Ústí massacre
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| Flight and expulsion of Germans during and after World War II |
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| (demographic estimates) |
| Background |
| Wartime flight and evacuation |
| Post-war flight and expulsion |
| Later emigration |
| Other themes |
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The Ústí massacre (Czech: Ústecký masakr, German: Massaker von Aussig) was a lynching of ethnic Germans in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a largely ethnic German city in northern parts of the Bohemian Sudetenland, that occurred shortly after the end of World War II, on 31 July 1945, triggered by the explosion of munitions dump. The Massacre is sometimes reffered to as a german pogrom.[1] Neither the reason for the explosion or subsequent pogrom has ever been conclusively identified, the official investigation placed the blame on the Nazi Werwolf forces, however contemporary historians dispute this as there exist additional equally reasonable possibilities. Estimates of victims range from 80 to 100, only 43 are conclusively identified as related to the massacre.
Munitions explosion and subsequent pogrom
[edit]On July 31, at 15:30, an ammunition dump in Ústí nad Labem in Krásné Březno exploded. The death toll was 27 people[2] (7 of them Czechs), dozens were injured.[citation needed]
Immediately after the explosion, a massacre of ethnic Germans, who had to wear white armbands after the war and so were easy to identify, began in three places in the city, the local train station, the Dr. Edvard Beneš bridge and a local pond used as a supply of water for fire hydrants.[3] They were beaten, bayoneted, shot or drowned in the pond.[4] On Beneš bridge, the German Georg Schörghuber shouted something provocative and was thrown by a present crowd into the Elbe river below, he was then shot at by soldiers when he tried to swim out of the river. Soon after other people began joining in the attacking of other germans. Some local Czech residents of Ústí tried to help the victims, some by trying to alert unaware ethnic germans to what was happening, others by physically fighting the attackers or by hiding or sheltering those who were attacked. An examples of this was a Dutch ship anchored below the Beneš bridge who sheltered a woman with a baby and pram, who were thrown into the Elbe river and shot at, another was Josef Vondra, the towns mayor, who tried to prevent the attacks.[how?][2]
The perpetrators were the Revolutionary Guards (a post-war paramilitary group), Czechoslovak and Soviet soldiers, and a group of Czechs who had arrived on a train the same day as the massacre occurred from Prague. Eventually,[when?] a state of emergency and a curfew were declared, and by 18:25, streets had been cleared by the army.[2]
Count of victims
[edit]Estimates for the number of victims vary highly, the estimated number of victims is 80–100, with 43 being accounted for specifically. The post war Sudeten Germans organisations give much higher numbers, based on second hand retellings, from 400 up to 8,000.
The 43 identified bodies consist of 24 bodies gathered in the city which were burned in the crematorium of the former concentration camp in Terezín on 1 August; a list was made of the 17 missing clerks from the Schicht factory, who were returning from work by way of the bridge at the time of the explosion; and two are mentioned in other sources. In Germany, several dozen bodies were recovered from the Elbe river in the following weeks; however, these could have come from elsewhere.[3]
Cause and investigations
[edit]Concrete reasons and if there were organizers behind the massacre and explosion remain disputed and largely speculative. Historian Jaroslav Rokoský at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University stated in an interview with Czech Radio that "[what or whom caused the munitions explosion] isn't clear". Vladimír Keiser, the former director of Ústí nad Labem archives, stated in the same interview "there are about 8 hypotheses, all of which are credible". Other historians, such as František Hanzlík, who was present in the city at the time as a child, disagree and find an accident to be the most likely explanation, stating "There were more similar explosions like this after the war. [It's just that those explosions] didn't happen ... in a city", Hanzlík attributes the explosion to a misfiring of a Panzerfaust.[2][4]
Official investigation by Czechoslovak goverment
[edit]The day following the massacre, 1 August, the government of Czechoslovakia established an investigation commission led by General Ludvík Svoboda and Václav Nosek. The commission was not able to discover the reason for the explosion but attributed it to Werwolves (Nazi saboteurs).[2] Related to the investigation was a similar incident 5 days prior when a train wagon with dinamite was set on fire, which likely added to the conclusion that the explosion was intentional.[4]
Contemporary investigations
[edit]After the 1989 Velvet Revolution, city archivist Vladimír Kaiser started to investigate the event, most recently publishing the results together with Jan Havel, another Ústí citizen, and German historian Otfrid Pustejovsky as Stalo se v Ústí nad Labem 31. července 1945.[5] They concluded that while only indirect evidence survived, it was conclusive enough to show that the explosion and massacre were prepared by Communists within the Czechoslovak secret services, specifically Bedřich Pokorný, a communist sercret service officer and leader of Ministry of Interior's Defensive Intelligence (Obranné zpravodajství) department who organised the Brno death march. The speculated motive for this was orchestrating an incident which would support the transfer of Germans from Czechoslovakia by presenting to the Potsdam Conference an argument that further cohabitation of Germans with Czechs was impossible. [2]
In a 2000 issue of Lidové Noviny, Vladimír Kaiser also shared a hypothesis that the motive was the Western powers' interest in destroying the new Daimler-Benz DB 605 airplane engines, also stored in the ammunition dump. This was found to be far-fetched and untenable by Jiří Loewy, a chief-redactor at the Právo lidu Newspaper.[6][failed verification]
Consequences
[edit]The explosion and subsequent massacre were used as a pretext by advocates of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia.[3] During the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia (1948–1989) details of the event were suppressed, to the point of it being almost unknown to most Czechs.[citation needed]
Memorial
[edit]On the 60 year anniversary of the event, 31 July 2005, the mayor of Ústí unveiled a memorial plaque on the Dr. Edvard Beneš bridge with the text "In the memory of victims of violence on 31 July 1945", in two langauges, czech and german.[7]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Le « pogrom » anti-allemand d'Usti nad Labem : quelle prise de position, 60 ans après ?". Radio Prague International (in French). 2005-08-01. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
- ^ a b c d e f "Masakr na mostě v Ústí nad Labem. Rekonstrukce nepotrestaného poválečného zločinu na Němcích". iROZHLAS (in Czech). 2020-07-31. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
- ^ a b c "Výbuch muničního skladiště v Krásném Březně a masakr německého obyvatelstva 31. července 1945". Dějiny města Ústí nad Labem. Statutární město Ústí nad Labem oficiální stránky / úřední. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
- ^ a b c Roček, František (2025-04-29). "Krvavé úterý na mostě v Ústí nad Labem. Pogromu na Němce 31. července 1945 jako zázrakem unikly dvě ženy s kočárky". Literární noviny (in Czech). Retrieved 2025-04-29.
- ^ Havel, Jan; Kaiser, Vladimír; Pustejovsky, Otfrid; Pustojevský, Otfrid (2005). Stalo se v Ústí nad Labem 31. července 1945. Memorabilia ustensis. Ústí nad Labem: Město Ústí nad Labem. ISBN 978-80-86646-11-4.
- ^ "Motory z Krásného Března". 2000-08-14. Archived from the original on August 20, 2000. Retrieved 2016-02-20.
- ^ "Pamětní deska obětem odhalena". web.archive.org. 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
External links
[edit]- (in Czech) Massacre description by Vladimír Kaiser in 1995 city history
- (in Czech) Interview with Jan Havel Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
