ABSTRACT
Following the total defeat of National Socialist Germany, the Czechoslovak state was recreated within its pre-munch borders, with the exception of the Carpatho-Ukraine which was ceded to the Soviet Union on 29 June 1945. The liberation of Czechoslovakia started with the Slovak uprising against the German army in August 1944. On the harsh road to the restoration of an independent Czechoslovak Republic, the Slovak uprising played a decisive role. Its long-term repercussions can be ranked with two other historic events which considerably affected the sociopolitical life of post-1945 Czechoslovakia. The first event concerns the complete elimination of the population and the erasure of the town of Lidice by the German occupation authority in the ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’ on June 10 1942. This atrocity created a storm of horror and indignation in the countries of the Allies and contributed significantly to the annulment of the Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938 by its Western signatories. The second event is connected with the May Rising against the German occupiers in Prague where fighting lasted until 9 May 1945 — a day after V-Day, the official ending of the war in Europe.
