“This monitor is the source of a dispute between Czechs and Germans,” says Petr Koura, pointing to loudspeakers and pictures of members of parliament with thick beards, as they were in fashion before the First World War.

They argued in the Bohemian Landtag of the former Habsburg Empire.

Koura is director of the research institute Collegium Bohemicum in Ustí nad Labem (Aussig).

On Friday he will give Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier a preview of the almost completed permanent exhibition in the Czech city on the Elbe with the title “Our Germans / Naši Němci”.

Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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For Steinmeier, it is part two of the historical-political agenda that he has set for his three-day trip to the Czech Republic.

The political program consisted of talks with the hosts, President Miloš Zeman, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, the presidents of both chambers of parliament and entrepreneurs as well as personalities from civil society.

Steinmeier's conclusion: The relationships are very good and stable.

You can talk about minor differences.

Zeman did this quite openly with the “Green New Deal”, which he views with skepticism.

Czechs want faster rail connections

One can assume that Steinmeier spoke about the issues of migration and skepticism about Europe. The Czechs, on the other hand, are particularly troubled by infrastructure deficiencies, such as the inconvenient rail link between Prague and Munich. Steinmeier documented that Berlin – Prague works better when he traveled by train, which was a fuss about. Many interlocutors, especially from the commuter areas, will have reported to the German head of state about their shock when the borders were suddenly closed in the pandemic.

Probably the most important gesture of Steinmeier was laying a wreath at a place where no German politician had been seen before. It is the memorial for the Czech resistance fighters who carried out an assassination attempt on Hitler's governor Reinhard Heydrich on May 27, 1942, who died a few days later. The seven fighters had parachuted from British planes, were covered by the local population and after the fact hid in the Orthodox Church of Cyril and Methodius. The Gestapo got on their trail through treason, after hours of firefight all of the assassins were dead. In a wave of retaliation, entire villages were destroyed and nearly a hundred men and women were killed as supporters by the Nazis. You will be remembered in the church in Prague.

The Czechs and Slovaks struggled with this event for a long time, because the assassins had started from Great Britain, which the communist regime preferred not to mention after the war.

So the self-perception was above all that as a victim of Hitler.

The fact that there was also a Czech Resistance is an awareness that is only gradually growing.

The fact that Steinmeier now honored the Heydrich assassins was also given high credit in newspaper comments.

Germans weren't just "Nazis"

In Prague, Steinmeier did not address the fact that after the war Germans in Bohemia and Moravia were also victims of murders and expulsions. He may have feared that this would be seen as some kind of set-off. After all, his visit to Aussig, where one of the worst massacres of Germans was committed on July 31, 1945, is a sign in this direction. The fact that the exhibition he visited is nearing completion is an important and by no means a natural step on the Czech side. It shows that the three million people who will later be referred to as "Sudeten Germans" were not simply all "Nazis", but were neighbors with a settlement history spanning a thousand years.

Of course, the conflicts between Germans and Czechs are not left out either, such as the nineteenth-century nationalism and the ingratiation of the Sudeten German Henlein party on Hitler. A manuscript, signed by a certain František Kafka, reminds of the common culture - and the contribution of many Jewish fellow citizens. The eviction is documented in objects left behind, for example in suitcases, in which only a few belongings were allowed to be taken. Of course there were also critics, says Director Koura. “Nationalists and communists don't like the exhibition.” But they are now in the minority.