Battle of Britain: anniversary has a gisly aspect

[davidbfpo]

As the UK, or Great Britain, marks the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, with flying displays and the like:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11043550

Hidden away in The Scotsman is a report on how the Sudeten Germans, a minority who lives in Czechoslovakia, were treated in 1945:http://www.scotsman.com/news/Grisly-discovery-in-Czech-Republic.6487134.jp

There is some irony here, as exiled Czechoslovak pilots fought in the skies over England in 1940.

[Fuchs]

It was a period of widespread lack of manners.

[Kevin23]

Another one of the lesser-known tragedies of WWII.

[jmm99]

The Sudeten German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudeten_Germans) ethnics of the Sudetenland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland) were of major geopolitical importance in the runup to WWII (e.g., Munich). My own perspective on the Czechs was influenced early on from "We Shall Live Again (http://www.amazon.com/Shall-Live-Again-Maurice-Hindus/dp/1406731285)" (1939) by Maurice Hindus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_G._Hindus) which sat on my parents' bookshelves from before WWII. His book (not one of his major works - see "Writings" in his Wiki) was written more as a series of newspaper columns. The collapse of the Czech Republic crept up slowly in the book - as it probably did to its people then; though not to us later readers who knew the "rest of the story".

In any event, the Sudetenland situation was an example of a separatist insurgency which was used in limited unconventional warfare by a nation-state to advance its geopolitical ends by threat of conventional war. As such, it has some present-day relevance.

After WWII (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland#Aftermath_of_World_War_II), the Sudeten Germans were expelled (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_after_World_War_II) from the Czech Republic, and from other regions as well.

The many displaced German ethnics were a fruitful vinyard for the intelligence agencies of the East and West. For the Czechs, see Ladislav Bittman, The Deception Game (http://www.amazon.com/DECEPTION-GAME-Ladislav-Bittman/dp/034529808X) (1972). Good source on black and grey disinformation operations.

Regards

Mike

[Pete]

My Dad's 97th Infantry Division was in the Sudetenland in May 1945. Dad drove a jeep with the division G2 officer into downtown Pilsen to find it empty of Germans. They went back to division HQ, which requested permission to capture the place. Corps or Third Army HQ told them to stick to the original plan and let 16th Armored take it the next morning. Dad said of all the people in Europe he saw in 1945 the Sudeten Germans were the most unfriendly -- they must have had an idea of what was about to happen to them.