I would like to track back to a historical event that impacted all of us, no matter what country we belong to. It shaped the world as we know it today for many of us. I have picked an event that I believe was one of the responsible ones for the path of events that led to World War 2 as we know it and subsequently the future of the Czech nation.
Czech history tracks back to the late ninth century, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire all the way to being a province in the Habsburgs' Austrian Empire. It still has the most castles in Europe. Not only due to its central European location many expressed their interest in the Czech lands. Filling our history with many wars, invasions and deals.
One of the most famous deals was the Munich agreement, also called the Munich betrayal. In the Czech, we mostly call it "About us, without us." Leaders of Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom signed this agreement in 1938, in an attempt to secure peace and prevent war threats by Hitler. Without the Czech having their say. Sudetenland- the territory around the Czech/German/Austria border, which Czech were ready to defend against Hitler (and he feared it), was given to Germany without resistance. The rest of the country meant to be spared. Even though the leftovers of the country were spared of the war devastations another country experienced, Hitler did not stand up to his part of the deal and took over the rest of the lands, creating Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He also took over our, for that time, fairly advanced military, around 500 tanks, over 43 000 machine guns and billion rounds of ammunition. Which just made Hitler's army stronger.
Before WW2, Czechoslovakia was one of the 10 most developed countries in the world and one of the first industrialized countries in Europe, filled with scholars, engineers, scientists and a variety of industries. Needless to say, life was great and the future was looking bright.
In 1939 the war started and with that the extremely long oppression of the Czech nation begun with Hitler being first to take over all the wealth of this beautiful, small yet powerful country. Six long years of terror for the Czechs filled with fear, imprisonment, hiding, deads and holocaust. Until the Soviet Union and its Red Army liberated most of the land with part of the east land being liberated by the Americans. At that time the Czechs had an equal chance to be helped and supported to recover from the war by the Soviets or by the USA. The USA allies were made thanks to our first Czechoslovak President Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. However, the Soviet Union got hold of us and held close guard over all doings, lives and opinions of the population. Many in the world and in Czechoslovakia were waiting for (not only) the Americans to come and save us from the imposed communist regime of the Soviet Union. No one ever came. No US, no France, no UK and no Italy. Mysteriously powerful people of the opposition were disappearing, imprisoned or as the former Foreign minister and son of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk committed suicides. So-called "satellite state" was formed.
In 1968 political liberalization called Prague Spring gave the nation a very brief moment of hope for a better future. It was led by a politician Alexander Dubček. But he was forced to resign. The Soviet Union disliked that Czechoslovakia could detach from them and become more westernized. As a result, the country was invaded by the Warsaw Pact and around 2000 tanks and over 300 000 soldiers invaded the country and stopped Dubček's Prague Spring liberation reform. Over 30 years of inhumane oppression of the Czech nation begun.
Watch this youtube video that shows the moments when the Red Army invaded the country.
That just makes me think, what would happen if the Munich agreement never happened?
What if the Czechs used their military and defended themself against Hitler?
What would be the story of WW2 today? Would it even happen?