When was czechoslovakia created

Soviet pressure prevented Czechoslovakia from accepting Marshall Plan aid June, During the summer of , the Communists began a campaign of political agitation and intrigue that gave them complete control of the government in Feb. In March, Jan Masaryk , the non-Communist foreign minister, died in suspicious circumstances.

Czechoslovakia became a Soviet-style state. Political and cultural liberty was curtailed, and purge trials were conducted from to Riots occurred in , reflecting economic discontent. A very modest liberalization trend was begun in response but was reversed in Nov. In a new constitution was enacted. Another cautious movement toward liberalization was initiated in Restrictions on the press, education, and cultural activities were eased, and local authorities received increased economic autonomy.

Profit considerations were introduced into the economy. Czechoslovakia became celebrated internationally for its experimental theater work and its many fine films. But political power remained the exclusive possession of a small circle in the Communist party.

Press censorship was reduced, and the restoration of a genuinely democratic political life seemed possible. Slovakia was granted political autonomy. Despite opposition by the populace, the USSR forced the repeal of most of the reforms. A revised constitution was promulgated. Slovakian autonomy was retained. In the early s there were many efforts to stamp out dissent, including mass arrests, union purges, and religious persecution.

The repressive policies and rigid Soviet-style economic policies continued throughout the s despite inflation and a sluggish economy. In , the appearance of a declaration of human rights called Charter 77, which was signed by intellectuals and former party leaders, instigated further repressive measures.

In late , massive antigovernment demonstrations in Prague were at first suppressed by the police, but as democratization swept through Eastern Europe, the Communist party leadership resigned in November.

By lumping Czechs and Slovaks together, official statistics could show that in a country of But there was another factor which led Masaryk, Benes and others to think in terms of a Czechoslovak nationality. It is not clear that a full-fledged Slovak nation existed in a Slovak higher educational system, a Slovak middle-class, and a Slovak intelligentsia had not been allowed to develop during the centuries under Magyar rule.

They emerged only gradually during the interwar period - with a great deal of financial and logistical help from Prague. The Czechs assisted in developing Slovak schools of all levels, Slovak culture, and Slovak public institutions; they even contributed to the mapping out of the Slovak language.

They did so partly out of pragmatic concerns: they thought that by building up the Slovaks they would strengthen themselves for the confrontation with the Sudetens. Czechs also offered assistance based on the somewhat romantic view that the Slovaks were their twin brothers. Ultimately, the "Czechoslovak" scheme appeased no one. In , more than two thirds of the Sudeten Germans embraced Nazism and cheered the incorporation of the Sudetenland in the Third Reich.

This weakened the Prague government and contributed to the emergence of separatism in Slovakia, a new development which took most Czechs - peroccupied as they were by the crisis with the Third Reich - by surprise. They had failed to notice that while the existence of a viable Slovak nation in could be debated there was no question that it existed twenty years later. At the end of September , Slovak separatists were emboldened by Czechoslovakia's diplomatic defeat at the Munich Conference and the loss of the Sudeten territory which the Conference imposed.

By early , Slovak leaders were faced with the possibility that Hitler would destroy the rest of Czechoslovakia. Understandably, they listened attentively to signals from Berlin that the Third Reich would be prepared to support the emergence of a Slovak state. Since the only alternative to forming the new state was going down with the Czechs, it would have been irresponsible for Slovak politicians not to consider the German offer.

On 14 March , just a day before the Nazis marched into the Czech lands to commence their bloody six-year long occupation, Slovakia declared its independence, thereby escaping from the category of states occupied by the Third Reich. The tragedy was that Slovak nationalists received the coveted Slovak state as a present from the most soiled hands in recorded history: those of Adolf Hitler.

Czechoslovakia had been formed twenty years earlier by Masaryk, Benes, and their collegues who had secured the help of such democrats as Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. By contrast, the Slovak state came into existence as an explicitly fascist entity under the protection of Hitler's Third Reich.

Characteristic of the new state's modus operandi is an order issued on the first day of Slovakia's existence by Pavol Carnogursky, chief of the Hlinka Guards: "Escaping Czechs and Jews are to be searched and their money and jewelry confiscated.

Without much obvious pressure from Berlin, the country's president, Jozef Tiso, a priest, presided over the build-up of a quasi-Nazi state in Slovakia.

Especially repulsive was his handling of Jews. The newspaper Slovak of 16 June boasted that the Tiso government had shifted the definition of Jew from religious to racial. The paper was pleased that this would allow a sharper separation of Jews from other citizens.

When Goebbels came to Slovakia in August , he had only praise for his ally: "After the victory in this great war, its history will be written. And in this history Slovakia will be given a special, honorable place.

You Slovaks were the first to join Germany. And you did so at a time when others looked at us with mockery, contempt, and fear. Of these, Tiso exempted about ten thousand from destruction because they were deemed irreplaceable for Slovak economic life.

Consequently, "only" 80, were subject to deportations. Tiso also insisted in Berlin that Slovak Jewish families should not be ripped apart upon arrival at the camp. Hitler listened and, therefore, 2, babies and toddlers went to the gas chamber in their mothers' arms. Eventually, 57, Jews from Slovakia 7, of whom were less than ten years old perished in the Holocaust. Incredibly, present-day defenders of war-time Slovakia now argue that there was nothing anti-Semitic about the Slovak state of The aforementioned Pavol Carnogursky, who returned to politics for a short time after the Velvet Revolution and who was the father of a family that remains politically active to the present, asserted that the Slovak Constitution under President Tiso "was based on the Christian principle which was uphold in all laws.

Among other evidence, it contains communications between the Vatican charge d'affaires in slovakia, Msgr. On 5 September , Burzio reported to the Holy See that Tiso had recently invited Slovak citizens - with quotations from the Gospels - "to regenerate themselves in the water and spirit of National Socialism.

Burzio "sharply" criticized this view, but the Slvoak president remained untouched. On 9 March , Burzio called the Vatican with news of the planned mass deportations of Jews to death-camps. This cruel plan, he said, was being implemented without German pressure. In fact, Berlin demanded Reich marks and food for two weeks for each Slovak Jewish deportee by the end of he war, Slovakia had paid RD40 million to the coffers of the Third Reich.

Burzio said that he had spoken with the Slovak Prime Minister, "and he took the liberty to say he who displays his catholicism to much that he found nothing inhumane or undemocratic about it all. To deport those 80, persons to Poland, and to hand them over to the Germans, means for many of them a certain death [equivale condanmarne gran parte morte sicura]. Burzio suggesting that Tiso should be reduced to the lay state ad statum laicalem because what he was doing to the Jews exsuperavit omnem inhumanitatem, and was in fact reminiscent of Bolshevik barbarism.

It was "a conversation with a madman" he reported. Tuka kept repeating that Slovaks were going to rid the country of the Jewish "plague, that band of criminals and gangsters. The prime minister swore that it was exclusively Slovak "will and initiative. On Christmas Eve , the president stated in a sermon that Germany was "the flag bearer of the most progressive social ideas. Army in Austria. The Americans returned him to stand trial in Czechoslovakia; he was executed as a war criminal.

Understandably, the behavior of Tiso and other like-minded Slovaks during the war cast a shadow on the future of Czech-Slovak relations. But surprisingly few Czechs held Slovaks collectively responsible for the outrages of the Tiso regime. After all, it was not the Slovaks who had started World War II; moreover, no European country that had experienced Nazi occupation could honestly say that its war-time record was without blemish.

Even those countries in which the allies actively supported anti-Nazi movements because of their strategic importance - Norway comes to mind - had their share of Quislings.

Unlike France, the Low countries, and Scandinavia, Slovakia was outside the sphere of western interest and its leaders, willy-nilly, had to make deals with the sole power-broker in the region, Adolf Hitler. Even when it came to the scandalous treatment of its Jews, Slovakia did not stand out in the company of states such as Germany, Romania, Hungary, and Croatia. In any case, there was no doubt regarding the restoration of sovereign Czechoslovakia. Both the Czechs and the Slovaks excepting those Slovak politicians whose lives were intimately tied with the war-time Slovak state wanted to return to the status quo ante bellum and, importantly, that plan had the support of the British and Americans, as well as Stalin.

Consequently, sovereign Czechoslovakia was restored with the defeat of the last SS units in the Czech lands in early May For the second time in the history of Czechoslovakia, there was an opportunity to design the relations between Czechs and Slovaks in a manner that would reflect the growth of the Slovak nation and satisfy both parties.

With Prague free from the millstone of the Sudeten problem, there was reason for optimism. But little of substance was allowed to happen. Throughout the period, the country's political life was dominated by the struggle between the Czechoslovak democratic parties and the communists.

Slovak nationalists who might have preferred the creation of an autonomous Slovak canton in Czechoslovakia were divided into two camps and neither was in a position to achieve their goals.

The conservatives were discredited by their association with the Third Reich; a few leaders were tried and punished as collaborators, several dignitaries escaped to various safe-havens in Latin American, Canada, and the US, and the majority stayed at home. Those in the latter category had to stay away from politics. Slovak nationalists of the left persuasion joined the Communist party of Czechoslovakia in large numbers. They were therefore compelled to follow the party line, which was directed almost exclusively at preparing the coup d'etat.

Designing a Swiss-style, federal arrangement between Czechs and Slovaks was not one of the party's priorities. The February communist take-over brought all hopes for an internal political restructuring to an end. Czechoslovakia became but one small entity in the large Soviet empire, and it was-under orders from Moscow-preparing its industry as well as society for a confrontation with the west.

Minister Bedrich Stepanek presented his credentials on January 5, Wilbur J. The United States did not recognize the establishment of a German protectorate over Bohemia and Moravia, or the establishment of the state of Slovakia. On September 4, , Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr. He presented his credentials on October Biddle was also commissioned to the governments-in-exile of Belgium , Greece , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Norway , Poland , and Yugoslavia.

Biddle was promoted to Ambassador on June 4, , and presented his new credentials on July He left London on December 1, Vladimir Hurban , the Czechoslovak Minister to the United States since , was promoted to Ambassador and presented his new credentials on June 14, Embassy Prague was established on May 29, with Alfred W. Laurence A. Steinhardt was appointed as the first U.

Ambassador to Czechoslovakia on December 20, He presented his credentials on July 20, and served until September 19, The first treaty between the United States and Czechoslovakia dealt with commercial relations, and was signed at Prague on October 29, It entered into force on November 5.

It was supplanted by a reciprocal trade agreement signed in Washington on March 7,