Lidice

From Metapedia

railway station of Lidice

Lidice (German: Liditz) is a village in the Czech Republic 16 kilometers northwest of Prague. On May 28, 1942 the village was destroyed by German authorities in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

Accusations

The so called "mass-murder of Lidice" was one of the charges leveled against German authorities by the victorious Allies after World War II, and it received special attention during the Nuremberg trials. The specific charge was that the Germans had murdered two hundred completely innocent Czech males. This claim was later used to justify the expulsion of Germans from the Sudetenland.

Nuremberg Trials

The following is part of the interview of General Paul Hauser of the Waffen-SS during the Nuremberg trials August 6, 1946.

Major Elwyn Jones: “Witness. Did you know, that the Prinz Eugen mountain division is responsible for the bloodshed in Lidice?
Paul Hauser: “I did not understand the name of the location.”
Jones: “Famous village, Lidice. L-i-d-i-c-e.”
Hauser: “I was disarmed in 1941, had nothing to do with that unit.”
Jones: “You heard the name the first time here?”
Hauser: “I would think so.”
Jones: “The whole universe knows the bloodshed at Lidice. You seriously say, you never heard about it? You said, the Prinz Eugen division was part of the SS, did you?”
Hauser: “Yes, I did.”

Hans Fritsche affused in the process in Nuremberg on 27 June, 1946: ... Assassinations will be followed by revenge, and because of these, new assassinations come. I hope, you don't misunderstand me, I do not want to be cynical, when I say: I consider the murder of Heydrich as a little success, the distortion of Lidice as a great success for the Allies.

The Bolshevistic Soviet "pursuer" told about Lidice: "Sirs. The whole world knows the evil deeds of the Hitlerists. Barbares showed their sins. Lidice's distortion was filmed, here the film. The Czechoslovakian government investigated, and found out, that Franz Tremel destroyed Lidice by command of the NSDAP, together with Miroslav Wagner. The documents, I gave you, contain the film of Hitlerist operator, showing the phases of Lidice's destroying. The material is called USSR-370.

Explanation

Since the Nuremberg process the Waffen-SS is accused with the destruction of Lidice. However, there was no Waffen-SS participation in the action; the shooting was carried out by Czech police. The police closed the village on June 9, 1942. Women and children were evacuated before the shooting. The revenge happened, because it was known that the murderers of Heydrich had lived in Lidice before the murder. The purpose of the revenge was to discourage similar actions and to avoid the infiltration of British agents. The count of victims was exaggerated, with the "Times" of London claiming that about twelve thousand inhabitants had been killed.

Official declaration

On June 10, 1942 there was official declaration in Prague: The investigations into the murder of Reinhard Heydrich showed that inhabitants of Lidice at Kladno had helped and supported the murder of the Protector. Investigators found documents detailing actions against the state, weapons and ammunition, and numerous other items in the village that demonstrated that its inhabitants had actively aided foreign enemies. Because the inhabitants of the village disrespected the law by supporting the murders, the women were deported to concentration camps, and the children were sent to boarding schools. The houses of the village were destroyed and Lidice was deleted from the Protectorate's list of villages.

Declaration in 1961

On August 14, 1961 the institute for history declares, signed by Dr Hans Mommsen:

Subject: Distortion of Lidice on June 10, 1942. We let you know:

1. No SS divisions took part in the evacuation and liquidation of Lidice's inhabitants. A Gendarmeri division cared about the inhabitants, leader was lieutenant Max Rostock. The shooting was done by the Gendarmerie of Prague, 30 persons.

2. In the action there was no Waffen-SS participation, the security police did it (Sipo), which worked below the SD (Security service).

After removing the inhabitants, the work-service of the imperium destroyed the houses to deter people from similar support of enemies. Such cases are well known in war history, are usual on both sides, and it is not customary to adjudicate such cases morally.

Comment

When we consider the unimaginable tragedies after the war and in the processes of Nuremberg, the destortion thousands of German villages in East Germany, deliberate killing of millions of Germans in the Rhine-Camps, killing of 250 thousand civilians when attacking Dresden, we must call the played moralistic indignation grotesque at the occasion of the shooting of 173 men, who partly provenly collaborated with the enemy in Lidice. While the world, as the Nuremberg processes state, knew about the Lidice case, is not informed about the greatest sin in human history, the expulsion of 15 million people from their home country, killing millions on the way and the robbery on the way.