Prag im Mai 1945

This study takes a look at a nearly unknown chapter in the history of the relations between the Czechs and the Germans: the uprising of the underground movement under the leadership of the Czech National Council against the German occupiers on May 5, 1945. The American army was already in Pilsen, and the Russian army was on its way toward Prague. The poorly prepared uprising was meant to consummate the independence and self-liberation of the Czech people, but without the about-face and the intervention of the Wlassow army to help the insurgents, the uprising would surely have been squelched. On the evening of May 8 the German troops left Prague and the vicinities, and two days later the Russian army marched into Prague.Stanislav Kokoška’s study gives a precise description of the uprising against the dramatic background of the events of that time, and puts it in a frame of reference of both the German and Allied political and military strategy.