Prague Winter, page 42
MAY 16, 1935: Czechoslovak-USSR Treaty signed
MAY 19, 1935: Czechoslovak elections; big gains for German nationalists
DECEMBER 18, 1935: Beneš becomes president
SEPTEMBER 14, 1937: Death of Tomáš Masaryk
SEPTEMBER 15, 1938: First Hitler-Chamberlain meeting, Berchtesgaden
SEPTEMBER 22, 1938: Second Hitler-Chamberlain meeting, Godesberg
SEPTEMBER 30, 1938: Third Hitler-Chamberlain meeting, joined by Daladier and Mussolini, Munich agreement
OCTOBER 1, 1938: German troops enter the Sudetenland
OCTOBER 5, 1938: Beneš resigns
OCTOBER 22, 1938: Beneš enters exile
MARCH 14, 1939: Slovakia declares independence
MARCH 15, 1939: Germany invades what is left of Czecho-Slovakia; declares protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
AUGUST 23, 1939: Hitler-Stalin pact
World War II
1939
SEPTEMBER 1: Germany invades Poland
SEPTEMBER 3: Great Britain and France declare war on Germany; Czechoslovak National Committee created
NOVEMBER 30: The Soviet Union invades Finland
1940
APRIL 9: Germany invades Norway and Denmark
MAY 10: Winston Churchill becomes prime minister
MAY 10: Germany invades the Low Countries, then France
JUNE 22: Capitulation of France
JULY 21: The British recognize the provisional Czechoslovak government in exile
AUGUST: The Battle of Britain commences
SEPTEMBER 7: Bombing shifts from coastal areas to London; the Blitz begins
NOVEMBER 13: Beneš moves to Aston Abbotts
1941
JUNE 22: Germany invades the USSR
JULY 18: Great Britain and Soviet Union recognize Czechoslovak government in exile
SEPTEMBER 27: Reinhard Heydrich is appointed acting reichsprotektor
DECEMBER 7: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor; the United States enters the war the next day
1942
MAY 27: Attack by Czechoslovak assassins on Heydrich
JUNE 4: Heydrich dies
JUNE 10: Destruction of Lidice
JUNE 16: Assassins trapped in church basement; shot or commit suicide
AUGUST 5: Great Britain officially revokes the Munich agreement
1943
JANUARY: Churchill and FDR meet in Casablanca
MAY 12: Beneš begins visit to Washington
JULY 10: Allied invasion of Sicily commences
SEPTEMBER 3: Italy surrenders
NOVEMBER 28–December 1: Meeting of Big Three in Tehran
DECEMBER 12: In Moscow, Beneš signs treaty with USSR
1944
JUNE 6: Normandy Invasion, D-Day
JUNE 13: Germans begin V-1 (“doodlebug”) attacks
AUGUST 1: Warsaw uprising
AUGUST 25: Liberation of Paris
AUGUST 29: Slovak uprising begins
SEPTEMBER 3: Allies take Brussels
SEPTEMBER 12: First V-2 bombs (“gooney birds”) launched against Great Britain
DECEMBER 16: Battle of the Ardennes begins
1945
FEBRUARY 4–11: The Big Three meet in Yalta
MARCH 11: Beneš flies to Moscow
APRIL 4: Beneš, in Kosice, announces the program of the postwar Czechoslovak government
APRIL 12: Franklin Roosevelt dies
APRIL 25: UN conference begins in San Francisco
APRIL 28: Mussolini is killed
APRIL 30: Hitler commits suicide
MAY 5: Prague uprising begins
MAY 8: V-E Day
Postwar
1945
MAY 9: Red Army enters Prague
MAY 16: Government in exile returns to Prague
JULY 17–AUGUST 2: Potsdam meeting of the heads of the Allied powers
DECEMBER: U.S. and Soviet troops withdraw from Czechoslovakia
1946
MARCH 5: Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech
MAY 26: Czechoslovak Communists triumph in parliamentary elections
JULY 29–OCTOBER 15: Paris Peace Conference
1947
JUNE 5: Marshall Plan is announced
JULY 9: Stalin forbids Czechoslovak participation in Marshall Plan
1948:
FEBRUARY 25: Communist coup
MARCH 10: Jan Masaryk found dead
MARCH 13: Jan Masaryk’s funeral
JUNE 7: Beneš resigns
SEPTEMBER 3: Beneš dies
1952
DECEMBER 3: Vlado Clementis and thirteen other Czechoslovak officials condemned and executed.
Körbel (Korbel)–Spiegel Chronology
JUNE 7, 1878: Arnošt Körbel is born
SEPTEMBER 20, 1909: Josef Körbel is born
MAY 11, 1910: Anna Spiegelová is born
1933: Josef Körbel completes his doctorate
NOVEMBER 22, 1934: Josef Körbel joins the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs
APRIL 20, 1935: Wedding of Josef Körbel and Anna Spiegelová
JANUARY 1937: Josef Körbel assigned to embassy in Belgrade
MAY 15, 1937: Maria Jana “Madlenka” Körbelová is born
NOVEMBER 1938: Josef Körbel is withdrawn from Belgrade
MARCH 25, 1939: Körbel family escapes Prague
MAY 1939: Korbel family arrives in England
JULY 1, 1939: Dáša Deimlová boards “Winton” train in Prague
SEPTEMBER 1939: First BBC broadcasts by Czechoslovak government in exile
SUMMER 1940: Korbel family moves to Princes House, 52 Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill Gate
MAY 1941: Family moves in briefly with Jan “Honza” Körbel’s family
JUNE 11, 1942: Růžena Spiegelová arrives in Terezín; three days later, is sent on transport to the east, probably to Trawniki
JULY 30, 1942: Arnošt and Olga Körbel arrive at Terezín
SEPTEMBER 18, 1942: Arnošt Körbel dies at Terezín
OCTOBER 7, 1942: Kathy Korbelová is born; Madeleine starts kindergarten (Kensington High School for Girls)
NOVEMBER 26, 1942: Rudolf Deiml and Greta and Milena Deimlová arrive at Terezín
FEBRUARY 15, 1943: Greta Deimlová dies of typhoid at Terezín
MAY 1943: Korbel family moves to Walton-on-Thames (shares house with Goldstücker family); Madeleine enrolls in Ingomar school
SEPTEMBER 28, 1944: Rudolf Deiml is transported to Auschwitz
OCTOBER 23, 1944: Olga Körbelová and Milena Deimlová are transported to Auschwitz
MAY 1945: Josef Korbel returns to Prague
JULY 1945: Mandula, Madeleine, and Kathy Korbelová and Dáša Deimlová return to Prague
SEPTEMBER 28, 1945: Korbels arrive in Belgrade
JUNE–AUGUST 1946: Josef Korbel attends Paris Peace Conference
JANUARY 15, 1947: Jan “John” Korbel is born, Belgrade
FEBRUARY 5, 1948: Josef Korbel is asked by Czechoslovak government to serve as its representative on the UN Commission on Kashmir
MAY 13, 1948: Josef Korbel is officially named to UN Commission on Kashmir
NOVEMBER 11, 1948: Korbel family (except for Josef) arrives in United States
DECEMBER 1948: Josef Korbel joins family in United States
JUNE 7, 1949: Korbel family is granted political asylum in the United States
Notes
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Setting Out
4 “so she is not”: Božena Nĕmcová, The Grandmother: A Story of Country Life in Bohemia [1852] (Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1892), 231.
6 “On a high mountain”: Mandula Korbel, unpublished essay, 1977.
PART I: BEFORE MARCH 15, 1939
1. An Unwelcome Guest
15 “The Czechs may squeal”: Adolf Hitler, quoted in Callum MacDonald and Jan Kaplan, Prague: In the Shadow of the Swastika (London: Quartet Books, 1995), 19.
2. Tales of Bohemia
17 “A scholar,” wrote my father: Josef Korbel, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia: The Meaning of Its History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 5.
18 “Promised Land”: Quotations in this section are adapted from the Bohemian chronicle of Cosmas (1045–1125). Secondary sources include Kathy and Joe T. Vosoba, Tales of the Czechs (Wilber, Neb.: Nebraska Czechs of Wilber, 1983), and J. M. Lutzow, The Story of Prague (London: Dent, 1902).
23 “This wicked people”: Pope Pius II, quoted in J. V. Polišenský, History of Czechoslovakia in Outline (Prague: Bohemia International, 1991), 48.
26 “My whole life”: Jan Ámos Komenský, quoted in Vosoba, Tales of the Czechs, 53.
3. The Competition
31 “A Czech does not rely”: Karel Havlíček, “Pan-Slavism Declined,” in From Absolutism to Revolution (1648–1848), ed. Herbert H. Rowen (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 289.
31 “When a Czech owns”: Ladislav Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 75.
31 “The Czech skull is impervious”: Theodor Mommsen, quoted in Tomáš G. Masaryk, Problem of a Small Nation (Prague: Trigon Press, 2010), 66.
33 “If every Czech person”: Tahra Zahra, Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for the Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 30.
35 “Poor Jews”: Herzl, quoted in Lisa Rothkirchen, Jews of Bohemia and Moravia (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2005), 21.
35 “all kinds of ways”: T. G. Masaryk, quoted in Karel Čapek, Talks with T. G. Masaryk (North Haven, Conn.: Catbird Press, 1995), 42–43.
37 “He didn’t know”: Ibid., 143.
38 “love of nation”: T. G. Masaryk, Problem of a Small Nation, 22.
38 “Every Sunday,” he said: T. G. Masaryk, quoted in Čapek, Talks with T. G. Masaryk, 77.
4. The Linden Tree
40 “artificial state”: T. G. Masaryk, memorandum for British friends, April 1915, included in R. W. Seton-Watson, Masaryk in England (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press; New York: Macmillan, 1943), 122–123.
41 “Death to the enemy!”: Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk (New York: Penguin, 1973), 213.
42 “It is up to us”: Jan Janák, quoted in Victor S. Mamatey, “The Birth of Czechoslovakia: Union of Two Peoples,” in Czechoslovakia: The Heritage of Ages Past: Essays in Memory of Josef Korbel, ed. Hans Brisch and Ivan Volgyes (New York: East European Quarterly, Columbia University Press, 1979), 81.
42 “somewhat touchy”: T. G. Masaryk, Svĕtová Revoluce: Za Valky a ve Valce (Prague: Čin-Praha, 1938), 365.
43 “all branches of the Slav race”: Secretary of State Robert Lansing, June 24, 1918, quoted in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1918, vol. 10, suppl. 1 ( Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1933), 816.
43 “I was just nine years old”: J. Korbel, essay written for fiftieth anniversary of Czechoslovak Independence Day, unpublished.
44 “Beneš and Masaryk were”: Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2001), 229–230.
44 “at eleven o’clock”: Isaiah Bowman, U.S. delegate, quoted in Mary Heimann, Czechoslovakia: The State That Failed (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010), 58.
49 “trousers hung like an accordion”: J. Korbel, unpublished manuscript.
50 “I had a very nice childhood”: M. Korbel, interview by Katie Albright, unpublished.
50 “Joe was certainly a man”: M. Korbel, essay, 1977.
52 “As other European countries went”: J. Korbel, quoted in Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax Books, 2003), 6.
53 “There he was”: J. Korbel, speech draft in honor of T. G. Masaryk’s one hundredth birthday, February 27, 1950, unpublished.
54 “captivated by radicalism and socialism”: Compton Mackenzie, Dr Beneš (London: George G. Harrap, 1946), 36–37.
55 “rip the enemy apart”: Kliment Voroshilov, quoted in Igor Lukes, Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Eduard Beneš in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 53–55.
56 “That man for chancellor?”: President Hindenburg, quoted in Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 1: The Gathering Storm (London: Houghton-Mifflin, 1948), 62.
5. A Favorable Impression
58 “You heard only”: Peter Demetz, Prague in Black and Gold: Scenes from the Life of a European City (New York: Hill and Wang, 1997), 363.
58 “the awakener”: Eduard Beneš, funeral oration for T. G. Masaryk, September 21, 1937, quoted in Compton Mackenzie, Dr Beneš (London: George G. Harrap, 1946), 138.
59 “My satisfaction,” he explained: Masaryk, quoted in Karel Čapek, Talks with T. G. Masaryk (North Haven, Conn.: Catbird Press, 1995), 248.
60 “We love Beneš”: Josef Korbel, Tito’s Communism (Denver: University of Denver Press, 1951), 4.
61 “We shall never be able”: Adolf Hitler, quoted in J. W. Bruegel, Czechoslovakia Before Munich (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 160.
62 “We have lived with the Czech[s]”: Franz Spina, December 26, 1926, quoted in ibid., 79.
63 “To judge by his personality”: R. H. Hadow, British legation in Prague, cable to London, December 27, 1935, quoted in ibid., 137.
63 “One wonders why Dr. Beneš”: Hadow, cable to London, January 31, 1936, quoted in ibid., 137.
63 “He makes a most favorable”: Vansittart, quoted in ibid., 138–139.
64 “He goes wherever I do”: Masaryk, quoted in Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, Comes the Reckoning (London: Putnam, 1947), 61.
65 “an inexorable first draft”: Thomas Mann, foreword to Erika Mann, School for Barbarians (New York: Modern Age Books, 1938), 6–7.
66 “the glory of the German nation”: Ibid.
66 “education must have the sole object”: Hitler, quoted in ibid., 20.
67 “History is replete”: Churchill, Great Contemporaries (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 165.
68 “Those who have met Hitler”: Ibid., 170.
68 “I only wish”: Lloyd George, quoted in Lynne Olson, Troublesome Young Men: The Churchill Conspiracy of 1940 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 68–69.
69 “On all these matters”: Halifax, quoted in Igor Lukes, Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Eduard Beneš in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 82–83.
70 “It is well”: Baldwin, address to the House of Commons, November 1933, quoted in Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 211.
71 “It takes time”: John F. Kennedy, Why England Slept (New York: Wilfred Funk, 1940), 5.
6. Out from Behind the Mountains
72 “Before civilization dawned”: Voskovec and Warich, quoted in Hana Stránská, unpublished manuscript, 1994.
73 “I’d dedicate the combined power”: T. G. Masaryk, quoted in Karel Čapek, Talks with T. G. Masaryk (North Haven, Conn.: Catbird Press, 1995), 247.
75 “respect of the human person”: Beneš, speaking in Liberec, August 19, 1936, quoted in Radomír Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans: A Study of Czech-German Relations, 1933–1962 (New York: New York University Press, 1964), 90.
75 “really wishes to improve”: Ernst Eisenlohr, German minister in Prague, November 11, 1937, quoted in J. W. Bruegel, Czechoslovakia Before Munich (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 161.
75 “has made the internal appeasement”: Eisenlohr, December 21, 1937, quoted in ibid., 167.
75 If Hitler, he said: František Moravec, Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General František Moravec (London: Bodley Head, 1975), 117.
75 “I once saw the president’s”: Compton Mackenzie, Dr Beneš (London: George G. Harrap, 1946), 263–264.
76 “mathematician of politics”: Josef Korbel, Twentieth Century Czechoslovakia: The Meaning of Its History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977), 129.
76 “not in a warlike”: Telford Taylor, Munich: The Price of Peace (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 368.
77 The land where Schubert had been born: Marcia Davenport, “Elegy for Vienna,” in Marcia Davenport, Too Strong for Fantasy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967), 245.
77 “Sagen Sie in Prag”: Igor Lukes, Czechoslovakia Between Stalin and Hitler: The Diplomacy of Eduard Beneš in the 1930s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 124.
77 “even a boa constrictor”: Exchange between Halifax and Jan Masaryk, London, March 13, 1939, quoted in ibid., 129.
77 “We must always demand”: Henlein, quoted in ibid., 142.
78 “solve the German problem”: Directive by Supreme Commander, Wehrmacht, December 21, 1937, quoted in Breugel, Czechoslovakia Before Munich, 185.
78 “It was of utmost importance”: Harwood L. Childs and John B. Whitton, Propaganda by Short Wave (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1942), 37.
79 To lift his spirits: Madeleine Jana Korbel, “Zdenĕk Fierlinger’s Role in the Communization of Czechoslovakia: The Profile of a Fellow Traveler,” Wellesley College, May 1959, 24.
7. “We Must Go On Being Cowards”
81 “You have only to look”: Alexander Cadogan, The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan (1938–1945), ed. David Dilks (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972), 65.
82 “His Majesty’s Government could not”: Ibid., 78.
82 “the German Government”: Halifax, quoted in J. W. Bruegel, Czechoslovakia Before Munich (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 199.
83 “Is it not positively horrible”: Chamberlain, quoted in Cadogan, Diaries, 92.
