DějinyGeschichteDejiny

The volume edited by Hans Mommsen, Dušan Kováč, Jiří Malíř and Michaela Marek deals with the upheaval in the formation of the Czechoslovak nation-state-building of 1918/19 for the nations involved. The Germans living in the Sudeten territories had to come to terms with the unaccustomed status of an ethnic minority, especially since there were no support neither from the German Reich nor the Austrian Republic. Similarly, in the absence of an alternative, the Slovaks joined the national state-building movement promoted by Tomás G. Masaryk. Czech policy missed the chance to reach a lasting understanding between the three nations at an early stage, and the German-led backsliding of the Czechs during the World War had a negative effect. The creation of the independent Czechoslovakia affected the close cultural symbiosis, but did not destroy it. It was only squandered with the breakthrough of extreme nationalism under Adolf Hitler.