The End of World War II
Who would have figured I would live to see this day when Soviet
tanks marched to the streets of Prague for the second time. First
time they marched here 60 years ago when the Second World War
ended as Soviet troops ‘liberated’ Prague. Now well,
someone might remember that they also marched to here 1968 during
so called Prague Spring, but that’s not true. It was the
tanks of Warsaw Packt that marched on that time.
Well, in the name of truth I must admit that this time also Americans
got all the way to the Prague. In fact most of the equipments
that arrived were American. I think they came from direction of
Plzen, where they were just a day ago. In year 1945 Americans
were just an hour away from Prague but they never liberated Prague,
because they had military agreement with Soviets, which said that
Soviets will ‘liberate’ Prague. Many have thought
what would have the world of Czech become if Americans would have
liberated Prague instead of Russians.
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The end of Second World War was celebrated in Czech with divided
feelings. On one hand people would have wanted to celebrate those
Russian soldiers who died defending this country but on the other
hand no-one would have wanted to celebrate communists, since the
same ‘liberation’ day started 40 years communist rule,
which provoked lots of human right violations and persecutions.
That’s probably why the celebrations in the streets of Prague
were so quiet. Most typical people were families on their Sunday
walk. For their children tanks and jeeps brought nice variation
to their normal playgrounds. There was space even in Letna Park.
There were some reenactments of fights in the streets of Prague.
For example takeover of Prague radio tower, which was and still
is quite important to Czechs. In the end of the Second World War
there rose resistance among Czechs in Prague against German occupation.
It all begun from the takeover of radio tower. Locals took the
tower and police protected them. German soldiers and police reinforced
and the editor called help through radio, which Czechs responded
by coming to the radio tower.
That triggered chain reaction that started the resistance. Some
2000 Czechs were killed and from today’s aspect those were
unnecessary deaths since war ended few days later. There have
been thoughts that this was just Stalin’s typical strategy,
which he used in some other countries. He let the Germans handle
resistance fighters before attacking, because the same revolutionary
people would have probably been part of uprising against communist
power too. Very logic thinking from man who had murdered even
his own mother.
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