Abstract
In May 1984 the annual Whitsunday meeting of the Sudeten-German Homeland Association in Munich was a special occasion — it marked the thirtieth anniversary of Bavaria’s patronage declaration, which had officially bestowed upon the expellees from the Bohemian lands the honour of being the state’s ‘Fourth Tribe’. This was also celebrated with a 17-day exhibition entitled ‘Bavaria’s Fourth Tribe — The Sudeten Germans’. A lengthy brochure was published, listing many of the chief characteristics of Bavarian-Bohemian relations, past, present and future. The foreword confirms that, although forty years had passed since the expulsion and although Sudeten Germans had dispersed all over Germany and, indeed, all over the world, thanks to the obliging benevolence of the Free State Bavaria, they had still managed to maintain their common identity. The text includes a copy of the original patronage document which states that:
In the light of the century old historical and cultural bonds between the Bavarian and Bohemian lands and the family ties of the Old Bavarians, Franconians and Swabians to the Germans in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and as a sign of recognition on part of the Free State Bavaria and the Bavarian people for the contributions made by the fellow citizens from the Sudetenland, the State government of Bavaria has used the occasion of the fifth Sudeten-German Whitsunday meeting 1954 in Munich to confer its patronage over the Sudeten-German folks group.1
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Notes
F. Prinz, ‘Heimatvertriebene als Industriepioniere. Der Beitrag der Sudetendeutschen zu Bayerns Wirtschaft’, pp. 63–5; G. D. Roth, ‘Ein Wirtschaftpotential in Bayern. Sudetendeutsche Siedlungens’, Bayerland Impressum, 4 (1978) 37–42; Benz, Vertreibung, (1985 edition) pp. 170–1.
Cited in F. P. Habel, The Sudeten Question. Brief Exposition and Documentation (Munich: Sudeten German Council, 1984) p. 28.
E. Nagengast, ‘Coming to terms with a European Identity: the Sudeten Germans between Bonn and Prague’, German Politics, 5, 1 (1996) 86.
V. Houvièka, Betrachtungen zur Sudetendeutschen Frage (Prague: Foreign Ministry of the Czech Republic, 1999), p. 6.
V. Havel, ‘Czechs and Germans on the way to a Good Neighbourship’, Address by the president of the Czech Republic, Charles University, Prague 17 February 1995 (Prague: Office of the President, Press Department, 1995).
H. Mommsen and J. Kořalka, Ungleiche Nachbarn (1993);
J. K. Hoensch and D. Kováč, Das Scheitern der Verständigung (1994;
D. Brandes and V. Kural, Der Weg in die Katastrophe (1994);
H. Lemberg, J. Křen and D. Kováč, Im geteilten Europa (1998); Gemeinsame deutsch-tschechische Historikerkommission: Konfliktgemeinschaft (1998);
D. Brandes, E. Ivaničkova and Jiří Pešek (eds), Erzwungene Trennung (1999). Originally inaugurated as ‘German Czechoslovak’ Historians commission it consists since 1993 of three sections — a Czech, a German and a Slovak one.
F. P. Habel, ‘Verteibungsverluste der Sudetendeutschen 1945/46: Neuester Forschungstand und politische Schätzungen’, in Sudetendeutsches Archiv, Odsun. Die Vertreibung der Sudetendeutschen (Munich: Verlagshaus Sudetenland, 1995) pp. 175–92.
F. P. Habel, Eine Politische Legende. Die Massenvertreibung der Tschechen aus dem Sudetengebiet 1938/39 (Munich: Langen Müller, 1996) p. 85. The author was not able to decipher the material presented in this book.
H. Field, ‘The Czech Republic: a Prime Contender for EU Membership’ (unpublished paper, 2001) pp. 10–14.
K. Pakla, ‘Czech Privatization and Corporate Grievances’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 30, 1 (1997) p. 93.
Note also V. Gomez and L. Allnut, ‘Getting ready for the Big Bang’, TOL, 27 December 2001, http://www.tol.cz.
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© 2003 Jürgen Tampke
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Tampke, J. (2003). Lest We Forget. In: Czech-German Relations and the Politics of Central Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505629_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230505629_7
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