Troppau
_Troppau_(capital_till_1919)..jpg)
Troppau was, until 1919, capital of Austrian Silesia. It lies on the Oppa river, the boundary between Prussian and Austrian Silesia. In 1905 its population was 26,700. It is today in the Czech Republic.
Troppau has a long and partly bloody history. Historical sources mentioned it first in 1185; at the beginning ofnthe 13th centuy it was raised to the rank of a city, and for many centuries was the centre of the Duchy of Silesia. From 1848 to 2929 it was the capital of the Austrian Silesia Crown Land. Troppau's historical and political importance is refelcted distinctly in its building development, and the riches of remarkable monuments and works of ecclesiastical and profound arts.[1]
In October-December 1820, the Congress of Troppau took place, a meeting of the Holy Alliance Powers, at which the Troppau Protocol, a declaration of intention to take collective action against revolution, was signed on November 19th. Attended by Emperors Francis I of Austria, Alexander I of Russia, and King Frederick William III of Prussia, their foreign ministers, and observers from Britain and France. Having excluded the latter two from its formal talks, it also adopted a Protocol, generally asserting that states having undergone revolutions would be excluded from the European alliance, that the allied powers would not recognize illegal changes in such states, and that the powers would use force to restore them to the alliance. They later decided to intervene in Naples against the July 1848 revolution there..[2]
Before 1919 the town housed the Kaiser Franz Josef Museum which contained art-industrial collections, casts, and pictures. That year the Paris Peace Treaties included Troppau in the new artificial state[3][4][5] of Czechoslovakia, without a plebiscite.
1945
Following the end of the European war in May 1945 fanatical Czech nationalists and communists determined upon expelling the majority ancient German population from Troppau. This was carried out in the most brutal and atrocious manner. In May 1945 the Czech so-called 'National Guard' issued a Proclamation in Troppau:
- It has been ordered that, effective immediately, all persons of German nationality age 6 and up shall wear the following sign: a white circle 15 centimetres in diameter upon which a 2 cm thick letter "N" of black linen is sewn [presumably for Nazi], whose edge is 1 cm within the edge of the circle. This sign shall be work on the left breast. German Party members must wear this sign on the back. All Germans are forbidden to ride on publi transportation, visit public places of entertainment, or parks! All Germans are forbidden to leave their dwellings after 8 p.m. If Russian or Czech officers are met or chanced upon in the streets or elsewhere, Germans must remove their hats or caps and pass by at an appropriae distance. Store purchases are allowed one hour before closing. The badges must be procured by each german himself in accordance with the prescribed design. non--compliance with the above-mentioned order is punishable. Any citizen of different nationality shall also be sub ject to punishment for aiding, abetting or helping Germans in any manner![6]
However this soon deteriorated. In late 1945 people were taken from the street without any chance being given to contact their families and were piled into trains and dispatched without any of their possessions. The trains, often taking weeks to reach their destinations somewhere in the Soviet zone of occupation, consisted of open cattle trucks, without any heating whatever in spite of the winter, and the people had scarcely any provisions. Countless people perished miserably during these transports. It was organized murder. About 1st May 1946 everyone left was to be removed and could take 50 kilos of luggage, and received, during the first regular transports, the sum of 1,000 Reichsmarks in cash (notwithstanding that this currency was now almost worthless). All were placed in camps where they were isolated their luggage and clothing thoroughly searched. If jewellery, watches, cameras, silverware and similar things were found they were ruthlessly confiscated. On 6 August 1946 six or seven transports with some 1200 people each left Troppau, about 8000 altogether.[7]
Sources
- ↑ Turnwald, W.Ch., The Sudeten German Picture Book, Christ Unterwegs, Munich, 1949, p.85.
- ↑ https://www.britannica.com/event/Congress-of-Troppau
- ↑ The Tragedy of Trianon by Sir Robert Donald, G.B.E., LL.B., London, 1928, pps: 25-6, 57-8.
- ↑ Czecho-Slovakia Within by Count Bertram de Colonna, London, 1938, p.9.
- ↑ The Origins of the Second World War by A. J. P. Taylor, London, 1961, p.201.
- ↑ de Zayas, Alfred-Maurice, A Terrible Revenge:The Ethnic Cleansng of the East European Germans, Second edition, revised and updated, Palgrave Macmillan pubs., May 2006, p.93. ISBN-13: 978-1-4039-7308-5
- ↑ Further horror stories in more gruesome detail may be found in: Schieder, Professor Theodor, editor-in-chief, The Expulsion of the German Population from Czechoslovakia, vols.1 & 2, Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims, Bonn, 1960, "Removal of the German population of Troppau" pps:503-506.
- Baedeker, Karl, Austria-Hungary, 10th edition, revised, Leipzig & London, 1905, p.273.
