20 Facts About Sudeten Germans

German Bohemians, later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands of the Bohemian Crown, which later became an integral part of Czechoslovakia.

The name "Sudeten Germans" was adopted during rising nationalism after the fall of Austria-Hungary after the First World War.

Sudeten Germans were mostly Roman Catholics, a legacy of centuries of Austrian Habsburg rule.

Not all ethnic Sudeten Germans lived in isolated and well-defined areas; for historical reasons, Czechs and Sudeten Germans mixed in many places, and Czech-German bilingualism and code-switching was quite common.

Nevertheless, during the second half of the 19th century, Czechs and Sudeten Germans began to create separate cultural, educational, political and economic institutions, which kept both groups semi-isolated from each other, which continued until the end of the Second World War, when almost all the ethnic Sudeten Germans were expelled.

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Term "Sudeten Germans" came about during rising ethnic nationalism in the early 20th century, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the First World War.

Czechs and Sudeten Germans generally maintained separate schools, churches and public institutions.

Nevertheless, despite the separation, Sudeten Germans often understood some Czech, and Czechs often spoke some German.

Cities like Prague, however, saw more mixing between the ethnicities and had large populations of Jews; Sudeten Germans living with Czechs fluently spoke Czech and code-switched between German and Czech when talking to Czechs and other Sudeten Germans.

In 1864, some Sudeten Germans suggested the creation of a separate Czech university.

The Sudeten Germans vetoed the proposal and called for a full division of the university.

The Upper Palatinate Forest, an area that was primarily populated by Sudeten Germans, extended along the Bavarian frontier to the poor agricultural areas of southern Bohemia.

Many Sudeten Germans felt that the new constitution failed to fulfil what the Czechs had promised in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye because there were too few minority rights.

In 1926, the first Sudeten Germans became minister, and the first German political party became part of the government (German Christian Social People's Party and Farmers' League).

Sudeten Germans representatives tried to join Austria or Germany or at least to obtain as much autonomy.

In 1926, however, German Chancellor Gustav Stresemann, adopting a policy of rapprochement with the West, advised the Sudeten Germans to co-operate actively with the Czechoslovak government.

At a party conference in Teplitz in 1919, the provincial Social Democratic Parties of Bohemia, Moravia and Sudeten Germans-Silesia united to form the Deutsche Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei and elected Josef Seliger as chairman.

Sudeten Germans's mission failed because Henlein refused all conciliating proposals under secret orders by Hitler.

Some 250, 000 Sudeten Germans remained on the Czech side of the border, which later became part of the Reich by the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under German governors and the German Army.

Several thousand Sudeten Germans were murdered during the expulsion, and many more died from hunger and illness as a consequence of becoming refugees.