Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism by Chad Bryant (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS Bryant, Chad. Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2007. xv + 378 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Archival sources. Index. ?32.95: 42.50: $49.95. Twentieth-century Czech historiography is, like that ofmost Central and East European countries, heavily politicized. Some periods have been over studied, others have been neglected and all have been squeezed into ideologically motivated frames. In Communist historiography the Second World War generally was a crucial event: many attributed legitimacy to the Communist alternative by highlighting the fascist aberrations and discrediting Western Europe and the West. Native resistance movements were over represented. Consequendy, the ambivalences of theCzech mindset during the Second World War have escaped or have been refused attention. In recent years the histories of both the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak puppet state have been the subject of a number of excellent con tributions (most recendy Peter Demetz's Prague inDanger, New York, 2008). Berkeley based historian Chad Bryant now presents Prague inBlack that deals with the era as a clash of two contrasting national ideologies. Prague inBlack studies 'the origins, implementation, and ultimate effectsof two grandiose, violent attempts at nation-making inwestern Czechoslovakia: one begun by theNazi regime and one undertaken by Czechoslovak leaders after liberation' (p. 2), as Bryant announces in his introduction. With this startingpoint Bryant successfully underpins the relevance of his contribution among existing literature.The study of national socialist activities in theEast is commonly solely linked to grand narratives of theHolocaust and theDrang nach Osten, but in the Bohemian and Moravian protectorate everyday life in the Second World War was also a clash of two competing national ideologies. Bryant describes how the firstmonths after theMunich agreement and even after the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia was established, offered some relative freedom. The fall of France and later the arrival ofReinhardt Heydrich as Reichsprotektor were turning points. Bryant at length discusses plans and activities to 'make Czechs Germans'. Under Heydrich's rule these plans were increasingly rooted in racial convictions, though these ideas had already been developed under his predecessor von Neurath, forwhich Bryant refers to the work of Nazi social anthropologist Karl Valentin M?ller. Drawing from a number of Czech archives, Bryant provides enlightening examples of how racial and phrenological qualifications were necessary for any Czech-German marriage and how school pupils were categorized. After Heydrich's death relative peace returned to Bohemia and Moravia, at least compared to situations in Poland or further to the East. The competing national socialist and Czech national mindsets at a very early stage paved theway for a radical solution of theGerman problem after thewar. Bryant suggests that the expulsion of theGermans from Bohemia and Moravia was not solely an act of revenge, but more specifically the outcome of two peoples thinking and acting nationallyin an increasingly violent way. In consecutive chapters Bryant makes some insightfullyrelevant counter intuitive observations. There seems to have been a lack of consensus between 572 SEER, 88, 3, JULY 20IO 'Czechoslovak' Germans about themerits of the Protectorate, many felt like 'second-class Germans' (p. 49), not least because of the disadvantages that it brought them: it introduced draft,work duty and ruined parts of the economy. Conversely, some Czechs favoured the Protectorate, since it solved the problem of unemployment, and although most Czechs lost control of their businesses they continued to play leading roles. A related observation is that what was perceived as Germanification was in fact nazjfication:Bryant attempts to free the events from theProtectorate from the straitjacket ofCzech history writing that reduces all events to components of the Czech-German struggle. Bryant does not entirely succeed in showing themutual influence between the two chaotic, violent and ad hoc attempts at nation building. The Czech inclination to obey Nazi rule remains somewhat one-dimensional. Pragmatic attitudes are correcdy presented, but the roots can arguably be found much deeper, perhaps even in nineteenth-century Czech nation-building or in the ambivalences of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Moreover, the domestic move towards rightwing positions during the so-called Second Republic and particularly the propaganda activities in the Protectorate would have provided additional insight. In this respect journalists...