On May 11, 1945, the Prague strategic offensive operation of the Soviet troops ended, putting an end to World War II in Europe. The Red Army liberated the capital of Czechoslovakia, Prague, and defeated the last major Nazi group in Europe, capturing about 860 thousand people.  

Czechoslovakia in the war

Prague was occupied by the Nazis before the official start of World War II. In September 1938, at negotiations in Munich, representatives of England, France and Italy approved the annexation by Hitler Germany of the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. However, the Nazis did not stop there and soon completely annexed the Czech Republic, and created a puppet state in Slovakia.

The Nazis got the arsenals of the Czechoslovak army and the enterprises of one of the most powerful military-industrial complex in Europe. This allowed the Reich to better prepare for war against the Western European countries and the Soviet Union.

“In order to correctly understand what happened then, you need to understand: the Nazis planned the complete destruction of the Czech people through massacres and assimilation, as inappropriate to their terrible criteria of racial purity,” military historian Yuri Knutov said in an interview with RT.

  • Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia
  • Gettyimages.ru
  • © Sovfoto

According to him, the Nazis killed the Czech intelligentsia and political activists, took hundreds of thousands of people into slavery, and Germans were resettled in Czechoslovakia, dissecting the Czech population into small enclaves subject to assimilation.

Slovak troops participated in the war on the side of Germany, but their troops actively collaborated with partisans, massively deserted or surrendered, and in 1944 took part in an anti-Nazi uprising. The Red Army did not have time to come to the aid of the rebels because of the difficulties with breaking through Hitler's defense in the Carpathians, however, at the end of 1944, Soviet troops liberated a number of settlements in Czechoslovakia.

A new offensive of the Red Army on the territory of the republic began on March 25, 1945. On April 4, Bratislava was liberated from the Nazis, and Brno on April 26. The Bratislava-Brnovsk operation, which ended on May 5, opened the way to Prague for Soviet troops.

Prague uprising

In connection with the approach of the troops of the member countries of the Anti-Hitler coalition on May 1, 1945, anti-Nazi rebellions broke out in a number of settlements in the Czech Republic. On May 5, the underground, coordinated by the politically diverse Czech National Council, raised an uprising in Prague as well.

  • Participants of the Prague Uprising
  • © praga-praha.ru

According to Yuri Knutov, the situation in the capital of Czechoslovakia has taken a dangerous turn for the Nazi and collaborationist units.

“The city was the center of the intersection of major roads. And after the uprising began, he turned into a “traffic jam”. Army Commander of the Army Group Center, Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner ordered the suppression of the uprising at all costs - the Nazis wanted to repeat the destruction they had previously committed to Warsaw in a new place. Prague, according to their plan, could actually cease to exist, ”the expert emphasized.

The historian notes that the beginning of the Prague uprising is associated with the myth of a supposedly significant role in the salvation of the Czechoslovak capital of the so-called Russian Liberation Army, General Andrei Vlasov, however, most of the statements made in Western countries about this have no real basis.

“Representatives of the Prague underground really turned to the Vlasovites for help. However, Vlasov himself did not even want to get involved with this, simply waving his hand. But one of his subordinates, the commander of the 1st division of the ROA, Sergei Bunyachenko, realized that the Nazis would not help him anymore, and decided to cooperate with the rebels, ”Knutov said.

As Vadim Trukhachev, a lecturer at the Department of Foreign Regional Studies and Foreign Policy of the Historical Archive Institute of the Russian State Humanitarian University, noted that fighters of the 1st division of the ROA really liberated several quarters of Prague. However, their fuse quickly passed.

“Vlasovites were not driven by ideological motives, they simply hoped to change flags, hoping that their past activities would be forgiven. But the question was acute for them who will reach Prague first - the Red Army, or the Americans, with whom they hoped to come to an agreement, ”the expert explained.

According to Yuri Knutov, when the Vlasovites realized that the Americans would not attack Prague, they left the city, leaving the participants in the uprising unarmed one on one with the Nazis.

Prague operation

In the area of ​​Prague at the beginning of May 1945, a large Nazi group was concentrated: Army Group Center and part of Army Group Austria (the remnants of Army Group South). Their total number reached more than 900 thousand troops.

“Given the size of the German group, the significant amount of heavy weapons at its disposal, and the Nazis having prepared defensive positions, the Soviet command planned to thoroughly prepare the offensive. However, the call for help from the participants in the Prague uprising forced the Soviet command to accelerate, ”Knutov said.

In the Prague operation, troops of the 1st, 2nd and 4th Ukrainian fronts were involved. The offensive began on May 6, 1945. The number of the Soviet group involved in the operation amounted to about 2 million people.

The commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal Ivan Konev, decided to deliver the main blow directly in the direction of Prague with the help of three armies (13th, 3rd Guards and 5th Guards), two tank armies (3rd and 4th Guards), two tank and cavalry corps, six aviation corps and five artillery breakthrough divisions.

The main strike force of the 2nd Ukrainian Front was moving towards the 1st Ukrainian troops from the Brno area. The forces of the 4th Ukrainian Front were heading towards Prague from the east.

“The pace of the offensive was extremely high. Soviet troops covered tens of kilometers per day, ”said Yuri Knutov.

On May 8, 1945, the Soviet command demanded that the Nazi troops surrender, but received no response. Parts of the Wehrmacht and the SS tried to strike in the west and southwest in order to secure the possibility of surrender to American troops.

  • Soviet tank is fighting in Prague
  • RIA News
  • © Alexander Kapustyansky

On the night of May 9, units of the 1st Ukrainian Front made an 80-kilometer throw and entered Prague in the morning. According to Vadim Trukhachev, by this time part of the German garrison had left the capital of Czechoslovakia, however, there remained units in the city (in particular, the SS) that were not going to surrender - about a thousand Soviet troops were killed in battles on the outskirts of Prague and in the city itself.

"If, according to some, the Nazis in Prague were defeated by the Vlasovites, then who were the Soviet troops fighting on the territory of the city on May 9," Trukhachev noted.

Prague was cleared of the main forces of the Nazis by 10 a.m. on May 9, 1945. On the evening of the same day, units of the 4th Ukrainian Front entered the city, and units of the 2nd Ukrainian Front were located about 30 km from the capital of Czechoslovakia.

Despite the liberation of Prague, the Red Army continued active fighting in Czechoslovakia for another two days. The Prague offensive operation ended on May 11, 1945. However, even after this, according to Yuri Knutov, for several days the Soviet troops continued to fight against individual groups of Nazis and captured German troops who were ready to lay down their arms.

  • Residents of Prague meet Soviet soldiers who liberated the city from the Nazis during World War II
  • RIA News

The total irretrievable losses of the Soviet troops in the Prague operation amounted to about 12 thousand people. The Nazis lost about 40 thousand people killed and wounded. About 860 thousand German troops surrendered to Soviet troops.

According to Yuri Knutov, the Red Army played a decisive role in saving Prague and in liberating Czechoslovakia as a whole. However, as Vadim Trukhachev noted, in the 1990s a political request arose in the Czech Republic to “change the liberators”.

“Soviet troops in the eyes of the Czech public began to smear with dark colors. But the salvation of the country from Nazism by the Red Army did not allow this to be done in full, so some other "liberators" were needed. The Americans didn’t get to Prague, so they urgently began to mythologize the Vlasovites, ”Trukhachev said.

  • Residents of Prague meet Marshal Ivan Konev and other Soviet soldiers-liberators
  • RIA News
  • © Anatoly Egorov

According to Yuri Knutov, it was the decision of Marshal Konev to make an urgent attack on Prague that demoralized the Nazis, preventing them from realizing their plans to suppress the Prague uprising and destroy the city. However, unscrupulous politicians today show, in his words, ingratitude and try to tarnish the memory of the marshal by demolishing his monument in the Czech capital.

“Soviet troops not only saved Prague from destruction. It was the Red Army that prevented the Nazis from destroying the Czechs at all, as a nation. During the Prague operation, Soviet units demonstrated a unique movement speed to help Czech rebels. It’s unfortunate that today we have to prove to some countries what was obvious to the whole world in 1945 and what the authorities of England and the USA recognized: the contribution of the Red Army to the victory over Nazism, including during the liberation of Czechoslovakia, was decisive ”, - summarized Yuri Knutov.