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Topic: Benes decrees


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In the News (Wed 2 Dec 09)

  
  Beneš decrees - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Beneš decrees (Czech: Benešovy dekrety; German: Benesch-Dekrete; Slovak: Benešove dekréty; Hungarian: Benes dekrétumok) refers to a series of laws enacted by the Czechoslovak government of exile during World War II in absence of Czechoslovak parliament (see details in Czechoslovakia: World War II (1939 - 1945)).
All of the decrees were retroactively ratified by the Provisional National Assembly on March 5, 1946 by constitutional act No. 57/1946 Sb.
The Beneš decrees are most often associated with ethnic cleansing in 1945-47 of about three million former Czechoslovak citizens of German ethnicity (see Sudetenland) in the Czechoslovakia to Germany and Austria.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Bene%C5%A1_decrees   (941 words)

  
 Edvard Beneš - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In 1912 Beneš taught at the Charles University of Prague, and from 1916-1918 he was a Secretary of the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris and Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs within the Provisional Czechoslovak government.
The so-called Beneš decrees, which, among other things, expropriated ethnic German and Hungarian Czechoslovakians, paved the way for the eventual expulsion of 2.4 million ethnic Germans to Germany and Austria, which was approved by the Allies at the Potsdam conference.
The decrees (still in force to this day) are disputed, but both the European Parliament and the European Commission established that they are not contradictory to the law of the EU
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Edvard_Benes   (675 words)

  
 Benes Decrees - George Anthony
The Benes Decrees: that’s the laconic name used today for the laws issued by Czechoslovakia’s President Edvard Benes (1860-1948) while he was in exile during WWII and after the liberation, before the country’s post-war parliament took over his functions and endorsed the decrees.
Some people are blaming the Benes Decrees for the transfer (or resettlement) in 1945-47 of about three million former Czechoslovak citizens of German nationality from the Czechoslovak Republic to Germany.
All the nonsense which is being talked about the Benes Decrees has one specific purpose: to force the Czech Republic to pay compensation for the property confiscated, even though international treaties expressly prohibit Germany from making such claims against  states which, like Czechoslovakia, were part of the anti-Hitler coalition.
www.spectrezine.org /global/Benes.htm   (517 words)

  
 RADIO FREE EUROPE/ RADIO LIBERTY
The decrees were issued between 1940 and 1946 by Czechoslovak President Eduard Benes while in exile in London, and on Czechoslovak territory from the spring of 1945 until the first free postwar parliamentary elections one year later.
The presidential decree of 1 February 1945, known as the "retribution decree," was issued when the end of the war was still more than three months away and President Benes and his government were still in exile in London.
Jicinsky notes that the Benes Decrees were issued as the result of Germany's defeat after an all-out war in a bid to re-establish the Czechoslovak state within its borders and above all to create the legal framework for expelling -- or as he says "transferring" -- the ethnic German population.
www.rferl.org /features/2002/03/01032002095607.asp   (1967 words)

  
 HUNSOR ~ Hungarian Swedish Online Resources
Benes proclaimed the program of the newly appointed Czechoslovak government on April 5, 1945, in the northeastern city of Kosice (Kassa, Kaschau), which included inhuman elements of oppression and barbarous persecution of the non-Czech, non-Slovak and non-allied population of the partially restored Czechoslovak Republic.
Benes' pathological hatred and ruthless persecution of his political opponents was ended by a coup d'etat of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in February 1948.
The revocation of the Benes decrees of 1945-1948 has been demanded for years by the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft of Germany and Austria, the German federal government of Helmut Kohl and by several German and Austrian state governments, as a precondition for admission of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic to the European Union.
www.hunsor.se /se/benesdecrees.htm   (6351 words)

  
 Weblication® CMS   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
The validity of those decrees, laws and protocols was refreshed and prolonged by laws No.229/1991 and No.330/1991 to exclude the Hungarians in Slovakia from restitution of landed property to their former proprietors or their legal heirs.
Presidential decree No. 88/1945 of October 17, 1945 assigned Hungarian men between 16 and 55 years of age and women between 18 and 55 years of age for slave labour on the vacant land left behind by the expelled German population from Bohemia and Moravia, and their properties were confiscated in favour of the state.
Benes’ pathological hatred and ruthless persecution of is political opponents was ended by a coup d’état of the Czechoslovak Communist Party on February 25, 1948.
www.sudeten.at /wDeutsch/wersindwir/archiv/aufsatz_english.shtml   (2537 words)

  
 Legal opinion on Benes decrees
In the latter resolution the European Parliament welcomed “the Czech government’s willingness to scrutinise the laws and decrees of the Beneš government, dating from 1945 and 1946 and which are still on the statute books, to ascertain whether they run counter to EU law in force and the Copenhagen criteria”.
These confiscation decrees were supplemented by Decree of 25 October 1945 (No. 108) according to which all property rights of people of German or Hungarian nationality were confiscated except of those who had remained loyal to Czechoslovakia.
However, it is clear that the Decree was considered to have been validly adopted and having had the legal effect of transferring property originally held by those against whom the measures of confiscation were taken.
kbdesign.sk /cla/projects/benes/related/legal_opinion_benes_decrees.htm   (4462 words)

  
 Sobaka :: By Any Other Name: Hungary, Apartheid and the Benes Decrees   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
It is the shadow of the Benes decrees, dormant legislation passed in and after the last grim days of the Nazi regime, in which some (though not all) of the German minority in the Sudetenland and elsewhere had participated.
These decrees sent millions of people, who had lived in the region for many centuries, off in sealed wagons, away from their homes, their families - not to mention the odd ones who died on the trip.
ONE MAY BE forgiven for suspecting, by the casual way the Benes Decrees are often disparaged by commentators, that many of those who write about the Decrees have never taken the trouble to read them.
www.diacritica.com /sobaka/2003/benes.html   (3310 words)

  
 The "Benes decrees" - a historian's point of view - 18-08-2003 - Radio Prague
The so-called "Benes decrees" that politicians, journalists, lawyers and property claimants frequently refer to, are in simple terms usually described as "post-war legislation that sanctioned the expulsion of ethnic Germans and Hungarians from Czechoslovakia and the confiscation of their property".
Of course, there are some decrees, now laws, still valid but, I think that the problem of the validity of the so-called "Benes decrees" is in fact connected with the Czechoslovak restitutional laws after 1989 which opened some questions of our history.
There is a second problem to it and it is that the so-called "Benes decrees" are a kind of symbol or the wartime and post-war development in the Czechoslovak-German relations.
www.radio.cz /en/article/44227   (1487 words)

  
 University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
Pursuant to the Decrees issued by the Czechoslovak President Edward Benes, No. 12 of 21 June 1945 and No. 108 of 25 October 1945, houses and agricultural property of persons of German and Hungarian ethnic origin were confiscated.
These Decrees were applied to the Schwarzenberg estate, on the ground that Schwarzenberg was an ethnic German, notwithstanding the fact that he had always been a loyal Czechoslovak citizen and defended Czechoslovak interests.
It is assumed that the uniform negative decrees from various land authorities were issued on instruction from the Ministry itself, as the Ministry has instructed the land authorities on other procedures concerning the author.
hei.unige.ch /humanrts/undocs/757-1997.html   (5337 words)

  
 Österreichs Bundesheer - ÖMZ - Ausgabe 4/2003 - Summary: The Benes Decrees - Bilateral and Multilateral Aspects
After a long period of silence, the Benes Decrees suddenly became the focus of attention again, due to the upcoming EU membership of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
At the core of the relevant Benes Decrees is the collective uncompensated dispossession of German and Hungarian speaking minorities who were also collectively deprived of their Czech citizenship.
In line with these decrees and on the basis of official and semiofficial calls the minorities in question were expelled, though an explicit "expulsion decree” never got beyond its first draft stage.
www.bmlv.gv.at /omz/ausgaben/artikel.php?id=132   (469 words)

  
 BeneS Eduard: Free Encyclopedia Articles at Questia.com Online Library   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
Named after Czechoslovakias postwar president, Eduard Benes, the decrees provided for the expulsion of ethnic Hungarians (as well as ethnic Germans) from Czechoslovakia in the...
BENES, EDUARD e dooart be nesh, 1884 1948, Czechoslovakian president (1935 38, 1946...nationalist party, unlike its German counterpart), and right-hand man of Masaryk, Benes influenced both national and European politics.
Benes resigned the presidency in October...After the outbreak of World War II, Benes set up a provisional government in...
www.questia.com /library/encyclopedia/benes_eduard.jsp   (1445 words)

  
 Jurisprudence - CCPR - Czech Republic - Schlosser v. Czech Republic
The author submits the text of the decrees and a copy of the relevant pages from the registry book of Chabarovice, Usti nad Labem, which show that the property was confiscated pursuant to the Benes Decrees.
Moreover, the Benes Decrees were reaffirmed in the judgment of the Czech Constitutional Court of 8 March 1995.
Furthermore, he argues that the Constitutional Court's decision of 8 March 1995, which confirmed the continuing validity of the Benes Decrees, is a confirmation of a past violation and thus brings the communication within the applicability of the Covenant and the Optional Protocol.
www.bayefsky.com /html/104_czechrepublic096.php   (2972 words)

  
 The Prague Post Online
Benes was a co-founder of Czechoslovakia in 1918.
Historians continue to explore the roles played by Benes during the period of the Munich crisis in 1938, shortly before Nazi Germany seized all of the Czech lands, and during the communist takeover in 1948.
Indeed, Benes is remembered primarily as the statesman who lost his country to Hitler in 1938 and to Stalin in 1948.
www.praguepost.com /P03/2004/Art/0401/opinpv.php   (679 words)

  
 Debate on Benes decrees still agile among right wing MEPs
BRUSSELS/STRASBOURG, March 11 - The debate on Czechoslovakia's post-war Benes decrees continues to stir atmosphere in the European People's Party (EPP) group in the EP and excite mainly its German and Austrian members, as was also proved by a public discussion in the EP today.
On the basis of the decrees issued by then President Edvard Benes, about 2.5 million of ethnic Germans were transferred from Czechoslovakia, mainly the border regions (Sudetenland) and their property was confiscated after World War Two.
The EP rapporteur for the Czech Republic, Juergen Schroeder from the German opposition CDU, called for a balanced approach, for the need to assess the decrees in the context of the period which began by the accession of Nazism in Germany, and as a reaction to the wartime occupation of the Czech Lands by Germany.
www.charlestannock.com /pressarticle.asp?ID=100   (556 words)

  
 Benes's Electoral Second Coming — Jiří Pehe
Austrian populist Joerg Haider threatened to block the Czech Republic's accession to the EU unless Prague abolished the Benes decrees.
For its part, the EU has requested a legal analysis of the decrees, and the European Parliament passed a resolution demanding any discriminatory provisions be abolished by the Czechs.
As the Benes decrees become electoral propaganda, all attempts at discussing this complex problem quickly degenerate into political muscle-flexing.
www.pehe.cz /clanky/2002/2002-06-11-wsj.htm?p=2   (1159 words)

  
 The Prague Post Online
The decrees, issued by Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes in the wake of the Nazi defeat in 1945, also initiated the seizure of expellees' property without compensation.
The postwar laws and presidential decrees were implemented in the period after they were issued and no new legal relations can be established on their basis today.
Government leaders in Prague have insisted that the Benes Decrees are an intrinsic but extinct part of the country's constitutional structure and an inevitable outcome of the war.
www.praguepost.com /P02/2002/20501/news3.php   (772 words)

  
 Warsaw Voice - The Long Shadow of History
Under these decrees, people of German and in part Hungarian origin were expelled from what is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia on charges of collaboration with the Nazis.
Today, many politicians in Germany and Hungary argue that the decrees involved the use of collective responsibility, and that many illegal acts were carried out in the course of their implementation.
In Cimoszewicz's opinion, the radical statement of Orban and the sharp response of the Czech Republic and Slovakia stem from the fact that 2002 is an election year in all three countries.
www1.warsawvoice.pl /archiwum.phtml/1899   (653 words)

  
 NameTraq | Last Name: Benes   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
Under the so-called "Benes Decrees," millions of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians were stripped of their property and expelled.
Under the so-called Benes Decrees issued at the end of World War II, millions of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians were stripped of their property and expelled...
Under the so-called Benes Decrees issued during and after the war, millions of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians were stripped of their property and expelled.
www.nametraq.org /Jan04/B/Benes.shtml   (670 words)

  
 The Prague Post Online
But critics claim it is a provocative monument celebrating the post-World War II Benes Decrees, under which some 2.5 million ethnic Germans living in the Czech lands were deported and their property nationalized.
Gerhard Zeihsel, a representative of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft group in Austria, which opposes the Benes Decrees and wants redress for expellees, said the bust is profoundly offensive.
The Benes Decrees continue to be a political hot potato in relations with this country and Austria and Germany.
www.praguepost.com /P03/2004/Art/0701/news9.php   (958 words)

  
 ISN Security Watch - Czech assembly confirms Benes decrees   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-01)
A set of edicts known as the Benes Decrees deprived some three million ethnic Germans and Hungarians of Czechoslovak citizenship and land after the war, and have for years been condemned as violations of basic human rights.
Politicians in Hungary and Germany have demanded the decrees be cancelled, saying they are incompatible with the Czech drive to join the EU.
This is frightening and makes clear that Benes is still alive." The European Commission has said several times that the row should not effect Czech membership talks with the EU, calling it a bilateral issue.
www.isn.ethz.ch /securitywatch/details_print.cfm?id=4121   (517 words)

  
 Benes Decrees not an obstacle for Czech EU membership, says expert | European Union Enlargement
The Benes Decrees do not represent an obstacle for the Czech Republic to join the European Union, according to a new report, released by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg.
The Benes Decrees led to the expulsion and expropriation of 2.5 million Germans, as well as Austrians and Hungarians, from Czechoslovakia in 1945.
The report also calls for individual cases to be examined to ensure that those condemned in their absence under the Benes Decrees are not further persecuted.
www.euractiv.com /en/enlargement/benes-decrees-obstacle-czech-eu-membership-expert/article-111066?_print   (477 words)

  
 Gerhard Malik (represented by Leewog and Grones, a law firm in Mayen, Germany) v. Czech Republic, Communication No. ...
The author submits the text of the decree and a copy of the relevant page from the registry book in Novy Jicin (Schoenbrunn), which shows that his family's property was confiscated pursuant to Decree No. 108/1945.
Moreover, the Decrees were reaffirmed in the Judgment of the Czech Constitutional Court of 8 March 1995.
In this context the author refers to a recent challenge of the Benes Decrees, which an ethnic German resident in the Czech Republic, brought before the Supreme Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic.
www1.umn.edu /humanrts/undocs/session64/view669.htm   (2838 words)

  
 The Benes decrees: implications for EU enlargement | European Union Enlargement
Moreover, this year’s CDU/CSU governmental programme declares all expulsion decrees and agreements to be contrary to the spirit and letter of EU and international law, and argues that the decrees enshrine ethnic cleansing in law.
After all, the Austro-Bavarian-Hungarian campaign on the Benes decrees has been conducted under the EU umbrella, and there is a danger that this campaign will turn the Czech opinion against the EU as a result.
It is unlikely that the issue of the Benes decrees could disrupt the closing stage of negotiations, but it could sour the atmosphere.
www.euractiv.com /Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-110130-16&type=Analysis   (1480 words)

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