Abstract
After the end of World War II Czechoslovakia was faced with the task of punishing its Nazi collaborators. Besides sentencing traitors by the special people’s courts, Czech journalists themselves also started the cleansing among their own ranks. The cleansing committee of the Czech Journalists’ Union investigated some 400 journalists and imposed some sort of penalties on more than 200 people. The article also presents a brief a comparison with the situation in France and the Netherlands. The cleansing among Czech journalists was very rigorous, even in comparison to other European countries. In contrast to Western countries, and due to the subsequent political developments, the journalists punished were often prohibited from resuming their profession.
Highlights
After the end of the World War II (WWII) all European nations overrun by the Nazis were faced with the necessity of punishing collaborators.Post-war Czechoslovakia had to decide how to punish the “traitors to the nation”
The press informed the general public about the results of the cleansing committee immediately after the materials were handed over to the CDS: “The committee authorized to pursue the cleansing of the journalist community completed its activity
The process of bringing to justice those journalists who during the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia committed the crime of collaborating with the Nazis, or were after the war accused of such collaboration, significantly influenced the reconstruction of the post-war media system in Czechoslovakia
Summary
After the end of the World War II (WWII) all European nations overrun by the Nazis were faced with the necessity of punishing collaborators. The journalists who stood in the front lines of the revival process within the post-war Czech media needed to convince the Czech public that the pro-German articles that people had read during the six-year occupation on the pages of the Czech press or listened to in the broadcasting of the protectorate radio, were the work of a small group of unscrupulous renegade journalists, whereas many Czech journalists due to their patriotic opinions and revolutionary activities were prosecuted or even killed It was the activities in the resistance movement and the uncompromising attitude towards the collaborating journalists that were supposed to ensure Bauer’s group a high moral credit and the right to the leading position within the Czech postwar media system
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