had only a few anti-tank weapons and, for them, only little ammunition. The commander of the Waffen SS in Bohemia and Moravia, SS-Gruppenführer (Lieutenant General) Carl Friedrich Graf von Pückler-Burghaus , demanded that the historic city center be razed to the ground with incendiary bombs , with the words “The whole nest must burn”.
Change of front of the ROA
During the German counterattack, the 1st Division of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) , which had previously been on the side of the Wehrmacht in the German V Army Corps against the Red Army, now began to fight the Waffen SS.
In contrast to the Czech resistance, the ROA had heavy weapons, tanks and experienced veterans from the Eastern Front. Despite the change of front, she did not plan to stay in Prague. Their commander Vlasov did not have the full support of the Czech leaders and therefore had to fear that his units would be betrayed to the Soviets. Therefore, the Russian Liberation Army soon broke off the fighting and pushed against the American troops to surrender to them.
Withdrawal of the German associations
In view of the fact that no Allied aid had arrived and the destruction of the city was increasing, the insurgents decided to start negotiations with the German units under the city commandant of Prague, General Rudolf Toussaint ; on the Czech side negotiated some members of the Czech National Council and General Karel Kutlvašr , who accepted the surrender on May 8, 1945 from Toussaint. The outcome of the negotiations enabled the German troops and German civilians to escape the city safely, while on the other hand the German forces would stop the destruction of the city. The Wehrmacht soldiers moved to Pilsen, where they were taken prisoner by the US Army and thus out of the reach of the Red Army.
liberation
On May 9th, the Red Army marched into Prague. Reconnaissance units of the US Army had already been in the suburbs of the city since the beginning of the uprising, but they were unable to intervene in the fighting.
See also
literature
- Stanislaw Kokoška: Prague in May 1945. The story of an uprising (= reports and studies by the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism . No. 55). V&R unipress, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89971-540-8 .
swell
- Karel Bartosek: The Prague Uprising. Artia, Prague 1965.
- stern.de: Prague: “The whole nest must be on fire” , May 5, 2005.
- Radio Prague: 60 Years of the Prague Uprising - 60 Years of Struggle for Broadcasting , May 5, 2005.
- Radio Prague: The Protectorate Governments , March 27, 2004.
- Radio Prague: History in retrospect - how to remember the Prague uprising in the Czech Republic , May 5, 2005.
- Radio Prague: General Vlasov's army and the liberation of Prague on May 11, 2002.
- Vilém Fuchs: Shadows - Traces - Encounters. The bitter years in Prague. 1935-1945. Hauschild, Bremen 1999, ISBN 3-931785-92-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Radio Prague: History in Review - How to Remember the Prague Uprising in the Czech Republic , May 5, 2005.
- ↑ a b Kutlvašr Karel . In: Vojenské osobnosti československého odboje 1939–1945 . Publication of the Historical Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, AVIS, Prague 2005, p. 168, online (archived) at: vojenskaakademiehranice.ic.cz / ...
- ↑ Slunečko František, detailed curriculum vitae in: Vojenské osobnosti československého odboje 1939–1945 , publication of the Historical Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, AVIS, Prague 2005, p. 262, online (archived) at: vojenskaakademiehranice.ic.cz / ...
- ↑ Bürger (Bartoš) František , detailed curriculum vitae in: Vojenské osobnosti československého odboje 1939–1945 , publication of the Historical Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, AVIS, Prague 2005, p. 39, online (archived) at: vojenskaakademiehranice.ic.cz/ ...
- ^ A b Martin Čáp, Jindřich Marek: Hrdinové z barikád: Kapitulace pro generála Kutlvašra , broadcast of the Český rozhlas radio station on 22. April 2015, online (copy) at: dvojka.rozhlas.cz / ...
- ^ Radio Prague: The Protectorate Governments , March 27, 2004.
- ↑ Gerhard Paul: "Since midnight the guns have been silent on all fronts." The "Reichssender Flensburg" in May 1945 . In: Paul Gerhard, Broder Schwensen (Ed.): Mai '45 . End of the war in Flensburg (= publication series of the Society for Flensburg City History ). 1st edition. tape 80 . Society for Flensburg City History, Flensburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-925856-75-4 , p. 75 (244 pages).
- ↑ Prague: “The whole nest must be on fire” . ( Memento from November 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) stern.de, May 5, 2005.
- ↑ Which Russian liberated Prague? The Vlasov Army and the Prague Uprising . In: Neues Deutschland , May 21, 2005