Legacy
The character of the post-war deportations of Sudeten Germans has been the subject of long-running debate among Germans, Czechs and Slovaks. In 1991 President Václav Havel apologized, on behalf of his people, for massacres of Germans during the expulsion, and even suggested that former inhabitants of the Sudetenland might apply for Czech nationality to reclaim their lost properties. However, the Czech government never followed through on Havel's suggestion. The UN Human Rights Committee issued decisions in three cases concerning Sudeten Germans (Des Fours Walderode v. Czech Republic; Petzoldova v. Czech Republic; Czernin v. Czech Republic) in which violations of articles 26 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights were established and the Czech Republic was ordered to return the property to the rightful owners. As of 2010, the Committee's views have not been implemented.(Jakob Th. Möller, United Nations Human Rights Committee Case Law, N.P.Engel Verlag, Kehl am Rhein 2009).
Public opinion surveys indicate that the public is opposed to such measures.
According to an article in the Prague Daily Monitor:
The Czech-German Declaration 1997 has achieved a compromise and expressed regret over the wrongs caused to innocent people by "the post-war expulsions as well as forced deportations of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia, expropriation and stripping of citizenship" on the basis of the principle of collective guilt.
German politicians and the deported Sudeten Germans widely use the word "expulsion" for the events. However, political representatives in both the Czech Republic and Poland, from where millions of Germans had to move after WW2, usually avoid this expression and rather use the word "deportation."
Read more about this topic: Expulsion Of Germans From Czechoslovakia
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“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)