What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

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James Paul
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What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#1

Post by James Paul » 10 Sep 2016, 22:12

Once the Nazis invaded more of Czechoslovakia than the Sudetenland, what happened to the Czechs and Slovaks living there? Were they allowed to be Reich citizens or were they deemed to be 'subjects of the state' like the Jews and Gypsies were? Did the Nazis ban friendship and sexual relations between Germans and Czechs?

Was this simply an earlier example of the brutality and occupation that happened in Poland during the war?

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#2

Post by Hessler86 » 11 Sep 2016, 14:19

Erlaß des Führers und Reichskanzlers über das Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (16. März 1939) wrote:"Die volksdeutschen Bewohner des Protektorates werden deutsche Staatsangehörige und nach den Vorschriften des Reichsbürgergesetzes vom 15. September 1935 (RGBl. I. S. 1146) Reichsbürger. Für sie gelten daher auch die Bestimmungen zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre. Sie unterstehen deutscher Gerichtsbarkeit. Die übrigen Bewohner von Böhmen und Mähren werden Staatsangehörige des Protektorats Böhmen und Mähren."
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The residents of the Protectorate of German origin are hereby declared to be German nationals and German Reich citizens, in accordance with the provisions of the Reich Nationality Code of September 15, 1935 (RGBl. I, p. 1146). Therefore, the provisions in the law for the protection of German blood and German honour shall apply to them. They shall be subject to the jurisdiction of German courts. The other residents of Bohemia and Moravia are hereby declared to be citizens of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
I hope this partly answers your question.
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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#3

Post by GregSingh » 12 Sep 2016, 00:10

Did the Nazis ban friendship and sexual relations between Germans and Czechs?
Please see discussion here:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=220342

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James Paul
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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#4

Post by James Paul » 12 Sep 2016, 00:16

Hessler86 wrote:
Erlaß des Führers und Reichskanzlers über das Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (16. März 1939) wrote:"Die volksdeutschen Bewohner des Protektorates werden deutsche Staatsangehörige und nach den Vorschriften des Reichsbürgergesetzes vom 15. September 1935 (RGBl. I. S. 1146) Reichsbürger. Für sie gelten daher auch die Bestimmungen zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre. Sie unterstehen deutscher Gerichtsbarkeit. Die übrigen Bewohner von Böhmen und Mähren werden Staatsangehörige des Protektorats Böhmen und Mähren."
===============================================================================================================================
The residents of the Protectorate of German origin are hereby declared to be German nationals and German Reich citizens, in accordance with the provisions of the Reich Nationality Code of September 15, 1935 (RGBl. I, p. 1146). Therefore, the provisions in the law for the protection of German blood and German honour shall apply to them. They shall be subject to the jurisdiction of German courts. The other residents of Bohemia and Moravia are hereby declared to be citizens of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
I hope this partly answers your question.
Thanks for posting this but not really as that document was about those of ethnic German origin. I'm asking specifically about the ethnic Czechs and Slovaks living in the territories the Nazis annexed/invaded.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#5

Post by Mauser K98k » 12 Sep 2016, 00:52

"...The other residents of Bohemia and Moravia (non-German origin) are hereby declared to be citizens of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia."

I would think that means second-class citizenship as compared to those of German origin, the "Citizens of The Reich".

Jews and Gypsies, of course, get the usual untermenschen treatment.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#6

Post by wm » 12 Sep 2016, 02:06

According to the treaty between the Czech-Slovak Republic and the German Reich on the issues of citizenship signed in Berlin on 20 November 1938 those who didn't become German citizens, remained Czechoslovak citizens, i.e. foreigners living in Germany.
Additionally there was an option to become a Reich citizen, from 512,793 Czechs living in the Sudentenland, 291,000 chose this option.

From The Reich Citizenship Law:
A citizen of the Reich is that subject only who is of German or kindred blood and who, through his conduct, shows that he is both desirous and fit to serve the German people and Reich faithfully.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#7

Post by James Paul » 12 Sep 2016, 13:23

Mauser K98k wrote:"...The other residents of Bohemia and Moravia (non-German origin) are hereby declared to be citizens of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia."

I would think that means second-class citizenship as compared to those of German origin, the "Citizens of The Reich".

Jews and Gypsies, of course, get the usual untermenschen treatment.
One can't conclude that "the other residents" excluded the Jews and Gypsies living there since it's not about being Reich citizens but citizens of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#8

Post by James Paul » 12 Sep 2016, 13:26

wm wrote:According to the treaty between the Czech-Slovak Republic and the German Reich on the issues of citizenship signed in Berlin on 20 November 1938 those who didn't become German citizens, remained Czechoslovak citizens, i.e. foreigners living in Germany.
Additionally there was an option to become a Reich citizen, from 512,793 Czechs living in the Sudentenland, 291,000 chose this option.

From The Reich Citizenship Law:
A citizen of the Reich is that subject only who is of German or kindred blood and who, through his conduct, shows that he is both desirous and fit to serve the German people and Reich faithfully.
Czechs and Slovaks were/are Slavs, the Nazis considered Slavs to be non-Aryans, not of 'kindred blood'. If they were considered to be of kindred blood then they would have been allowed to be Reich citizens but that was simply not the case.

The non-German residents of the Protectorate were considered to be "protectorate subjects".

Source is Diemut Majer, "Non-Germans under the Third Reich", page 236.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#9

Post by wm » 12 Sep 2016, 20:50

From Non-Germans under the Third Reich:
In practice, however, the first term to be widely employed was of Aryan descent; yet from 1935 on, the expressions German or related blood or German-bloodedness were substituted, as the term Aryan was purely linguistic in origin and not capable of even pseudoscientific justification.
But these terms were just as imprecise as the terms previously used, Aryan and non-Aryan, for they either exhausted themselves in purely negative definitions (non-Jewish, noncolored), or else they defined German blood as being the "blood of the various races" of which the German yolk was composed, as the blood of "peoples racially related" to it; but they never did define what race or racially related actually meant.
Aryan meant non-Jewish, noncolored. Because of that the Slavs were considered Aryans - which in itself didn't mean anything, and didn't bring any benefits.
For example in the occupied Poland there were the Aryans and the Jews. All the non-Jewish people were Aryans. Everybody used this terminology there the Germans, the Poles, even the Jews themselves.

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James Paul
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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#10

Post by James Paul » 13 Sep 2016, 04:10

wm wrote:From Non-Germans under the Third Reich:
In practice, however, the first term to be widely employed was of Aryan descent; yet from 1935 on, the expressions German or related blood or German-bloodedness were substituted, as the term Aryan was purely linguistic in origin and not capable of even pseudoscientific justification.
But these terms were just as imprecise as the terms previously used, Aryan and non-Aryan, for they either exhausted themselves in purely negative definitions (non-Jewish, noncolored), or else they defined German blood as being the "blood of the various races" of which the German yolk was composed, as the blood of "peoples racially related" to it; but they never did define what race or racially related actually meant.
Aryan meant non-Jewish, noncolored. Because of that the Slavs were considered Aryans - which in itself didn't mean anything, and didn't bring any benefits.
For example in the occupied Poland there were the Aryans and the Jews. All the non-Jewish people were Aryans. Everybody used this terminology there the Germans, the Poles, even the Jews themselves.
Well, that just goes to show many oxymorons there were when it came to Nazi racial theories, considering that they regarded the Slavs as racially inferior. So they regarded some "Aryans" as racially inferior? That makes no sense whatsoever - e.g Poles being considered "Aryans" certainly didn't do them any good now, did it?

The Czechs and Slovaks were considered to be "protectorate subjects" not Reich citizens for a reason.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#11

Post by James Paul » 14 Sep 2016, 03:21

Czechs being alleged considered "Aryans" by the Third Reich didn't do them any good neither.
14. Punishment for sexual intercourse with Germans. Czechs, Poles, and other Eastern workers or prisoners of war who had had sexual intercourse with Germans were examined by the racial examiners of RuSHA. Those who were found to be not "racially desirable" were imprisoned in concentration camps or executed. Those found "racially valuable" were Germanized. The defendants Greifelt, Creutz, Meyer-Hetling, Schwarzenberger, Hofmann, Hildebrandt, and Schwalm are charged with special responsibility for, and participation in, these crimes.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=56401
Foreign nationals, particularly from the East, including Poles, Czechs, and Russians, were subject to these decrees (both civilians and prisoners of war). As early as 7/3/1940 Pancke, then chief of RuSHA, sent a report to the office of Bormann, assistant to Hess, suggesting the issuance of laws to protect German blood.

"The order given by the Reich Leader of the SS on the special treatment of Poles is extended to the Czechs too. The Reich Security Main Office continues to complain that a quicker decision must be reached concerning suitability for Germanization. It proposes a short course of instruction for all the heads of the State Police Regional Offices and afterwards the inauguration through these of a system of rough racial selection of the civilian workers suggested for special treatment. On account of principal considerations this consent to the Reich Security Main Office had to be refused. It then remains for us, however, on the other hand to guarantee that the examination process will be speeded up. Once more reference must be made to the regular submission of the expert opinions to the Higher SS and Police Leaders. * * *"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=56438

And from ""Non-Germans" Under the Third Reich:
a November 1940 decree of the office of Hitler's deputy for party affairs held that no party member, or member of a party organization, could marry a person who had at least two grandparents who were members of the Czech, Polish or Magyar "Volk groups" without permission of the regional party official (Gauleiter).

To "preserve the purity . . . [of their] own racial and ethnic foundations," farmers who were members of the NSDAP were subject to a ban on marriages with Poles and Czechs, in order to "prevent . . . [the latter from] marrying into German farmsteads." Otherwise, all NSDAP members, as well as all members of its various organisations (the SA, the SS, the National Socialist Motor Corps, the Hitler Youth, the German Lecturers' Association, the National Socialist Student League, the Nazi Women's League) required permission from the local Gauleiter if they desired to marry "members of the Czech, Polish, or Magyar ethnic groups." Although marrying without the required permission did not nullify the union (sec. 13 of the Marriage Law and sec. 14 of the First Implementing Decree), it did have disciplinary consequences.
Last edited by James Paul on 15 Sep 2016, 00:30, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#12

Post by wm » 14 Sep 2016, 11:00

I should be remembered Slovaks and Czechs lived in, and were citizens of their own countries, ruled by their own governments. They didn't live in Germany. Although in the case of the Czechs it was just a puppet, rump state.
They weren't occupied like the others were.
The Slovak state were co-belligerent of the Nazi Germany, the Czech one was collaborationist - because technically their own government asked for German protection and then actively cooperated with the Nazi Germany, with some ministers like Emanuel Moravec, Jaroslav Krejčí doing everything they could to convince the Czechs to be loyal to the Nazi cause.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#13

Post by michael mills » 15 Sep 2016, 07:33

Goebbels had a long-running sexual relationship with the Czech actress Lida Baarova. It seems that her non-German "blood" did not worry him in the slightest.

In the end, he was ordered by Hitler to end the relationship, not for any "racial" reason, but for the more mundane one that Goebbels' open infidelity to his wife was causing a public scandal that reflected badly on the National Socialist Government.

It needs to be borne in mind that the Czech people were not considered to be enemies of Germany in the way that the Poles were, since they had never actually fought against it. In fact, Bohemia-Moravia became one of the centres of the German military industry, with practically no resistance on the part of the Czech workforce, who had essentially the same conditions and standard of living as German workers.

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#14

Post by James Paul » 16 Sep 2016, 04:13

michael mills wrote:Goebbels had a long-running sexual relationship with the Czech actress Lida Baarova. It seems that her non-German "blood" did not worry him in the slightest.

In the end, he was ordered by Hitler to end the relationship, not for any "racial" reason, but for the more mundane one that Goebbels' open infidelity to his wife was causing a public scandal that reflected badly on the National Socialist Government.
One of his conquests was Czech actress Lida Baarova, but his obsession with her angered Hitler because she was a racially 'inferior' Slav
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... raphy.html
Whether it was the Czech accent which colored her deep voice, her Slavic nature — in a few years he would be attacking the Slavs as subhumans
Helmut Heiber, Goebbels, p. 242

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Re: What happened to the Czechs and Slovaks citizenship after the Nazis invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia?

#15

Post by wm » 16 Sep 2016, 19:59

Is that true that Goebbels attacked the Slavs as subhumans publicly? I was under the impression it was done more discreetly.

Hitler certainly wasn't angered because she was inferior, but because it was adultery, and because Magda Goebbels complained to him, and she was Hitler's darling.
Additionally Goebbels initially didn't want to follow Hitler's "advice", and that made him really mad, and cost Goebbels the status of his closest companion.

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