CZECH REPUBLIC: The Czech government apologised yesterday to the many ethnic Germans who were demonised after the second World War despite opposing the Nazi occupation, adding fuel to a bitter row between the country's prime minister and president.
Some three million Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia after 1945, many having supported the invading forces of Adolf Hitler, while about 200,000 others who had resisted the fascists were allowed to stay.
But, despite their wartime record, most of those who remained suffered severe discrimination and eventually left Czechoslovakia, abandoning property and possessions and seeking refuge in Germany and Austria.
"The Czech government expresses its profound appreciation to . . . German nationals living on the Czech territory before World War Two, who during the war remained faithful to the [ then] Czechoslovak republic and actively participated in its struggle for liberation," the government said in a statement.
"Some of these people did not get the recognition that they deserved."
In his first few months in office, Czech prime minister Jiri Paroubek has championed the cause of so-called Sudeten Germans who were unfairly driven out of post-war Czechoslovakia, with a campaign that has drawn words of praise from Berlin.
Mr Paroubek wants to spend the equivalent of €1 million to research the fate of Sudeten anti-fascists, but critics warn that his alleged attempts to curry favour abroad could encourage expelled Germans and their heirs to file huge claims for compensation.
"It's a gesture of appreciation and apology and it does not mean any risk for us," Mr Paroubek said of yesterday's statement.
However President Vaclav Klaus, his most powerful opponent, was not convinced.
He called it a "wrong, needless and empty gesture" that could harm the country's interests, after earlier accusing Mr Paroubek of opening a "Pandora's box" of problems.
Last month, Mr Klaus called Mr Paroubek's plan to compensate Sudeten anti-fascists "exceptionally unfortunate and exceptionally dangerous" and accused him of taking "abrupt steps and gestures without wider consultation".
When the prime minister noted that Mr Klaus's opposition towards the scheme placed him in the "peculiar company" of revanchist Germans - who want all those expelled from Czechoslovakia to be compensated - the president declared that his critic had "gone out of his mind".
Mr Paroubek has also denounced Mr Klaus's campaign against the EU constitution and even threatened to ban him from travelling abroad if he persisted in loudly criticising the treaty on foreign trips.