Josef Skrabek - tragi-comedy in the Sudetenland in October 1938

Sixty-five years ago, at the beginning of October 1938, the Nazis marched into the Czech border regions, known as the Sudetenland. With the Munich Agreement at the end of September the British and French governments had notoriously given Hitler the green light to annex these mainly German-speaking areas. Overnight this had a huge impact on millions of Czechoslovak citizens. At the time Josef Skrabek was ten years old, and lived in the village of Valec in the heart of the Sudetenland. His father was Czech and his mother German, one of many mixed families in the region, for whom the events of 1938 were a painful blow. Here Josef Skrabek remembers a tragi-comic episode as the village was waiting for the German army to arrive.

Josef Skrabek - tragi-comedy in the Sudetenland in October 1938

Josef Skrabek

"Two days before the Wehrmacht marched into the village we were sitting at home in the evening. We were a little afraid to go out and were sitting in darkness. Suddenly we heard something outside. It was three Nazi officials walking in march-step up the lane to our house. My mother went out, while I peeped round the corner of a cupboard. They greeted my mother with "Heil Hitler" and in an official German that I had never heard before they told us precisely what flags we would have to put up in each of our windows in order to conform to regulations in welcoming the victorious Wehrmacht. In the windows there should be small Nazi flags made of paper. Then there must also be pictures of the Sudeten German leader Henlein and Hitler in the windows, and then above the door there should be a wreath of pine branches. They also insisted on a large Nazi flag made of proper material. Then with another "Heil Hitler" they went off again in march-step, with quite some difficulty because of the cobbles and the slope of the lane.

On the evening before the Wehrmacht was to arrive, we heard the steps marching up the lane again. There again stood the same three officials, and they told us: "Only pure German families are permitted to hang out flags to greet the Wehrmacht. You must pull down these flags at once." My mother went into the courtyard, fetched a rake and tore all the things down again. And one of the officials said, in a kind of official German: "This order has been complied with in a provocative manner, and must be fulfilled once again in a dignified way." Then another of the men - this time in the local dialect - said: "That's enough, leave her alone." And off they went again, this time no longer in march-step."