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Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed

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If one thing is definite about Heimann's book on Czechoslovakia it is that it is not the definitive history of that country its publishers claim it to be. That is a pity, as it does contain some very valuable and thought-provoking insights that make it a worthy read in spite of its many obvious weaknesses.

What are these insights? The book attacks right on a central part of Czech national self- perception, viz., the notion that the Czech nation, while always dedicated to such high ideals as liberty and democracy has - no less regularly - been prevented from living these ideals out either by the illegitimate intervention by its various powerful neighbours or by the - just as illegitimate (as the Czechs have it) - lack of such intervention. In this, the intervention bit is primarily reserved for the Germans (first, as the Habsburgs, later, the Nazis) and, subsequently, for the Soviets resp. the Russians. The lack of such intervention, on the other hand, is blamed on the "Western powers", in particular during the Munich crisis and the Prague spring on both of which occasions the Czechs felt "betrayed" by their erstwhile Western "friends". This tragedy is alleged to have started with the so-called "battle of the white mountain" in 1620, with regard to which the Czechs, for reasons obvious only to themselves, have chosen to identify with the losing party. Since then, so public Czech consensus has it, the - high-minded - Czechs have always been the victims of history - morally superior to everybody else, to be sure, in particular in comparison with their much detested German neighbours. Simultaneously, they never were the evil perpetrators of anything!
Not so, Heimann`s book clearly shows! She very ably and convincingly proves from the original sources that this self-perception is what it is: a lie or, to put it more politely, a national myth. In reality, so her conclusion, the Czechs were no better (and, sometimes, indeed, even far worse!) than their counterparts elsewhere. Surprisingly, this holds true, in particular, even vis-à-vis the Germans. To this add a sometimes almost incredible Czech opportunism coupled with an almost non-existing readiness to admit any of these faults for good mixture.
All of these points are highly interesting, well researched and - at least from a German point of view - highly welcome new appraisals. In theory, at least, they might eventually lead to a more realistic view, on the part of the Czechs, of their own history and the evil parts they themselves have - among others, no doubt - played in that history. It might thus constitute a welcome first step on the long road to a sincere (re-?) conciliation between them and their neighbours (especially, but not only, with the Germans).

However, unfortunately, the value of these welcome insights is greatly compromised by several massive weaknesses of the book:

First, the author, almost throughout her entire book, employs a sloppy and derisive tone towards everything Czech that is simply misplaced. A good example is the passage on Dvorak on p. 16, but it runs throughout the book.

Second, although such heavy-weight critics as "The Economist" in its review (Nov. 21st, 2009) have certified the author an "exemplary" attention to detail, it contains a surprising abundance of factual mistakes that concern the general background of her story. One example for this is where she talks about Hitler who she says "had served in the Habsburg army in the First World War" (p. 119)(false, Hitler never did, but, even though he was then indeed an Austrian, served as a volunteer in the German army instead), another one is her description of Poland in 1939 being divided - like ancient Gaul - into three parts, one "German controlled Western part", one "Soviet controlled Eastern part" and in the middle the so-called "General Government" (p. 123). While it is left unexplained who was in control of this "third part", this wording implies that at least it was not under the exclusive control of either Germany or the Soviet Union (as such exclusivity is pointed out as a distinct and defining feature of the other two zones). So, maybe this area, at least, enjoyed some kind of autonomy? Or was it administered jointly by the two occupying powers? This is at least suggested by the explanation of the function of this zone as a "dumping ground for Jews, intellectuals and other enemies of the two ... totalitarian regimes". However, both these possibilities are clearly wrong. Instead, the "General Government" was that subdivision of the part of Poland that had, by the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939, been attributed to exclusive German control which was not outright annexed by Germany but whose ultimate destiny, instead, remained reserved for some later decision (the part assigned by that pact to the Soviet Union, in contrast, was annexed by that country in toto immediately upon its occupation). Thus, not only was this area clearly and exclusively under German control (until its ultimate liberation by the Red Army in 1944) it accordingly was never destined as a dumping ground for the enemies of both totalitarian regimes, but, at best, for those of the German regime alone.
No less mistaken is the statement immediately following, viz., that this "General Government" became "the site of "the" largest and most infamous ... concentration camps". First, not all large concentration camps were situated there. Second, this applies, in particular, to Auschwitz, the most prominent of all such camps which the author - obviously for this prominence - wrongly cites as an example - indeed her only example - for her claim to the contrary. Rather, Auschwitz was safely located in such part of Poland as had been outright annexed to Germany. Third, Auschwitz could for various more reasons not have been destined as a "dumping ground" for enemies of the Soviet regime, but, if anything, as a "dumping ground" for its supporters, viz., for soldiers of the Red Army, having been built originally as a camp for Soviet POWs, and operating as an extermination camp only when the war against the Soviet Union was already in full swing and Germany no longer had any interest in propping up the regime of its erstwhile ally by persecuting its enemies.
This kind of inaccuracy, however, is by no means relegated to facts concerning the general historical background of the book's story but also continues with regard to the gist of its subject: This applies, e.g., to the author's statement that Masaryk's mother was "a German cook" (p. 21). According to Wikipedia, at least, she was a Moravian Slav, even though it is true that her mother tongue - as it so often happened in those times - was indeed German!
While none of these mistakes has an immediate bearing upon the validity or non-validity of her main theses, they strongly convey the feeling that the author simply isn't sufficiently familiar with the complexities of European history of the time to claim the authority to be the first one to write "the definitive" history about Czechoslovakia (or anything else European, for that matter).

This impression is further corroborated by the discovery that nowhere does the book take recourse to even a single source written in either the German or the Russian languages. This is amazing, to say the least. After all, this part of central Europe had for centuries been dominated by German culture, language and administration and was inhabited by a one third-minority of German speakers during the first half of the period covered by this book (i.e., until after WW II) - among them such world-renowned personalities as the car-engineer Ferdinand Porsche, the logician Kurt Goedel and the writers Franz Kafka, Franz Werfel and Rainer Maria Rilke! A country, furthermore, that, during what was probably its most formative period, was occupied by Nazi Germany, i.e., by German speakers once again! A definitive - or rather: - "the" - definitive history of this area without the use of even one original German-language source? Sorry! Similar qualms exist with regard to Russian language sources or, rather, the complete lack of them, concerning the developments after 1945! Surely the events constituting the communist take-over in 1948 as well as those surrounding the "Prague spring" and the "velvet revolution" of 1989 cannot with any authority be fully appreciated without taking recourse to Russian-language sources?

Very likely the same reason - a certain narrowness of outlook - that manifests itself here, must also be blamed for another surprising feature of the book: its often undue readiness to explain certain supranational phenomena of the time that also occurred in Czechoslovakia out of their international context in purely domestic terms. (This aspect was brought to my attention by the very able commentary of David Vaughan in Prague TV of Jan. 13th, 2010). This sometimes runs counter-intuitive, to say the least. Take Czech anti-semitism during the - short-lived - second republic (i.e., between the fall of 1938 and the spring of 1939). Can it - with any claim to plausibility - really be maintained (see p. 87 ff.) that this phenomenon developed entirely independently of the massive anti-semitic policies of much more powerful neighbouring Germany during the same period? To be sure: maybe it can! After all, why shouldn't the same reasons that were responsible for a certain phenomenon in one country simultaneously have been at work in another country without there being a relationship of causation between them? However, in order to prove this alleged independence, surely much more discussion and corroboration by factual evidence would be required than the author is prepared to devote to it respectively to provide. Virtually the same applies, e.g., to her contention that Czechoslovakia's decision, after WW II, to become a Soviet satellite or, at least, a member of the Soviet camp, had been - more or less - voluntary. Though the author is probably right in that, at the end of World War II, "the majority of Czechs wanted an ethnically clean state more than democracy" (p. 176) and therefore was prepared to snuggle up to the Soviet Union under whose protection this overriding objective seemed easiest to accomplish, can it really be said that an action I was forced to take was "voluntary" just because I had wanted to take it anyway?

Next, and in particular in the light of her findings, several highly interesting questions almost force themselves upon the reader which the author, nevertheless, fails to address. Let me present only two of them here: how is the wide-spread Czech opportunism that she - rightly - observes (and criticizes as permeating the entire history of the republic) to be explained (e.g. the almost unanimous collaboration of the Czechs with their German occupiers almost to the last day and their lack of resistance during the time of "normalization")? (In contrast, at least an attempt at such an explanation is made for the third such incidence, viz., the time of "perestroika" and "glasnost", when the Czechs, with their "velvet revolution", were - once again - the last of all (East-)European nations to finally reclaim both their individual liberty and national independence). Was all this but a manifestation of a kind of deficit in the Czech national character or was it not rather and simply a consequence of a highly able occupation policy employed by these various occupiers, i.e., something today's often much less successful occupiers (Iraq, Afghanistan) might even take a lesson from? Another question would be what the reasons were for the particularly excessive violence with which the Czechs went about the expulsion of their centuries-old neighbours and compatriots, the Sudeten-Germans, after the war. After all, nasty though the period of occupation certainly was, almost any other nation - especially those of Eastern Europe - had suffered considerably more under German occupation (and the war) than the Czechs!

Finally, the subtitle: catchy as it may be, seems entirely unwarranted in the case of Czechoslovakia: indeed, if measured against the standard defined for it by its founding father, Tomas G. Masaryk, himself, viz., to constitute an effective "anti-German bulwark", it must surely be considered an extreme success story: by shrewdly and unscrupulously cleansing the country of everything German the moment the opportunity to do so arose in the wake of World War II (without having to fear any retribution or even punishment from their victims or from anybody else, for that matter), the Czechoslovak republic achieved that very aim (the "bulwark"!) in a way much more complete than could have been even dreamed of at the time this goal was originally set! A crime this certainly was (and an enormous one at that)! A "failure", as measured against the above-defined purpose, it certainly was not! Besides, which other state can boast to have bounced back to life virtually unscathed after two hostile foreign occupations within only one generation?

With all this, two questions come to one's mind:

1) where was the editor?
2) How could such an abundance of mistakes happen to an experienced professor?

While I clearly have no answer to the first of these questions, I would like to submit a possible one for the second: according to the book's cover, the author has spent 2 years studying the "Czech language archives". First, such studies obviously could not have provided - and accordingly did not provide - the author with the indispensable (see above) knowledge of any non-Czech-language material. More important, though, while two years, at first sight, sounds a lot, they are obviously far too little to fully appreciate all the intricacies of such a complicated subject as the entire history of Czechoslovakia, even as it appears from the Czech language sources alone. This applies all the more to someone who - like the author - is not familiar enough with European history in general to know - e.g. - the basic biographical data of Adolf Hitler as a matter of course. Even though the author has done an excellent job (considering the shortness of the available period), digging out some highly interesting and relevant factual details, therefore, her discoveries of necessity are - and cannot be more than - only fragmentary. Most important, however, it has obviously left her far too little time for reflection and internal discussion in order to put her findings into perspective before throwing them - virtually untested - into the public arena. To summarize: it seems the author has greatly underestimated the task she has taken upon herself, at the same time just as greatly overestimating her - or anyone's - ability to master it (within the short time available). All in all, therefore, the "definitive "history of Czechoslovakia remains yet to be written!

I can only hope that the author, prompted by the massive - and deserved - criticism she is presently receiving for this book, does not feel discouraged to try again and will, in the second edition, provide a more balanced and less derisory account of what she has to say so that the very valuable insights this book undoubtedly provides, will ultimately be considered with the sincerity they deserve.
To conclude with, let me admit that I find it difficult to come to a proper overall evaluation of the book: on the one hand, by digging out a lot of really new (or at least widely unknown) source material the author has succeeded in offering some truly new and refreshing perspectives on her subject that make her book a far more interesting and challenging read than most others on the market. On the other hand, there are its considerable weaknesses. Altogether, therefore, I find it to occupy some place on the middle ground and would therefore award it either two or three of the available five stars. However, in the face of its rather immodest claim to be "the" definitive history of its subject, in the end it only gets two.

This book in very well researched and written.Author is not afraid to subject established history of Central Europe to different look,challenge old myths and bring original perspective on historical events.
Unfortunately author is unable to supress her biased personal views(there is no doubt that she doesn't have much respect for Czech culture and Czech national character).For example to describe great composer Antonin Dvorak as:"Austrian Slav Antonin Dvorak who might otherwise have been condemned forever to playing polkas,mazurkas and marches in his village band,built his career by writing a mixture of Czech nationalist pieces" is not just false but deeply biased (maybe next time author can listen to such polka or mazurka like Symphony No.9"From the New World" to change her mind).Author also blames everything on Czech nationalism omitting the fact that nationalism was an integral part of every European nation.Some nations(like Germans) dealt with this part of their history in a thorough and constructive way,some(like Russians or Poles) never did.
Author routinely describes some legitimate and spontaneous resistence(like student protests in November 1938,some events in 1968) as"provocation" leaving no doubt who she blames for the outcome.
One of the main theories of the book is to attribute creation of Czechoslovakia to Masaryk and Benes manipulation rather than to disastrous Treaty of Versailles that produced states like Yugoslavia and Iraq and set the stage for inevitable conflicts that followed.

As a dual citizen of the United States and the Czech Republic -- one who lived in Czechoslovakia during the Second World War and escaped from the Communists soon after their take-over -- I was anxious to read Mary Heimann's book. However, I must admit that I stopped reading after she reached the end of the war; I simply could not continue. The author, who claims to have lived in the Czech Republic for two years and to have learned the language, shows a contempt for the Czech nation and its people that is difficult to fathom.

She begins with the premise that Czechoslovakia's -- and, in fact, many of Europe's -- problems were caused by the nationalism and chauvinism of the Czech people. Then, she devotes the majority of four hundred pages bending many facts and inventing others to prove her point. Other reviewers (most notably distinguished historians, Peter Hruby and Ivo Feierabend) have pointed out the multitude of errors in this book which her publisher presents as "the definitive political history of Czechoslovakia." I will not repeat this very long list here.

What is worse than Heimann's lack of scholarship is her obvious hatred for my native country and some of her most distinguished citizens. Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, the nation's founder, a world-reknown democratic humanist and philosopher, and the most beloved figure in Czech history, is dismissed by Heimann as a "brilliant propagandist" who invented an artificial state. She ascribes evil intent to everything TGM, as well as his successor as president -- Eduard Benes -- accomplished. When Hitler, Mussolini, Chamberlain, and Deladier conspired to destroy Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938, Heimann concludes that this act was precipated by the Czechs. Those of us who suffered under the Germans during World War II might conclude that Heimann is a "closet Nazi," when she defends the Germans and Sudeten Germans and blames the majority of their actions on the Czechs.

I am amazed that Yale University Press, a respected publisher, could foist such a piece of trash, disguised as a scholarly study of history, on the reading public. Shame on Yale and shame on Mary Heimann!

This book claims that :

-Adolf Hitler fought in Habsburg army.
(Not true,he was in Bavarian army)

-There was no Slovak landscape on Czechoslovak postage stamps till 1925 because of Czech chauvinism.
(True.But it's also true that on postage stamps were NO LANDSCARES AT ALL,till 1926.No Slovak,No Czech,none.)

-Milan Rastislav Stefanik wasn't pictured on postage stamps till 1935 coz he was Slovak and Czechs chauvinistic.
(Again,true.But again till 1935 there was NO person on Czechoslovakian stamps with exception of President.)

-Picture of Hitler in Prague was used on one of first postage stamps in Protectorate.
(Simply not true.This stamp is from 1943.)

-Soviet - German non aggression pact existed in 1938
(signed in Moscow 23 August 1939)

-The economic crisis reached its height in Czechoslovakia in 1932
(actually 1934)

-the Czech chauvinists introduced voting right for women because it doubled Czech voting strength
(it doubled voting strength of all nationalities so Czechs had still same % of votes)

-Czech Kingdom joined Holy Roman Empire during era of king from House of Luxembourg in 14th century
(Czech kingdom joined Holy Roman Empire in 11th century)

-Czechs first time proposed foundation of Czechoslovakia in July 1918
(it was declared in January)

-Czechoslovakian ministry of foreign affairs didn't hire not even one ethnic German or Hungarian
(Robert Feitscher is one example historian should know)

-Czech didn't let any other nationality to join government
(German parties led at least two ministries in 1926-1938 nonstop)

-Sudeten German party SdP was in 1933 banned
(it was DNP which was banned SdP was never banned and in fact SdP didn't even exist in 1933)

-Prisons in Prague and Dresden were Czech prisons
(they were prisons of Gestapo and obviously Dresden is in Germany)

-Bata factory produced Rockets for German army-
(LOL)

-Automotive Skoda Factory in Mlada Boleslav started with production of tanks-
(in this factory only light vehicles,ammunition and parts of planes were made in first years of war,later Germans decided to build there civil cars again)

-Foundation of "National committees" in liberated areas was Benes' idea aiming against Slovaks-
(It wasn't his idea,in fact,he was against and it took long negotiations till he agreed)

-Czech historians see years 1945-1948 as years of democratic revival
(no idea about such Czech historian)

-The Berlin Blockade existed in 1950
(24 June 1948 - 12 May 1949)

-Organization Sokol supported Communistic regime and was fully implemented in regime.
(Sokol members stood strongly against communism and Communists after 1948 destroyed Sokol)

-Klement Gottwald was from Bohemia and punished communists from Moravia and Slovakia
(Gottwald was from Moravia himself)

-Petr Uhl was Communist-reformist.
(He was Stalinist-complete opposite)

-She fights with myth saying Alexandr Dubcek was liberal who wanted to establish democracy.
(There's no such myth.Only idiot could think so.)

-Minister Hajek emigrated after 1968.
(No,he didn't)

-SNB was ordinary police and StB secret police.
(StB was indeed secret police but "normal" police was VB and both of them were part of SNB)

-Milos Jakes became leader of Communist party in 1978.
(ahem...it was 1987)

-In new constitution proposed by Calfa's committee in 1989 was no leading role of Communist party
(Not true,it was in it)

-Main person of Velvet revolution was Marek Benda
(Now that's originality!...noone who was right there in person got no idea about this)

-"Svobodné Slovo" newspaper of Social-Democratic party
(that paty didn't even exist that time.)

-Vaclav Havel was elected as a president by a Senate
(Senate didn't exist,it was Parliament/Federal Assembly)

-Restitution law was applied only since 1948 also to avoid this law to be applied to Jews who left country sooner
(This law isn't about ANYONE who left country ANYTIME,it's law about return of nationalized property )

-Alexander Dubcek is Czech national hero.
(Nonsense.how possibly he could be national hero after he sent tanks on his own people's demonstration in 1969???)

And there's much more...



Can be any historical book with so many mistakes considered as anything else then waste of paper,money and time?

It's really disturbing that universities like Yale teaches like this.Imagine some of their students will rule the world with this kind of knowledge.

First of all, Antonin Dvorak was not an "Austrian Slav." And if he was, why not call George Washington a "British separationist"? Or Beethoven, for that matter, a "Holy Roman Teuton". Catch my drift?
This revisionist and decisively anti-Czech history of Czechoslovakia actually quotes the Italian fascist dictator Mussolini and a Nazi historian and concludes that their assessment of the ethnic relations in the interwar period were accurate.
It is beyond me how this absurdity of a political history appears as number one in Amazon search engine when you type in Czechoslovakia. Yet there is something compelling in this book - the hate factor is very strong.
The bottom line is, if you're keen on the idea that the Czechs (and Slovaks - though they get considerably better treatment here) are no better than Germans, Russians, Poles etc. - write a novel or a film about it, but don't go writing a political history denigrating them as a people and reducing their national heroes to caricatures. Every country needs heroes you know.
Anyway I can't wait for the next volume where Ms Heimann dispels the myth that Czech women are good-looking. And for those who disagree and other dumpling haters, I suggest the "Final Solution of the Czech Question" for further reading.
In case you wonder, my great grandparents were kicked out of Usti n.L./Aussig after the Munich Agreement (not a word about those events anywhere on those 400+ pages history of Czechoslovakia) and my father was born in Ruthenia.
Greetings from Prague.

An exceptionally well researched and incisive history of a state born in the turmoil of a world war, strangled in another, reborn in its aftermath and then withered away in the first few years under a true democracy. This book is a must for any student of history of the region! We enjoyed reading and discussing it and learned a lot from it. We now have a much better understanding of the events that transpired. Truly, a masterpiece! However, we should add that some might validly be critical of the author for a touch of bias regarding Czechs and Moravians, who simply could not do anything without some evil motives and self-interest. To be sure, they simply acted in the same fashion as other nations who had for centuries been under the yoke of imperial powers. (We wish Mary Heimann would write books about the other nations in the region to disprove our perception of bias.) Additionally, we would have liked to see some statistics showing where under Masaryk, Benes and later Communist Czechoslovakia ranked compared to its neighbors and the developed nations in such areas as production, living standards, education as well as notable achievements in culture and science contributing to our civilization.

Steven & Julius

The book is a history mainly of Bohemia but also of Slovakia from early medieval times to the near present. The emphasis is on, and the bulk of the book describes: 1) the re-awakening of Czech nationalism in the second half of the 19th Century, 2) politics surrounding the creation of a Czechoslovak Republic, 3) Czechoslovakia during the years between the two world wars, 4) the period of German occupation, 5) events from the end of German power to the beginning of the Communist dictatorship, 6) the Communist dictatorship, including the "Prague Spring" interlude, 7) the 1990 "Velvet Revolution" and finally, 8) the "Velvet Split" of Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak Republics.
This is a book that has been waiting to be written, a long overdue correction of the mainstream, post-second world war, saccharine view of Czechoslovak history. The author's research is thorough and her writing is not, in my view, biased. Valid criticism should not be confused with bias. Clearly, an objective view of Czechoslovak history can not be palatable to some Czech and Slovak patriots nor to some foreign admirers of the republic. As for myself, I can support many of Ms Heimann's findings as I have long been familiar with the region: I have lived in Prague from 1932 to 1947 and I visited Bohemia repeatedly as an invited scientist during the Communist regime and, more often, thereafter.
This is a book about the political events in the region. I do not believe that it was Ms Heimann's intention to research art history. To write usefully about Bohemian architecture, painting and sculpture the book would need twice as many pages and Ms Heimann would have had to learn German instead of, or in addition to, having mastered Czech. What is most admired by educated visitors of the Czech Republic and Prague in particular are the Gothic and Baroque churches, constructed by mostly German (Peter Parler, the Dientzenhofers, Fischer von Erlach) and Italian (Carlo Lurago) architects and decorated by mostly German and Italian painters and sculptors. The same is true of the Renaissance and Baroque palaces comissioned mostly by Bohemian German-language aristocracy (the Waldsteins and Kinskys, to name only two). Bohemians rather than Czechs are responsible for the bulk of these brilliant cultural achievements. For as Ms Heimann has explained, the terms Bohemian and Czech do not designate quite the same populations.
The book is well written and very readable. It should be pleasant reading for amateur historian and expert alike and certainly for anyone with an interest in Central Europe (also known to some as Mitteleuropa).