Czechoslovak memoranda for the 1919 Paris Peace Conference

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Czechoslovak memoranda for the 1919 Peace Conference in Paris , which are generally attributed to the then Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Edvard Beneš and therefore also usually known as the Beneš memoranda , are a collection of writings that were prepared by leading employees of the Czechoslovak government to to support its own demands at the Versailles conference . They contributed significantly to the consolidation and international recognition of the borders of the new state.

background

After the establishment of Czechoslovakia in 1918 and before the peace conference in Paris in 1919, where the situation after the First World War was to be settled, the Czechoslovak side was very keen to emphasize its claims to territorial regulations. In particular, it concerned German Bohemia and Sudetenland , Böhmenwaldgau, German South Moravia, Cieszyn Silesia and Slovakia . The areas were partially occupied by the military. At the behest of the Conference Council, the demands and ideas of the government were then formulated in writing with a reason in the so-called memoranda, which were presented to the conference. The first three documents formed the basis. Beneš presented the Czechoslovak demands together with Prime Minister Karel Kramář to the Council of Ten on February 5, 1919 , and received a positive response; on March 27, 1919, they were presented to the specially established Commission for Czechoslovak Affairs , consisting of representatives of United States, Great Britain, France and Italy. In the Paris suburb agreements , Czechoslovakia was not able to enforce all, but the most important territorial claims.

Problem and reception

Already during the conference it became known that some of the figures contained in the memoranda had been glossed over, which historians believe should give the Czechoslovak delegation space to give in and then meet the demands. Here, as a rule, reference is made primarily to Memorandum 3 ( The Problem of the Germans in Bohemia ), where the figures assumed at the time for minorities, especially Germans, were first adopted, but then downgraded for political reasons (sometimes with references to falsified Austrian statistics, etc.).

The handling of the issue of self-administration and equal rights for minorities later also proved problematic. Above all, in Memorandum 3 and in a note from Beneš of May 20, 1919 to the conference, the internal state order based on the Swiss model was promised, which took account of the multiethnic character. However, Masaryk's conception of the nation-state finally prevailed . The minorities - not least at Masaryk's instigation - were equal, were proportionally represented in parliament, owned schools and cultural institutions, but they were pushed back from many areas. A “de-Germanization” of some parts of the country could not be carried out due to the parliamentary-democratic structure of the state, nevertheless the roots of the dissatisfaction of the Sudeten Germans at the end of the 1930s can be sought here.

The memoranda have therefore also become the target of critics who demand a revision of historical facts. The Czech historian and publicist Rudolf Kučera , for example, also provides support here . Kučera, who is close to the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft , describes the memoranda as a “collection of half-truths and even lies” and also advocates a revision of the Beneš decrees . These inconsistencies in the very complex formation of the state and the self-determination efforts of Czechoslovakia are cited to this day as arguments for a revision, because the “state constitution of February 29, 1920 came about without any democratic legitimation [...]. The members of the 'Revolutionary National Assembly' tasked with drafting them were not legitimized either by an elected parliament or by a referendum ... [and passed] in the same, non-democratically legitimized composition “laws.

The individual memoranda

There were a total of eleven memoranda (Memorandum 4 consisted of two parts):

  • Memorandum No. 1: The Czechoslovaks. Their history and their civilization - their struggle and their work - their significance in the world ( German version ; PDF; 85 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 2: The Territorial Demands of the Czechoslovak Republic
  • Memorandum No. 3: The Problem of the Germans in Bohemia ( German version ; PDF; 36 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 4: The Problem of Teschener Silesia ( German version ; PDF; 63 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 4 A: Memorandum on the situation in Silesia ( German version ; PDF; 41 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 5: Slovakia. The area claimed in Slovakia ( German version ; PDF; 77 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 6: The Problem of the Ruthenians in Hungary ( German version ; PDF; 25 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 7: The Lusatian Wends ( German version ; PDF; 80 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 8: Czech Upper Silesia (Racibórz area) ( German version ; PDF; 19 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 9: The problem of the Glatzer area ( German version ; PDF; 20 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 10: Problems with the correction of the Czechoslovak and German-Austrian borders ( German version ; PDF; 31 kB)
  • Memorandum No. 11: The Czechoslovak Republic and its right to compensation for war damage ( German version ; PDF; 48 kB)

literature

  • Hermann Raschhofer (ed.): The Czechoslovak memoranda for the peace conference of Paris 1919/1920. In: Contributions to foreign public law and international law 24, Berlin 1937 (see however the comments in the article Hermann Raschhofer ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Eva Irmanová, Maďarsko a Trianonská mírová smlouva , in: Európa, nemzet, külpolitika , pp. 100 and 104 (Czech).
  2. ↑ Memorandum No. 3: The Problem of the Germans in Bohemia (PDF; 36 kB), Research Association for Eastern and South Eastern Europe (forost), Hungarian Institute in Munich .
  3. ↑ Erwin Viefhaus, The Minority Issue and the Origin of Minority Protection Treaties at the Paris Peace Conference 1919 , Textor Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, p. 181 f.
  4. ↑ 2. The Sudeten Germans in the ČSR, editorial office: Bavarian State Center for Political Education
  5. ↑ Manfred Kittel / Horst Möller, The Beneš Decrees and the Expulsion of Germans in European Comparison , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , issue 4/2006, p. 557 ( PDF ; 1.7 MB).
  6. ^ Rudolf Kučera, in: Střední Evropa 25/1992, p. 7, quoted. nach Mnichovská zrada nebo pražský krach ?, online at: deliandiver.org .
  7. ↑ See for example his interview in the Ostpreussenblatt from April 6, 2012
  8. ^ The CSR and the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. The First Republic: The period from 1918 to 1938 , online on the Gebirgsneudorf homepage, accessed on June 10, 2013.
  9. ↑ Document collection in historicum.net , online at: historicum.net