Language Research

Updated (May 2007)

GERMAN MINORITY LACKS PROTECTION

The German minority in the Czech Republic, formerly one of the largest linguistic minorities in Europe, is guaranteed only limited protection - based on Part 2 of the European Charter of Regional and Minority Languages (ECRML), which came into force just recently, on 1 March 2007.

The more substantive section (Part 3) of the Charter, which stipulates measures to promote the use of regional or minority languages in public life, including bilingual signage and education, covers Polish and Slovak but not German.

Based on current Czech legislation, national minorities have the right to bilingual signage if they constitute at least 10 percent of the population. Besides Poles and Slovaks, Germans fulfill this requirement in 13 municipalities. However, according to the Czech Minister for Minority Affairs, Dzamila Stehlikova, the remaining Sudeten Germans are mostly elderly and show insufficient interest in bilingual signage. "The Germans in the villages affected constitute a very small group in absolute numbers with a high average age who we know are not interested in supporting such changes."

Education for national minorities in the Czech Republic is dependent on certain pre-defined minimum numbers of students per class and school. Due to the high average age and the comparatively high level of assimilation among the German minority, Germans as well as Slovaks usually do not reach the required minimum to be provided with their own classes. The German minority has long been demanding bilingual classes instead, arguing that both Czech and German children will benefit. However, the decision on the establishment of bilingual classes is left to school headmasters who have failed to act.

Further, the German minority is disappointed about the lack of interest among Czech authorities to protect their endangered heritage. The President of the Assembly of Germans in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, Mrs. Irene Kunc, said that the situation has worsened after the former Minister, Dr. Petr Mareš, resigned in 2003 adding that all petitions and appeals of the German minority have been ignored.

In comparison, the much smaller Czech minority in neighboring Austria qualifies for Part 3 protection according to the ECRML, while the Sorbs of Germany, closely related to the Czechs linguistically, enjoy Part 3 protection in their traditional area of settlement, regardless of the percentage of native speakers left.

From the historical point of view, the German minority of the Czech part of former Czechoslovakia numbered 3.5 million people (that was one third of the entire population) before the World War II. In some regions, mainly in the so-called Sudetenland, Germans constituted the overwhelming majority.

In the final days of World War II, around half a million Germans escaped the country and more than 2.5 million were later forcibly expropriated and expelled on the basis of the Beneš Decrees. These Decrees are still valid despite ongoing protests by expellees, members of the German minority, human rights activists and parts of the international community.

Immediately after the war, many members of the German minority died due to mass murder, forced labor and other forms of mistreatment. An estimated 200,000 Germans, many of them members of the anti-Nazi resistance or German Jews, remained in the country, but were not allowed to use their native language in public. German children were not provided with education in their native tongue. The Germans, still the country's largest minority group until the 1970s, had their German signage abolished and replaced with Czech names. Monuments - in some instances even whole cemeteries - were destroyed if they contained German writings. Post-War Czechoslovakia aimed to erase all traces and memories of anything German, although German language and culture were an integral part of the country's heritage for centuries.

Most German parents were forced to assimilate and speak Czech with their children to protect them from daily discrimination. Today, there are only 40,000 Germans left in the Czech Republic.

Source: Eurolang News, May 14, 2007 by Peter Josika http://www.eurolang.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2875&Itemid=1&lang=en

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