German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder Tuesday condemned critics of the Czech Republic's refusal to abolish wartime decrees forcing the expulsion of the "Sudeten" German minority from Czechoslovakia.
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Around 2.5 million people were expelled from Czechoslovakia under the 1945 Benes decrees on the basis that they had supported Hitler's annexation. Their property was confiscated. Between 25,000 and 30,000 people died during the expulsion.
The postwar transfer of the strong German minority from Czechoslovakia's border areas, the Sudeten territories, continues to stir up emotions in both the Czech Republic and Germany, although not at a government level.
Millions more Germans were expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II. A few years later, less than a million Palestinian Arabs fled the new state of Israel in exchange for a similar number of Jews from Arab nations. So why aren't the Sudeten Germans blowing themselves up in downtown Prague? Maybe because the Federal Republic of Germany integrated them instead of keeping them in refugee "camps" as political pawns.
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