Historical reenactments at the Slavonice Fortress Complex featuring "Bunker Conquest 1938".
We all know the story from 1938. Adolf Hitler launches his huge fan, which sends a blast across Europe that will still be talked about 80 years from now. In recently annexed Austria, swastikas hang from every window, and in the Czech Sudetenland, Konrad Henlain puts wood sent from Berlin under the boiler.
Czech diplomacy relies on the age-old alliance with France and the quality of the concrete from which it has been tirelessly building fortifications around the border with the Reich for the past two years. But it's not that simple. Other wolfmen, descendants of Attila, are grinding their teeth from the Danube Plain on the former Upper Hungary, i.e. Slovakia. And the Silesian coalfields are also an attraction for the Polish brothers. Great Britain, with its naive prime minister and pro-German king, will not add to the certainty either. Besides, France is not such an ally either.
Unfortunately, the autumn of 1938 clearly showed how these alliances are, and Czech diplomacy finally accepted the conclusions of the Munich conference and gave up territories with more than 50% of the German population. Many people will remember this as the Munich betrayal.
But was it really a betrayal? Let's recall some facts. The Czechoslovak army is not ready for war. France and England are not ready either. War was at the door. In terms of numbers, 1.5 million Czechoslovak brave soldiers vs. 3.5 million hungry, fanatic German soldiers, 350 old tanks vs. 2400 new tanks. 2/3 unbuilt bunkers.
I think if Benes (Czechoslovakia president) had waved that red flag, I'm sure I probably wouldn't be sitting here writing an article about Munich. Maybe that's why we could see everything more as a victory of Czechoslovak diplomacy. Either way, I certainly wouldn't want to be in Benes's shoes....
It is perhaps more important to consider whether this is how the typical Czech trauma was created. The trauma we use to justify all our failures. Both national and personal. The trauma of waiting for a saviour who never comes. The trauma of standing up and wanting to prove something. The trauma of giving up on anyone or anything.
Over the weekend I visited a regularly held traditional combat demonstration called "The 1938 Raid of the bunkers" at the Slavonice Fortress Complex. I learned about the situation in the border area at the end of September 1938 and saw the Czechoslovak army fighting the German soldiers.
A two-part combat demonstration, framed in the autumn of 1938. In the first part, the audience was introduced to life in the borderlands and to Czechoslovakia's (the so-called First Republic) preparations for war with Nazi Germany. I saw the fight of the State Defence Guard against the Sudeten rebels and finally the withdrawal of the borderlands after the Munich Diktat and the subsequent occupation by the German army.
After the break, the second part, more action-packed and dynamic from the viewpoint of the audience, outlined the possible course of the clash between the Czechoslovak army and the German Wehrmacht as it might have looked if the Munich dictate had been rejected.
It was a very successful event, for which a big thanks goes to Mr. Duchoň from Slavonice. I have been coming to this place for several years and I am always surprised how much I learn. After the end of the combat demonstration, when our soldiers won, I felt a strange joy, which, however, will not heal the almost 90-year-old scar.
But maybe it will help to heal the trauma, learn from the past and never give up our values and humanity. Bowing our heads is not always a defeat. Perhaps, paradoxically, that Munich helped us all in Europe and around the world and we will not repeat the same mistake and leave the fascists and murderers this time pulling from Moscow from the East where they are.
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Vashek
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