The Prague uprising was a nationwide action of the Czech domestic resistance against the German occupation, which broke out in Prague on 5 May 1945 and ended on 8–9 May.
The Prague uprising was an action of the Czech domestic resistance against the German occupiers, which broke out in Prague on 5 May 1945. According to the Vojenský historický ústav, it was the largest action of the Czech domestic resistance.[2] The fighting lasted from 5 to 9 May and ended with the arrival of Soviet units on the outskirts of the city.[2]
Preparation
The situation on the fronts led Prague's resistance currents in April 1945 to urgent consultations about a last stand against the occupiers. Planning was complicated by a shortage of weapons, the lack of contact with the Allied staffs and very few links between the illegal Czech National Council and the military resistance, which was led by the groups Alex and Bartoš. It remained unclear when the order for the uprising should be given and who would take responsibility for it.[1]
A framework agreement was reached on 25–26 April 1945. Divisional General František Hrabčík was to prepare a new arrangement of the Ministry of National Defence. Military operations in Prague, in the event of an uprising, were to be led by Karel Kutlvašr, a brigadier general, and Lieutenant Colonel František Bürger of the Bartoš group. The whole military resistance in Bohemia was to be directed by General Alex. The agreement, however, applied only if Alex came to Prague in person.[1] General František Slunečko, known as Alex, had been hiding from the Gestapo since 2 December 1939 and in autumn 1944 commanded the Sever region.[1]
On Sunday 29 April 1945 a liaison from Prague, the Protestant pastor Bohumil Radechovský, came to Vítězslav Holas in Březina near Mnichovo Hradiště and announced that he was going to fetch the general. Slunečko left on Monday 30 April with Radechovský on a lorry of the firm Faitl & Bergman, driven by Oldřich Bergman. In Prague he was already at the Karlín flat of Raimund Mrázek at seven in the morning. At ten o'clock he met members of his new staff for the first time at Na Poříčí 36, in the office of the Danube Steamship Company.[1]
Course
From 4 May German signs were being removed. The signal for the end of German rule was the morning announcement by the broadcaster Zdeněk Mančal at six o'clock on 5 May, after which Czech radio broadcasting began. The Czechs took over the Old Town Hall and fighting broke out around noon.[2] About 30,000 Czechs responded to the radio's appeal for help, and the Czech police, the gendarmerie, the Government Army and Czech members of the air defence played a large role.[2] The insurgents were poorly armed. By 6 May about two thousand barricades had gone up in the streets.[2]
Politically, the uprising was directed by the Czech National Council, chaired by Professor Albert Pražák and in which the communists around Josef Smrkovský had great influence. The actual commander was General Karel Kutlvašr, whose staff had Captain Jaromír Nechanský as its adviser. There were roughly 40,000 German soldiers in Prague and its surroundings; they were better equipped and some of them were already demoralised.[2]
On 6 May members of the Russian Liberation Army, the so-called Vlasovites, who until then had fought alongside the Germans, joined the people of Prague. They helped the insurgents considerably, but because of disputes with the communists in the Czech National Council they left the city on 7 May. A proposal to ask the Americans for help was also rejected, since Stalin wanted the Red Army to liberate Prague.[2]
End of the fighting
Germany capitulated on 7 May in Reims. On 8 May at 4 p.m. the Czech National Council signed with the German commander General Rudolf Toussaint an agreement under which the German forces would surrender and leave Prague. The most fanatical Nazis nevertheless fought for another day. At dawn on 9 May Soviet units arriving from Berlin appeared on the outskirts of Prague.[2] The Vojenský historický ústav adds that the Soviet command had planned to begin the Prague offensive on 7 May and expected its units to reach Prague on 13 May. According to it, the uprising sped everything up and shortened the war in Central Europe.[1]
Consequences
The uprising cost heavy losses of life and property. The burnt-out Old Town Hall symbolises the destruction. After the war the communists distorted the course of the uprising. Jaromír Nechanský was executed in 1950, and Karel Kutlvašr was in prison in 1949–1960 and died a year after his release.[2] The Vojenský historický ústav commemorates the uprising with photographs of barricades, for example at the Old Town church of sv. Havla, at the Vinohrady intersection of Korunní and Jičínská streets and in Na Ohradě street in Žižkov.[2]
Pages that link here
- Closure of Prague Metro Line C between Pražského povstání and Chodov for sleeper replacement
- Holešovice
- Old Town Hall
- Old Town Square
- Prague Astronomical Clock
- Prague Metro Line C
- Prague Public Transit Company