Word: czechoslovakia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Hitler rose to power in Germany, the Germans in Czechoslovakia saw a redeemer who would bring them home. Hitler was delighted to oblige. He charged that the country's citizens of German origin were being mistreated and must have his protection. Benes, who by then had succeeded Masaryk as President, needed international support in order to stand up to Hitler...
...Munich Conference in 1938, France and Britain forced Czechoslovakia to cede to Germany its western border areas, the Sudetenland where most of the Ger man-speaking population lived. In return, Hitler promised to make no more territorial demands in Europe. Six months later, however, German tanks stormed into Prague without warning, and Nazi Propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels read Hitler's decree to stunned Czechoslovak radio listeners: "Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist!" Benes, who fled abroad, tried to make people outside his country see that what had happened there soon would be repeated elsewhere. Soon enough, all the world realized that...
...occupiers. In one of their retaliation moves, the Germans wiped out the entire village of Lidice. After Germany's defeat, Benes took his regime to Prague and started anew. He faced tremendous obstacles. At the Yalta Conference in 1945, Roosevelt and Churchill acceded to Stalin's demand that Czechoslovakia fall into his sphere of influence after the war. As a result, when General George Patton's tanks prepared to liberate Prague in the war's closing days, orders came from Allied headquarters to halt. The Russians got the honor of freeing the capital. In their wake came cadres of Czechoslovak...
...freedom of expression. Industrial planners and economists asked for freer and more effective ways of doing business. Last January, the new forces surging within Czechoslovak Communism culminated in the person of Alexander Dubcek, who ousted Novotny from power and instituted a series of liberal reforms. For eight memorable months, Czechoslovakia was one of the most exciting and hopeful places in the world...
...invasion of Czechoslovakia caught the U.S. with its guard down. When Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin relayed the first details to President Johnson, key foreign-policy makers were scattered. Secretary of State Dean Rusk was preoccupied with a summation of Viet Nam policy for the Democratic Party Platform Committee. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach was vacationing at Martha's Vineyard. U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson had left Moscow for a holiday in Venice that earlier tensions in Prague had delayed. European allies of the U.S. were no better prepared. NATO envoys meeting the next day in Brussels had little more...