Kooperation statt Konfrontation. Deutsch-tschechische Beziehungen in der Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik. Vortrag

In the organizer's words:

On the 100th anniversary of the first appointment of German ministers to the Czechoslovak government.
Lecture by Prof. PhDr. Jiří Pešek, CSc.

Nationality policy in the First Czechoslovak Republic is still the subject of controversial debate to this day. The young state, founded in November 1918 in the wake of the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy at the end of the First World War, was strongly characterized by the diversity of its population groups: Czechs, at 8.8 million people, made up just over 50 percent of the total population of around 13.6 million (1921). However, the German Bohemians ("Sudeten Germans") were right behind them in terms of numbers with almost 23 percent, or around 3.3 million people. The Slovaks followed with around 14 percent, Hungarians with just under 5.5 percent, Ukrainians ("Ruthenians") and Russians with around 3.4 percent and Poles with around 0.75 percent. Around 180,000 people (1.3 percent) belonged to the Jewish minority. The expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1945, which followed the liberation from German occupation in 1938/39 and the restoration of Czechoslovakia, partially obscured the fact that there were also moderate actors and attempts at reconciliation in nationality politics before 1938. In October 1926, Robert Mayr-Harting (1874-1948) and Franz Spinak (1868-1938) were the first two members of the German minority to be appointed as ministers in the government in Prague. For more than a decade thereafter, German representatives always served in the Czechoslovak cabinets. Prof. Dr. Jiří Pešek sheds light on this remarkable chapter of German-Czech and German-Czechoslovak relations. He is one of the most renowned Czech experts on this topic.

Prof. Pešek has held the Chair of Modern History at Charles University in Prague since 2000 and has held several visiting professorships in Germany, not least at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. He is a long-standing member of numerous academic associations, including the German-Czech Historical Commission. His extensive academic work has received numerous awards. In 2007, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for his services to Czech-German understanding.

In cooperation with: Consulate General of the Czech Republic in Düsseldorf