Czech Education Minister Bek greets Sudeten German Landsmannschaft as “compatriots”

Czech Education Minister Mikuláš Bek attended a meeting of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft in the Bavarian city of Reims at the weekend, greeting the Sudeten Germans on behalf of the Czech government and addressed them as compatriots. He spoke about the horrors of the Second World War, but also condemned the post-war expulsion of Sudeten Germans. He said Czechs, Germans and Sudeten Germans have laid a good foundation for reconciliation, but three important tasks still lie ahead. They must work to protect Western values by strengthening the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance, they must fight the ‘old demons of nationalism’ and they should also learn each other's languages.

At the conference the Landsmannschaft association awarded a human rights prize to the Meeting Brno multi-genre festival, which has spearheaded reconciliation efforts between the two nations.

Since 2016 Meeting Brno has organized an annual Reconciliation Pilgrimage commemorating the displacement of the German-speaking inhabitants of Brno after the end of the Second World War. Symbolically, the march leads in the opposite direction than in 1945: from Pohořelice to Brno.

At the conference, festival director Petr Kalousek reiterated his invitation to the Sudeten Germans to hold their next congress in Brno. He received a standing ovation.