Legal philosophers have long debated whether it is better to have a system in which some who are innocent are punished along with the guilty or one in which the innocent are held harmless but some who are guilty escape. I tend to favor the rights of the innocent, but my parents—whose values I inherited—supported the expulsion policy. When my father wrote about it, which he did only briefly, he admitted that its execution was “sometimes accompanied by excesses of brutality which no decent man can condone.” He blamed the abuses on the Communists, but in truth the mob actions were a product of passion, not ideology; non-Communists were equally to blame.
It would not be until the 1990s and the presidency of Václav Havel that the Czech people would be challenged to revisit this chapter in their history. Speaking in 1992, Havel said, at considerable expense to his personal popularity and political standing:
The disease of violence and evil spread by Nazism ultimately afflicted even its victims. . . . We accepted the principle of collective guilt and instead of punishing individuals, opted for collective revenge. For decades we were not allowed to admit this, and even now we do so with great reluctance. But just as the Germans have been able to reflect upon the dark sides of their history, so must we.
The most damaging inference one might draw from the Beneš decrees is that the presence of a German minority within Czechoslovakia was a primary cause of World War II. It was not. The Sudeten German situation was exploited by Hitler, but that was his responsibility; it cannot be blamed on T. G. Masaryk’s dream of a viable multinational country. Without Hitler and the economic setbacks that drew people to his cause, the Czechoslovak Republic could well have succeeded. Over time, the presence of an industrious (if still occasionally quarrelsome) German minority might have been recognized as a major asset. I underline this point because of its relevance to an understanding of history; even more because multiethnic cooperation remains critical to the success of democracies everywhere. Defending this principle matters if one believes, as I do, that the emergence of Czechoslovakia in 1918 was a cause for celebration not because the new country was Czech and Slovak but because it was democratic—and that Munich was a tragedy not because Germans triumphed over Czechs but because the Western democracies lacked resolve when faced by the evil of a racist totalitarian state.
BEFORE THE NEWLY reconstituted government could devote itself fully to the future, it needed to settle past accounts. That meant prosecuting those of whatever nationality who had been guilty of war crimes. To this end, a network of national, regional, and local tribunals was created to hold people responsible for actions taken (or not taken) during the conflict. The list of potential violations included everything from murder and torture to voicing support for the enemy. The quality of the tribunals varied widely. Some were professional; others lacked trained personnel and made little pretense at proper procedure. Many of the alleged violations, such as collaboration and fraternization, were loosely defined. There was no mechanism for ensuring that legal interpretations and penalties were consistent. Because emotions ran so high, especially at the outset, public opinion had an influence on judges. There were instances, as well, of jurists using their authority to confiscate property that then found its way into the hands of their family members and friends.
In the first weeks, tens of thousands of people were arrested. The prisons, ill equipped and unsanitary, became more wretched as new inmates were wedged in. To settle cases quickly, neither defendants nor prosecutors were given the right to appeal and death sentences were carried out within two hours of judgment or, if requested by the condemned, three hours.* Beneš had the authority to grant clemency, but with so brief a window of time, the option was rarely used. As a result, the Czechs executed almost 95 percent of 723 condemned prisoners, a higher rate than any other European country.* This created another problem: finding qualified hangmen. Professionals were few because those who admitted to having been employed in wartime (by the Nazis) were likely to be hanged themselves.
In the postwar environment, overheated as it understandably was, individuals had a power not ordinarily possessed in a democracy: to destroy others through political denunciation. Whether or not charges were truthful, the accused were placed on the defensive and could be detained for long periods, interrogated, beaten, and deprived of property. This meant that justice could be manipulated by people who were angry or opportunistic enough to cause hardship for unpleasant acquaintances, troublesome business partners, local rivals, or inconvenient spouses.
Even judges trying to be fair would find it hard to discern truth when neighbor was denouncing neighbor based on rumor, hearsay, or claims that could not be verified. How were they to define the appropriate limits of guilt by association? What about the friends and family of collaborators or people who might have shown weakness once but at other times had stoutly resisted pressure? What about people who had given damaging information while under torture or because their loved ones were threatened?
In one instance a man confessed to working with the Gestapo, helping to track down anti-Nazi partisans, and stealing property from Jews. Yet the same man had sheltered a Jewish woman in his apartment, refused to betray prison escapees, and secured the release from jail of resistance leaders who later served in the Slovak government. Both villain and hero, he was sentenced to prison for thirty years.
THE POSTWAR ADMINISTRATION of law in the Czech lands was uneven and messy but no more flawed than comparable efforts in neighboring countries. As tempers slowly cooled, prosecutors began to dismiss more cases than they tried. There were many acquittals, and the pressure for long sentences and more trials diminished, especially after the completion of the most prominent cases. In these highly publicized instances, at least, it is reasonable to conclude that the interests of justice were served.
Among those receiving a death sentence was the commander of Terezín at the end of the war, Karl Rahm, the Nazi who had sent so many prisoners to the gas chambers. The trial of K. H. Frank, the Sudeten German who had worked closely with Hitler, was broadcast live over the radio. The witnesses to his execution included seven women from Lidice. Six of the Gestapo officers who had participated in the massacre of that village were also condemned to die. Fittingly, the prosecutor in these cases was Jaroslav Drábek, a friend of my father from before the war, a member of the Resistance during the conflict, and a survivor of Auschwitz.
In April 1947, the Czech National Court found Father Tiso guilty of treason. Beneš favored life imprisonment but deferred to his cabinet, which—by the margin of a single vote—recommended execution. Tiso was hanged, then buried in secret so that his grave would not become a Slovak shrine.
Karel Čurda, the parachutist who had betrayed the assassins of Heydrich, was caught trying to flee during the last days of the war. Neither the reward he had received from the Nazis nor his German identification papers could shield him from trial. When the judge asked him how he could have informed on his friends, he replied, “I think you would do the same for a million marks, your honor.” Precisely two hours after his conviction, Čurda, unrepentant and still telling jokes, met his doom.
As for Konrad Henlein, the Sudeten German leader who had prayed for the day when all Czechoslovakia would join the Reich, there was no need for a trial. Captured in Plzeň by the U.S. Army, he begged the Americans not to turn him over to the Czechs. When it became clear that his request would be denied, he cut his wrists with broken glass.
26
A Precarious Balance
Czechoslovak democracy died with Munich and was resurrected when Beneš and his government returned to Prague. In less than three years, it would be buried again. Was this second death inevitable, or, with wiser leadership and more outside help, could democratic Czechoslovakia have survived?
I posed this question to Václav Havel, who replied that survival had indeed been possible. “The Yalta line was meant to be military, not political,” he asserted. “Beneš
thought that the country could serve as a bridge between East and West, but he did not frame this idea properly. In any event, he was a good diplomat and an excellent foreign minister for calm times, but he was not the best to lead at a moment of high drama.”
Stalin would not have agreed that the Yalta line had been intended to be military only. In his view, where the Red Army had gone the Communist system was licensed to set up shop. Czechoslovakia would provide a testing ground for the two perspectives. Unlike the rest of Eastern and Central Europe, the republic remained free to hold meaningful elections.
Appealing to voters for support was not an unwelcome prospect for Communists in postwar Czechoslovakia. After all, their ideology offered a remedy to every ill—or so many believed. Old Europe had been held back by the artificial divisions of class and nationality; the Nazis had put people into boxes according to religion and race. The Communists, by contrast, spoke of one another as comrades and claimed to represent workers of every background. This egalitarian mind-set meshed well with the image that Czechs and Slovaks had of their own past rebellions against German and Hungarian nobility. What could be better, after the horrors of the Second World War, than to create a society free from the scourges of poverty and privilege? Surely, the hour of the worker had finally come, when those who labored with their hands would receive their due while those who profited from the sweat and calluses of others would be brought low.
Joining the party was a way to connect with a movement pushed along by the currents of history; a means—according to a woman drawn in at the time—to achieve “victory over one’s smallness.” The Communists also made a claim on voters’ respect. Had not their partisans been the bravest in facing down the Nazis and had not Stalin stood with the country through the critical tests of Munich? Had not the Red Army liberated Prague? Following years of Aryan savagery and Anglo-Saxon indifference, did it not make sense to look for salvation from Mother Russia, the unofficial capital and protector of Slavs?
However, this glorious new world could only be brought about through political change, and for that, discipline would be required. The workers’ revolution could not arrive until its enemies—rapacious capitalists, reactionary politicians, and the decadent bourgeoisie—had been defeated. Victory would emerge as a result of meticulous planning and preparation, everywhere from the smallest precinct to the largest city. This would demand firmness and, for nonbelievers, a liberal dose of reeducation. Even while the war had been under way, Czechoslovak Communists had set out to become the country’s most thoroughly organized political faction.
The program announced in Košice in April 1945 had called for the creation of administrative committees from the local to the national level. By sweeping away the old governing structures, Communists were able to secure disproportionate representation in the new ones. Gottwald instructed his aides to use these committees “to rebuild the very foundations” of the state. The party’s control of vital ministries allowed its operatives to penetrate deeply into every segment of society. This infiltration was made easier by a general political climate favorable to centralized rule; few voices were raised on behalf of capitalism. The new government moved swiftly to nationalize banks, mines, insurance companies, public utilities, and major businesses. These measures encountered little resistance because, in most cases, the previous owners were pro-Nazi and therefore in no position to protest.
In hindsight, it is reasonable to say that the nation’s fate was decided in its villages. The Communists were active everywhere, helping one another to intimidate foes and mold public opinion. One of the characters in my father’s unpublished novel is the owner of a Kostelec bookstore who had gladly removed copies of Mein Kampf from his front window, only to be strong-armed into replacing them with biographies of Lenin and Stalin. Thinking back to the golden era before the war, when great literary works had enjoyed pride of place, the shopkeeper says regretfully:
That window used to be my greatest joy. Every morning at eight when I opened the store, I would stand for a minute in front of it, and my heart smiled. I liked to think it was a photograph of me. Now I am ashamed.
The key to the Communists’ success was that when they lost a local election, they would concentrate their resources and try again. When they won, they employed every means at hand, legitimate or otherwise, to remain in office. They also used their agents within the security apparatus to harass their domestic rivals. To cite one of many examples, Vladimír Krajina had been among the most prominent leaders of the wartime resistance. The Communists wished to discredit him in order to sustain the fiction that they alone had fought back against the Nazis. They produced a deposition signed by Frank, the despised Sudeten leader, purporting to prove that Krajina had been a Nazi collaborator. During the trial, a prosecutor showed the statement to Frank, who admitted signing it but—as he was unable to read Czech—had done so without knowledge of its contents. All charges were dropped.
The Krajina case reflected the precarious balance that now came into being. The Communists dominated the security forces and thus had the authority to investigate and arrest. The Ministry of Justice was headed by Drtina, who did his best to frustrate Communist schemes. In some cases, the Interior Ministry ordered arrests based on the testimony of witnesses who had been bribed or coerced. Drtina took the cases to court but opened new investigations into the actions of the security agents who had compromised the witnesses. This produced an equilibrium of sorts, but not a sustainable one.
ON SEPTEMBER 28, 1945, my family boarded an old prop-driven Junker that had been seized from the Nazis. My father’s new title was Czechoslovak Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary to Yugoslavia.* After the mercifully short flight, we arrived in Belgrade, a capital that had been reduced to dust and debris by the bombs of Allied and Axis powers alike. More than one-tenth of the population had died fighting the Germans or one another. Everywhere shabbily dressed people were hard at work clearing streets and repairing or replacing the buildings that had been destroyed.
Before leaving Prague, my father had been given his instructions by Beneš, who had asked him to return home as often as he could. “Don’t write down anything of a confidential character,” the president cautioned. “The Soviet embassy would have it the day after your telegram arrives in the ministry of foreign affairs. You must report to me personally.” Beneš emphasized his distaste for Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia’s flamboyant leader. Like many a dictator, Tito used the trappings of power to burnish his personal legend, which, in turn, helped justify his rule. From the Slovenian woodlands to the Dalmatian coast, towns and streets were named after him and stories repeated about his wartime exploits. According to the officially approved slogan, “Tito belongs to us and we belong to Tito.” Children even sang songs about him; I remember learning one myself: “Tito, Tito, Little White Violet.”
In keeping with diplomatic custom, my father’s first duty upon arriving in Belgrade was to present his credentials to the head of government. Asked to wait in a hallway, he was nearly knocked over by Tiger, Tito’s affectionate Alsatian shepherd. When the prime minister finally appeared, my father found him to be shorter and plumper than expected, quick with a smile, and impressive in his military uniform and high boots. The fifty-three-year-old had regular features except for a somewhat prominent nose and was, despite his paunch, an active sportsman who maintained a stable of horses and loved to fish and hunt. My father had numerous opportunities to converse with Tito, discussing all aspects of the world situation, including the possibilities of coexistence between East and West. One night, the dictator invited my father to his home, which, like the U.S. White House, included a bowling alley. When the ambassador gripped the ball in his left hand, his host applauded and said that my father had been born a leftist. When the ball was released, however, he exclaimed, “Just look at it. It goes suspiciously to the right!”
As the child of an ambassador, I was privileged to live in a house that i
ncluded both the embassy offices and our living quarters. Located on a main boulevard, the building was just a block or two from the Yugoslav parliament. The front of the embassy was marked by the long balcony from which my father had observed demonstrations before the war and where we stood now for speeches and parades. A circular staircase led to the private quarters, which occupied three floors. We had been provided with a butler, a chauffeur, a cook, and several maids. In the reception area, there was a ballroom with crystal chandeliers and an abundance of marble. When we moved in, my father was appalled to discover that the outside walls were covered with pro-Tito slogans. He ordered them removed, but within days the partisan graffiti were back.
Tito and Josef Korbel
CTK PHOTO
The posh surroundings belied the economic straits my family confronted. The embassy had been used by the Nazis and had, prior to our arrival, been thoroughly looted. My parents had to request furnishings from Prague, the first in an endless volley of requests for aid in coping with the expenses of the job. In those strained circumstances, we all had to do our part. Mine was to dress in our country’s national costume (white blouse, pink skirt, blue apron, lots of embroidery and ribbons) and hand out flowers at parties. The costume, which was actually Slovak, not Czech, proved a survivor, residing to this day in my hall closet.
The life of a diplomat abroad agreed with my father. It’s true that he had to spend much time at his desk studying and marking up documents. I know because I found thick folders of yellowing official papers from that period among his belongings in my garage. His chief interest, however, was learning more about the Yugoslav people. Whenever he could, he broke free from his office to explore the country and to meet with representatives of its many ethnic groups and political factions. No matter the audience, he loved to talk and probe, pushing people gently to be open about their disappointments, hopes, and fears. He was a skilled questioner, a sympathetic listener, and intellectually curious. He spoke to Serbs, who complained bitterly of wartime massacres committed by Croats and about the steady erosion of their national identity under Tito. He met Croats, who opposed the very existence of Yugoslavia and desired a country of their own; many Bosniaks and Slovenes felt the same. All this must have seemed both familiar and depressing to a man who had grown up amid the ethnic rivalries of Czechoslovakia. He developed a deep affection for Serbs and other Yugoslavs yet despaired at their inability to live in harmony—a shortcoming that would remain tragically in evidence during my own years in government.
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