AfD MP and Czech FM clash over Sudeten German expulsions

The Czech Republic should finally acknowledge that the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans at the end of WWII and the suffering linked to it was an injustice, German MP Martina Kempf said in a statement for the Czech News Agency on Thursday. At the same time, she said fears voiced by some Czech politicians that Sudeten Germans are seeking to alter property relations in the Czech Republic were unfounded. Kempf is a member of the German-Czech parliamentary group.

In a sharp response to her comments, Czech Foreign Minister Petr Macinka said the AfD lawmaker should not speak about matters which, in his view, she does not understand.

“If she wants to comment, her ‘memory’ should not begin in 1945, but in 1938,” Macinka added, referring to the year Nazi Germany annexed the Czech borderlands following the Munich Agreement.

The expulsion of Sudeten Germans is back in the headlines in connection with the planned Sudeten German congress which is to take place on Czech soil for the first time ever next week.