80 years since the settlement decree: Beneš's act that changed the face of the Czech borderlands
The atmosphere across Czechoslovakia immediately after World War II was full of tension, pain and a desire for revenge. Yet the public attitudes of the political leaders of the time also fundamentally influenced the direction of the country – and their attitudes were not peaceable and forgiving.
On April 17th 1945, the Košice government called on citizens to take ruthless revenge against the "German executioner's assistants". President Edvard Beneš, in the eyes of many the successor to the legacy of former president Masaryk, publicly declared that Nazi crimes burdened the German nation as a whole.
Decrees and their consequences
A series of presidential decrees issued by Beneš in exile and shortly after the war defined the new face of post-war Czechoslovakia. These infamous rulings are known collectively as 'the Beneš Decrees'. The most important ones included:
- Decree No. 19/1945 Coll.: allowed the nationalisation of the property of persons deemed unreliable by the state.
- Decree No. 28/1945 Coll.: established the rules for the agricultural settlement of confiscated land from Germans, Hungarians and other enemies of the state (adopted 80 years ago on 20th July 1945)
- Decree No. 108/1945 Coll.: confiscated the property of so-called traitors and enemies of the nation.
On the basis of these decrees, around three million Sudeten Germans were forcibly displaced from the country, the largest wave of migration in the history of the Czech lands.
New settlers and the transformation of the border region
Hundreds of thousands of new residents flocked to the border region: poorer families from the interior, repatriated Czechs and Slovaks from Ukraine, Romania and the Balkans. The prospect of owning their own farm and being allotted up to ten hectares of land was tempting. In May 1947, the new settlers made up almost two-thirds of the then 2.2 million inhabitants of the border region.
However, the resettlement policy encountered obstacles; generational alienation, unfamiliarity with the landscape, and later collectivisation led to many newcomers leaving the region.
What do we think about it today?
According to surveys, the Czech public is divided on the validity of the decrees. While half of the population supports their preservation in their original form, the younger generation feels distant from the topic – for many of them it is already too distant history.
Nevertheless, the Beneš Decrees regularly return to the public sphere, especially during election campaigns, when some politicians use them as a tool to mobilise voters, often through simplified or emotional interpretations. Historical trauma thus becomes part of the political struggle, which only confirms that the debate around the Beneš Decrees remains alive even after eighty years.
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