ABSTRACT
The story of the Czechoslovak cause from the declaration of the Protectorate in March 1939 to the end of German occupation in May 1945 has three threads: events in the Protectorate, the Slovak Republic and the struggle for liberation waged outside the homeland, in the ranks of the western allies. By 1943 the Germans had explored all the possible methods of “assimilation” of the Czech population, exploitation of accumulated Czech treasure, that is, plunder, and the breaking of the Czech national spirit. The project of a Polish-Czechoslovak confederation which Benes had broached to General Sikorski at their second meeting in London in November 1939, had continued to occupy the thought of the Czechoslovak leadership, and by the fall of 1940 had reached the stage of negotiation. The rejection of the Marshall plan invitation was, from the point of view of economic orientation, the last turn in the road for a formerly free and balanced commercial and industrial machinery.
