CZECHIAN GERMANS: THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL SELF-DESTRUCTION (1939–1945)

Objective of the study: to classify and identify the main causes of the process of political self-destruction of the German ethnic minority in the territory of Czechoslovakia; to propose, substantiate and introduce into scientific circulation the concept of political self-destruction of the German community in the territory of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which existed under the suzerainty of the Third Reich from March 15, 1939 to May 13, 1945.Methodology: Therefore, the journalistic and literary works of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were analyzed, as well as legal documents and diplomatic protocols adopted following the Yalta Conference (February 4 — F ebruary 11, 1945), the Potsdam Conference (July 17 — August 2, 1945). With the help of the traditional complex of historical and legal methods (text study, comparative analysis, legal analogy), were analyzed the content and external forms of legal succession of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in relation to the First Czechoslovak Republic (October 28, 1918 — September 30, 1938) and the Second Czechoslovak Republic (September 30, 1938 — March 15, 1939). Structural and functional method allowed to isolate the main reasons for the successful cultural and socio-economic coexistence of Germans and Czechs in the territory of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under the auspices of the Third Reich in 1939–1945. The socio-psychological approach, in turn, determined the political-political characterization of the rise of interethnic hostility of the Czechs to the Germans. The article argues that the cause of the massacres of Germans by Czech fighters (actions with clear signs of genocide) during 1945–1950 was the transfer of the so-called «guilt for Soviet occupation» by the Czech collective consciousness to the Germans. With the help of English and Soviet propaganda, a negative image of the Germans in the mass media was simultaneously formed.Results and conclusions: The history of the Czechoslovak Republic of 1918–1939 is a prime example of the confrontation between spatial and ethno-linguistic political ideologues. On the one hand, there were Sudeten and Bohemian Germans, supported by the strong movement of the Nazis. On the other hand, the concept of Central European Slavic integration, known as «Czechoslovakism». The struggle between these two ideologues often falls out of sight of contemporary political scientists (political scientists) and historians. This article does not fill the gap, but aims to demonstrate the Czech-German ethno-political conflict of the mid-twentieth century in the form of a logical sequence of events that led to the collapse of both Pan-Germanism and Czechoslovakism. The bloody war between the Slavs and the Germans in the center of Europe ended with the victory of «third power» — ideology of communism.