ABSTRACT
In the case of Czechoslovakia, the League of Nations proved to be useless in terms of engineering a solution that would allow all sides to retain credibility and legitimacy. In different ways, the link between domestic and international dimensions and between the political and ethnic aspects has persisted throughout the existence of the German question, particularly during the inter-war period and since the end of the Second World War. Before turning to an examination of Czech–German and Polish–German relations since 1990, it is therefore necessary to take several steps back and explore the origins of ethnic German minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. In Central, Eastern and South-eastern Europe, the rise and demise of empires, migration within and between them, and the inevitability of incompatible ethnic and political borders provided the background against which such clashes happened.
