Sudeten German congress continues in Brno

Around 2,000 people gathered in Pohořelice on Saturday to take part in the March of Reconciliation to Brno, commemorating the forced expulsion of ethnic Germans from the city in 1945. This year’s event is closely linked to the Sudeten German congress, which is being held in Brno for the first time in its 76-year history at the invitation of the organisers of the Meeting Brno festival. Germany’s interior minister praised efforts at Czech-German reconciliation. The original expulsion, shortly after World War II, forced some 19,500 Germans out of Brno; about 1,700 are believed to have died, though some Sudeten German historians give higher figures. More than 320,000 people in wartime Czechoslovakia died during the Nazi occupation.