Between the Rivers

EXPULSION
A historical investigation of events about which authentic accounts are being obtained from the last living
eyewitnesses for planned commemorative events in 2011 and 2012 the 70th anniversary of the Expulsion

The expulsion of the inhabitants of central Bohemia between 1942 and 1945 during World War II by
the occupying German army and the SS

The German occupiers did not hide their plans of Germanisation from the Czech inhabitants or their
political representatives. A year or two after the outbreak of World War II, rumours surfaced among the
inhabitants of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia nourished by the Nazis that military training
areas were being built on the territory of existing Czech settlements. The plan would allow the Nazis on the
one hand to meet the need for continuous military exercises on the secure home front, and on the other to
intimidate the Czech public consciousness about the present and the future. This entailed the expropriation
of Czech land and its handover to the German administration, and mainly involved military training areas
which the Czechoslovak Army was forced to abandon (Milovice, Vykov, Brdy, etc.), but other purely
Czech territories were selected as well.
The establishment of new military training areas was to be only temporary (completion of
Germanisation was planned for 31 December 1945), then the armed forces were to abandon the premises to
make way for colonisation. It was particularly important that Czech territories be selected with a higher
population density.

Plans
The most important project was adopted already in the summer of 1939 in the form of a new military
training area in the very heart of Bohemia between the Vltava and Szava rivers. From the beginning there
were three variants, one of which proposed several connected spaces where one training area would be used
by the Wehrmacht and another by the Waffen-SS. The territory was described as strictly agricultural land,
reportedly with 356,000 inhabitants of whom only 400 were Volksdeutsche. The expulsion would
therefore apply to Czech territory and the exclusion of Czech influence would significantly weaken the
Czech resistance.
While State Secretary K. H. Frank resolutely promoted the establishment of the military training
areas, Reichsprotektor von Neurath opposed it unequivocally it was a power struggle. Neurath promoted
the idea of gradual Germanisation with an emphasis on order and the needed labour output especially in
arms production. By contrast, Frank who was supported by Himmler and Heydrich and was known for his
pathological hatred of Czechs wanted a radical, rapid and violent Germanisation and, above all, the
physical eradication of the Czech intelligentsia regardless of the political consequences.
Negotiations on creating the military training area were delayed, however. Only in late October
1941 did the first meeting take place at SS headquarters. According to a received report, a military training
area for one division (20,000 men) was to be established west of Beneov with the possibility of peacetime
billeting. The total period for expropriation was set at six years. In this connection, the sanatorium in
Prosenice was to be expropriated in the first phase to make way for an officer school.
The works for establishing the training area proceeded slowly primarily because not only the SS,
but also the German army was interested in the facility. According to certain documents, two independent
military training areas with a common border were to be established in the Beneov-Sedlany region: one
for the SS in the north and one for the Wehrmacht in the south. For a long time it was not clear which
should be given priority. There were also financial difficulties.

The Sanatorium First

At the beginning of March 1942, the establishment of the training area was initiated with the evacuation of
the sanatorium in Prosenice. The Germans simply released the 300 patients and moved the equipment to
the Velichovka spa. This dirty work of expulsion and relocation was under the control of Czech authorities
in accordance with their statutory regulations although obviously under the close supervision of the
occupiers. The massive relocations fell under the Interior Ministrys newly established Relocation Office,
headquartered in Beneov.
Landowners were obliged to hand over their properties to the Land Authority free of legal defects,
i.e. settled with respect to all proprietary claims. The appraisal values were set by the Germans and owners
were paid out 80%. These values varied in individual judicial districts with the highest in the Beneov, and
by the end of the war a total of 297,392,367 Protectorate crowns had been paid out. As a result of the
exchange rate imposed between the crown and the German mark, however, these sums were indeed
ridiculous in view of the value of the properties. Cadastral deletions were made at the court emphasising
that the German Reich had taken over the seized territory without defects and for all time.
The evacuation of the premises took place between 1942 and 1944 in several phases, or rather in
several territorial plans. Acquiring substitute accommodation was difficult, however, due in part to
insufficient capacities after the appropriation of the Czechoslovak border lands and in part to the ban on
construction in effect from 1943. It is alleged that that 60 percent of inhabitants left; while the remaining 40
percent remain in the training area, they were later forced to relocate within its premises, sometimes
repeatedly. The demand for new housing was disproportionately high sometimes several dozens of people
were interested in a single substitute accommodation unit.

Harvest
On 25 April 1942 the Relocation Office ordained that all harvest work must be completed and all crops
gathered prior to handover of the confiscated properties. Wealthy farmers from the evacuated territory were
selected to administer the work and were promised that they could remain on their farmsteads. These
administrators often became collaborators.
In the first phase, the then Beneov regional governor issued a public decree ordering the evacuation
of the municipalities and settlements of Krany, Teletn, Vysok jezd, Vtrov, Tuchyn, Lhota,
Maskovice, Blaenice, Mn, Daleice, Jablonn, Nebich, Rabi, Lout, Nedvz and Vensov by 15
September 1942. More public decrees ordering the evacuation of other municipalities were then issued at
intervals of approximately one month.
The movement of persons who did not have permanent residence on the premises during the first
phase was significantly limited. Summer guests, owners of summer cottages and tourists were prohibited
from staying on the premises. The owners of cottages had to hand over their keys to gendarmes and the
cottage furnishings could be retrieved only with the permission of the area headquarters. This naturally
applied to camping settlements as well.
On 10 June 1943 contrary to the sequence specified in the expulsion maps the order was given
to evacuate the town of Sedlany by 1 August of the same year.More expulsions followed in the second half
of 1943 the second through fifth phases which also applied to the town of Neveklov. Workers
throughout the territory were informed that they could either be taken over or employed further. If possible,
in view of the needs of the training area, they would stay in their current homes and would be issued special
papers. This applied in part also to craftsmen and tradesmen.

No Difficulties...
It is interesting that this gradual expulsion took place without any significant resistance, practically without
difficulties. The Nazis were very concerned about popular unrest; they intentionally gave the Protectorate
authorities and the gendarmerie a leading role in the process so that the citizens could direct their malice at
them. With the exception of several suicides, however, the evacuation was peaceful.Despite this, news
about the expulsions spread around the world and especially the influential American dailies characterised it
as an act of violence.
The headquarters of the training area the Kommandantur des SS-Truppenbungsplatz Beneschau
was first located in Beneov and, after the seizure of the Konopit Castle on 15 March 1943, it was
moved here. On 1 October 1943 it was renamed SS-Truppenbungsplatz Bhmen.
Although Czech civilian companies worked intensively constructing the military facilities on the
premises of the training grounds, this was still not enough for the Germans, who consequently opted for a
proven method the use of forced labour. From September 1942, so-called education and labour camps
were established, and starting in October 1943 prisoners from new branches of the Flossenbrg
concentration camp were used for labour. Such use of concentration camp prisoners for labour had been
suggested in SS proposals as early as 1942.

Concentration Camps also for the SS

Additional education and labour camps were gradually established in Hradiko, Jrovice, Beany,
Bukovany and other locations. A camp in Bystice u Beneov was established for people of mixed-Jewish
origin, etc. For example, the education and labour camp in Hradiko was not designed as a death camp, but
the prisoners living conditions there were extremely harsh. Each day consisted of 10 to 12 hours of
physical labour while the alimentation was absolutely insufficient, with even smaller portions than in the
Buchenwald concentration camp.
Despite the fact that the SS were considered an elite organisation, there was misconduct every day
in their ranks drunkenness, brawling or desertion. Over time, various penitentiaries and corrective SS
units were established for offenders. Already on 1 January 1941 the so-called testing platoon was created,
detached and stationed in a military training area in the Protectorate.
Various training facilities were built on the premises, e.g. artillery watchtowers, machine gun nests,
machine rooms and the like with various degrees of fortification.
Following the reduction in agricultural production, the idea appeared to establish SS-Hofs, or
chivalric farmsteads, under the administration of the SS by merging existing farms and settlements.
Buildings were to be grouped into a circle around the village centre and the spaces between them were to be
built together. The Hofs were to be allocated as a reward to deserving members of the SS and the Czech
residents were to be used only for manual labour. Soon these original intentions came to nought with
developments in the war, however, and the Germans tried to maintain at least some agricultural production.

SS Hofs
A total of 39 SS Hofs (only 24 according to some sources), 8 forest districts, several pond districts and
special facilities designated for strawberry cultivation and sheep breeding were established on the seized
territory. In general, the above-mentioned SS Hofs were very unproductive and amateurish because of their
lack of expertise in farm management and lack of a suitable labour force.
The entrance to the military training area was guarded by both the Protectorate and German
gendarmeries and inside by a field gendarmerie platoon, usually consisting of 1 officer and 26 men. The
number of SS throughout the Protectorate was estimated at 24,000 in April 1944, 9,000 of whom were in
the military training area. Already in November, however, the number of SS in Bohemia and Moravia was
exactly 56,635 soldiers, 29,766 of whom were in the military training area, and by April the number had
risen to 67,053 soldiers, 29,946 of whom were in the military training area. Shortly before the outbreak of
the Prague Uprising, members of the resistance estimated that there were between 20,000 and 25,000 SS in
the training area.
The training area occupied over 43,000 hectares, a significant portion of which comprised target
zones, i.e. areas where live ammunition was directed. Evacuated municipalities served as targets or as
temporary housing for troops undergoing training.
The training area was spared from the main military operations practically until the end of the war.
It therefore served as a useful base of operations for assembling various combat formations in support of the
weakening occupying power. In mid-August 1944, K. H. Frank issued the order to establish the Schill
combat group, consisting of one thousand men, most of whom were instructors from the SS training area.
Originally, it was concentrated in the Perov region and designated for combating the partisan resistance in
Moravia. In the end, however, it was deployed against the Slovak National Uprising.

At the End
By April 1945, it was clear even to the high representatives of occupation that the war was lost. German
State Secretary K. H. Frank issued an order for the engineering school in Hradiko with the help of
prisoners from the local concentration camp to dig out a shelter in the steep rock near the tchovice dam
for deposition of documents, mainly from Franks ministry. After the war the Americans learned of this
depository and on 11 February 1946 removed the so-called Frank Archive without notifying Czechoslovak
authorities. In the wake of strong objections, the archive was returned to the Czechoslovak Republic on 2
March 1946, although there is still speculation that it was exchanged for less important documents.
After the outbreak of the Prague Uprising on 5 May 1945, the German troops advanced from the
military training grounds to Prague, murdering Czech civilians along their way. Bloody altercations
occurred at various places, e.g. in Doln Beany and Zlatnky.
The situation on the railway developed adversely for the Germans. On the afternoon of 5 May, a
military train with tanks, artillery and a trained crew left the premises of the military training area on the
Tnec n. S. erany line. The train got as far as Mnichovice where the German head conductor was
delayed, believing there was an obstacle blocking the line. Soon, partisans from Miroovice and
Mnichovice began firing on the train from the forest and demanded the crews surrender. The confused
Germans moved the train backwards, and the partisans responded by cutting the track in several places.
Later, they derailed the locomotive and three carriages at the Mra stop. The tanks from the derailed
carriages were returned to erany on railroad sleepers and never engaged in combat.

They Only Wanted to Surrender to the Americans

On the afternoon of 8 May, negotiations were held at the Konopit Castle on the unconditional surrender of
the SS. The German commanders refused to surrender to the Czechs or the Russians. If they were to
surrender at all, then only to the Americans. An agreement was drawn up to escort the Waffen-SS and their
civilian employees from the training grounds to a location where they would be handed over to the
American army.
Although Prague was liberated on 9 May, German units which had been surrounded east of Prague
tried to flee westward through the area south of Prague. On 11 May, Marshal Malinovskys 7th Guard Army
entered Tbor, Votice and Sedlany, and crossed the Vltava at several places. Pockets of Nazi resistance
were gradually subdued.
The behaviour of German commanders and prison guards in various camps at the end of the war
was specially sad and condemnable. Murders were committed on death marches and even at workplaces.
Several murderers were later punished judicially, although many disappeared and were never captured.
As a permanent commemoration, a five-metre wooden cross with a crown of thorns was initially
erected on the site of the former concentration camp in Hradiko. Later, half way between Hradiko and
Tebsn a monument of unworked stone was built bearing a bronze plaque and the text: To the eternal
memory of those murdered and tortured here by the SS in April 1945 far from their homes. A second
plaque was set in the stone by the bereaved of the murdered French prisoners.
In the first weeks after the war, certain inhabitants of the seized territories began to return, first
those who had been employed at the SS Hofs and other buildings, and later also those from more distant
places. Decree of the President of the Republic No. 5/1945 of 19 May 1945 restored the legal state of affairs
prior to expropriation. Aggrieved parties were entitled to appropriate restitution.

The Return to Peace

In order to prevent unnecessary damage, a temporary body the National Administration of Farm
Enterprises at the Former Beneov Training Area was created in order to maintain the agricultural
operations of the former SS Hofs. This authority gradually returned properties and inventories to the Czechs
and was dissolved after discharging its duties.
It is interesting to quote the finding of a ministry committee in the municipality of Krany:
The occupiers established an SS Hof in Krany, so the municipality was partially inhabited and
certain houses are thus in very good condition. The incoming owners can move back in without
having to perform basic repairs. The fields are partially tilled and sowed, and are in good condition.
Three families have already moved in the municipality and other owners, provided they were not
indentured workers, are repairing their homesteads and are intending to move in shortly. There is no
military presence in the municipality. Nevertheless, several municipalities were razed to the ground.
Cottage owners and campers are returning to their recreational facilities, although in many cases
they are finding their cottages and properties in a lamentable state.
The Overall Consequences of the German Husbandry: 1942-1945
17,647 people expelled
188 houses destroyed
296 residential buildings severely damaged
2,475 buildings severely damaged
264 wells destroyed
Kilometres of sewerage and electrical lines destroyed
Churches and roads severely damaged