Talk:Edvard Beneš

Untitled
If Wikipedia can support the page Beneš decrees, then can we move this to Edvard Beneš? Timrollpickering 19:44, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I've requested the change on Requested moves. Timrollpickering 12:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Edvard Benes or Edvard Beneš

 * The original reason given for this location was that Wikipedia could not support the "š" in a title; however the Beneš decrees page exists. Timrollpickering 12:10, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Strongly opposed. The Beneš decrees article is seriously broken - š in the title is wrongly encoded as %9A, which is neither ISO-8859-1 nor UTF-8. This breaks tools expecting standard-conforming URLs. -- Naive cynic 23:32, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * See also 65. Thanks! Gangleri | [ Th] | T 10:09, 2005 Feb 27 (UTC)


 * Now, due to the UTF-8 conversion, both could work. -- Adam78 28 June 2005 14:35 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Supported. -- Naive cynic 28 June 2005 15:35 (UTC)
 * Supported, of course. Juro 28 June 2005 18:43 (UTC)

I've acted so. After the UTF-8 conversion there is no reason not to move. --Pjacobi June 28, 2005 18:59 (UTC)

Naming conventions: The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage.

A Google search on "Edvard Benes" (there is a bug in Google's search returns, one has to go to the last page returned to find the real numbers):
 * Web 368 of 368 English pages for "Edvard Beneš" -"Edvard Benes" -wikipedi
 * Web 571 of about 11,700 English pages for -"Edvard Beneš" "Edvard Benes" -wikipedia.
 * Books 351 - 360 of 602 on "Edvard Beneš" -Edvard-Benes.
 * Books 461 - 467 of 467 on -"Edvard Beneš" "Edvard Benes".
 * Scholar 321 - 321 of 321 for "Edvard Beneš" -"Edvard Benes" (a number (most?) of these are not in English)
 * Scholar 511 - 515 of 515 for -"Edvard Beneš" "Edvard Benes".

This page should be moved back to Edvard Benes --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:19, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * That dead horse, again? Diacritics are allowed in article titles, period. - Darwinek (talk) 12:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes if they are the most common usage in English in this case they are not. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree with that assertion. — Nightstallion 22:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What is your evidence that "Edvard Benes" is not the most common spelling in verifiable reliable English sources? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree with the assertion that we should only be using diacritics if they're the most commonly used version of the word. Due to technical limitiations, until very recently Benes was almost the only *possible* spelling of his name used. The case is in my opinion not comparable to Franz Josef Strauss, where the most common English rendition *does* in fact substitute ss for the letter ß; in this case, my interpretation is that it's not a substitution of š by s but rather a commonly repeated mistake through technical limitations.
 * Either way, you did not file for a RM even though it's rather obvious that the matter is contentious (seeing as half a dozen editors *unanimously* agreed to move the article, as seen above), so if you insist that we should be dropping the diacritic, then I'd say follow established procedures. Okay? — Nightstallion 09:49, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Books and Scholar searches are not limited to publication that use Benes "due to technical limitiations" as you suggest. The article started out at Edvard Benes so why did you not ask for a requested move the move before moving it back again? After all if there was to be no consensus there is no reason for it to remain at this spelling which is a clear violation of the naming conventions. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)
 * There was a clear consensus for moving it in June 2005; the consensus for moving it back right now is not evident to me. (And yes, Scholar and Books is likely LESS limited on typographical grounds, but not completely unlimited; and as you see, the fact that those people pay more attention to diacritics means that it's evened out a lot in the Google Fight department.) — Nightstallion 11:46, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * You says it is because of "typographical grounds" but you can not know that. It is your opinion not a fact, the guidelines say common usage not what some editors would like common usage to be. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
 * In case of contentious moves, there should still be a formal discussion, preferably leading to a consensual solution. I'd wager there's still a substantial number of editors interested in this article who'd agree with me that qualifying the numbers as I've described above would speak in favour of using the diacritic in this case. — Nightstallion 22:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Censorship in the article
It is well-known that Benes did not simply die, but rather he was assasinated by the communist secret police, who dumped him through the window. For a man who did such evil against hundreds of thousands of german and hungarian people and whose name remains cursed for seventy-seven generations to come, such violent ending was very fitting, and should not be supressed!


 * Assuming that you are in good faith, anon, are you sure you are not confusing him with Jan Masaryk? -- Alan Peakall 20:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Benes died of natural causes. Jan Masaryk was the one who fell through the window. Whatever Benes did to the Germans was not as evil as what the germans did to the czechs. Let's have some perspective eh!?

Here is my perspective: if Germans+Hungarians were cruel to Chech + Slovak, so we fight back twice as big? Edvard Benes was lying like hell in Treaty of Trianon: Hungary lost half million people, and claiming North Hungary. Later Slovakia was after very busy to assimilate Hungary so now we have only quarter million people. You have to admit the name Bratislava only existed from 1920, it was always Pressburg/Pozsony, with 15% Slovaks, now only 15% Hungarians. For the Hungarians - and I suppose, the Sudeten Germans - the name Benes has no good feeling. Ferenc Kato

Add 1 - Mr. Benes died due to grave disease.

Add 2 - The name Benes doesn't sound good especially for nacionalist like Mr. Kato. I have to strongly recommend Mr. Kato and other people like him to learn about historical facts. Mr. Benes was not the only person responsible for transfer of Sudeten Germans. In fact he attempted to enforce much less extensive form of the transfer. Then czech government and Allies (The transfer was partly resolution of Potsdam conference) bears main part of responsibility for the transfer.

M. Sik

Who is saying he was evil, if people commit treason, and cetainly terrorism and aiding enemy troops is very much treason, then they are lucky to face mere expulsion, in light of the attrocities they committed, the Germans and Hungraians are indebted to him. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.75.122.176 (talk) 18:31, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Succession in presidency
3rd President of Czechoslovakia was Emil Hácha. Jan Syrový has never been Czechoslovak president, nor acting. --Black&amp;White (talk) 00:49, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Not responsible for Beneš decrees?
I'm not too familiar with Czech history, but the assertion that Edvard Beneš was not responsible for the decrees informally named after him is somewhat counterintuitive. This statement needs a citation.-- Qmwne 235  23:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Beneš decrees were all legal norms with power of Act issued by the president in exile during Nazi occupation and afterwards in short interim period between liberation of the country and establishing of the Provisional National Assembly in October 1945, which subsequently confirmed them. Only a part of these "decrees" had anything to do with "Germans, Hungarians, domestic collaborators and traitors" and of course, none of these were Beneš's maverick-like actions. In fact, most of them were product of wide consensus between Czechoslovak government-in-exile and different groups of domestic as well as exiled resistance, both communist and non-communist. Of course, transfer (called "expulsion" by Germans with apparent propagandistic purpose) of German and Hungarian minorities (in case of Hungarians never realized) with exception of German and Hungarian anti-fascists was a policy backed and finally confirmed by allied powers, formally at Potsdam conference, but it was negotiated and accepted by them long time before that, practically since they recognized Czechoslovakia's goverment in exile and declared Munich agreement null and void from the beginning.88.101.177.121 (talk) 13:40, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Honza73

Beneš - an agent of Soviet Union
Pavel Anatolijevics Szudoplatov, a marshal of NKVD and KGB in his memoires ("Special tasks. The memoirs of an unwanted witness – A Soviet spymaster") writes Beneš was an agent of the soviet secret agency from 1938. Allegedly Beneš planned the killing of the yugoslavian king, to indicate an anti-german turn in politics of Yugoslavia. During the time of German occupation, he was rescued from Prague by his NKVD fellow agents, from where he travelled to Moscow, and came back home in 1945 with promises from Stalin on getting a free hand in treating germans and hungarians inside Czechoslovakia the way he liked. After this, he did what he did, not else than him is responsible for all those acts, because every nation knew - f.e. Stalin negotiated only with him and not with any other czechoslovakian politicians - Beneš was the real leader of Czechoslovakian politics, he was in the situation to make decisions. 176.63.174.166 (talk) 20:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

King Alexander of Yugoslavia visited France, to strengthen the two countries' alliance in the Little Entente (1934). An alliance between France, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Romania, against Nazi-Germany and Hitler and the fascist Hungary. France and Czechoslovakia had also an alliance with Sovjet Union. A gunman — the Bulgarian Vlado Černozemski shot king Alexander and the French Foreign Minister Bartou to death. Consequently the Little Entente fell apart and Hitler triumphed. Our Hungarian friend (176.63.174.166), knows it.

Btw. the expulsion of Sudeten Germans was determined by the Allied victors - see Potsdam agreement. Our Hungarian friend knows it too.

--[User:Posp68|Posp68]] (talk) 15:58, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

This statement that Beneš was a Soviet agent is at present not referenced to an especially good source. There is a point that needs to be noted that many too people don't understand very well is the Soviets had two terms for "agents". The first was "agents" who were Soviet agents in the way that most people assume that it meant. People like Kim Philby, Alger Hiss, Richard Sorge and Colonel Rudolf Abel would all fit into this category. The second was "agent of influence", which merely described people who had friendly feelings towards the Soviet Union-the people being classified as Soviet "agents of influence" were not Soviet agents and did not see themselves in that sense. When people translate documents from Russian into English, this subtle distinction between "agents" and "agents of influence" often seems to get lost, and many of the so-called "agents of influence" merely become "agents", which palpably distorts matters and confuses things quite a bit. There have been all sorts of people whom Soviet intelligence classified as "agents of influence" in Russian who have become "agents" in the English translation, making for all sorts of hysterical headlines in newspapers written by ignorant hack journalists about this historical figure or that historical figure was a "Soviet agent". Case in point; after the Cold War, it turned out that Soviet documents described Michael Foot, the famously left-wing leader of the Labour Party in the years 1980-83, as an "agent of influence", which allowed the infamously and aggressively trashy British tabloid press to run banner headlines saying Foot was a Soviet "agent". This is what happens when documents are not handled by historians, and instead by hack journalists who don't know anything about history and are all too eager for a sensationalist headline. There is no doubt that Foot was personally pro-Soviet and many of the policies he advocated like pulling Britain out of NATO were welcomed by Moscow, but Foot was not a "Soviet agent" in the sense claimed by his tabloid journalist critics who decided they wanted to play the role of a historian.

Beneš was a Russophile and he certainly wanted better relations with Moscow. Beneš was the man who pulled the Czechoslovak Legion of the Russian Civil War in 1919 because he didn't want to overthrow Lenin, gave an interview with Pravda praising Stalin in 1935, was willing as early as 1939 to cede Ruthenia to the Soviet Union, and signed treaties of alliance with the Soviet Union in 1935 and again in 1943. Note that in 1945, the Soviets did not impose a puppet government on Czechoslovakia as they did in Poland as Czechoslovak democracy under Beneš was not considered a threat to the Soviet Union (through that changed later on in 1948). Given his feelings towards the Soviet Union, it is not surprising that the Soviets would have classified him as an "agent of influence". However, the thesis that Beneš was a "Soviet agent" really seems to rest on mistranslating the term "agent of influence" by only translating the subject, not the verb and object of the phrase. If Beneš was really a Soviet agent, then why did the Czechoslovak communists overthrow him in the "Velvet coup" of February 1948? People like General Ludvík Svoboda, the supposedly apolitical commander-in-chief of the Czechoslovak Army who really was a Soviet agent were allowed to stay on after the "Velvet coup". The people purged after the coup like Jan Masaryk, who made all sorts of pro-Soviet statements after Operation Barbarossa, which did not save him from being murdered were definitely not Soviet agents, through one could no doubt find a reference to Masaryk as an "agent of influence" owning to wartime radio broadcasts from London.

Pavel Sudoplatov's memoirs are not the most reliable of sources. Like many other old Chekists, Sudoplatov has made sensationalist claims to attract attention, improve the sales of his book and make himself seem more important historically. For example, Sudoplatov vastly exaggerated the importance of espionage to the Soviet atomic bomb programme. The Soviet Union had first-class nuclear physicists and would have developed an atomic bomb without any espionage-at most the nuclear espionage sped up the atomic bomb programme by a few years. Sudoplatov's claim that it his espionage activities that gave the Soviet Union the atomic bomb turns him from a previously obscure Chekist into a major historical figure, which must have been very flattening to his ego. Anyhow, some of the claims in the book Special Tasks are not supported by the interviews conducted by the book writers Jerrold and Leona Schecter with Sudoplatov. The Schecters are known for their sensationalist style of writing, and they took some of Sudoplatov's statements wildly out of context. This is not to say that everything in Special Tasks is lie or incorrect, but certainly parts of the book are manifestly wrong, and to base the claim that Beneš was a "Soviet agent" solely on the English version of Sudoplatov's book is  problematic. I rather suspect this the normal confusion caused by mistranslating the term "agent of influence" is the source of these persistent claims that Beneš was a "Soviet agent".--A.S. Brown (talk) 06:01, 22 August 2018 (UTC)


 * After Hitler's takeover, Beneš became more friendly towards the Soviet, but he was not a Russophile.
 * Not until 1934 did Czechoslovakia recognize the Soviet. (Britain recognized Soviet in 1924.)
 * The Czechoslovak Legion was heavily involved in the Russian Civil War fighting Bolsheviks, at times controlling the entire Trans-Siberian railway and several major cities in Siberia.
 * France was Czechoslovakia's main ally (1924) and as the consequence of Soviet alliance with France the Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of Alliance was signed on May, 1935.
 * At the insistence of the Czechoslovak government and Edvard Beneš (Minister of Foreign Affairs), a protocol on the signing of the treaty stipulated that the treaty with Soviet Union would go into force only if France gave assistance to the victim of aggression.
 * The Soviets did not impose a puppet government on Czechoslovakia in 1945 because of the treaty in 1943. (Non-interference in domestic affairs)
 * A54 (Paul Thümmel) a highly decorated Nazi Party veteran and a high ranking member of the Abwehr who spied for Czechoslovakia before and during the second world war, supplied Czechoslovakia with reliable information about Germany's intentions and order of battle. The same was true of another super-spy B53.
 * Both of them continued to give information to the Czecholslovak government-in-exile established in the UK. Beneš passed A54's and B53's intelligence to both MI6 and the USSR. (informing allies)

--Posp68 (talk) 17:20, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Beneš decrees not ethnic cleansing ?
I wrote: "They were a central part of the large-scale ethnic cleansing in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe after 1945." and this has been deleted. But this is exactly what Wikipedia says in the entry on ethnic cleansing !. What should be a better term for the complete deportation of the Sudenten Germans and of the Hungarians ??

--Ft93110 (talk) 20:57, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Allied Transfers of German Populations from Czechoslovakia. --Posp68 (talk) 18:16, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Potsdam Agreement 1945

Needed Citation
"In March 1939, Hácha's government was bullied into authorising the German occupation of the remaining Czech territory."

Bullied by who? In whose opinion was there any bullying? Is this statement politically correct? This needs clarification and citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saparonia (talk • contribs) 21:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Adverb even (minor edit)
I agree that even inclines toward POV in this edit. The adverb emphasizes counter-expectation (see here) and also adds emotional explicitness and strength (see here and especially here) to the already factual statement "Czechoslovakia was not consulted ...". Doremo (talk) 13:58, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Beneš decrees

 * (Citizenship)

Decree No. 33/1945 of August 2, 1945. On the basis of this decree, the Czechoslovak State released from its citizenship those persons who, "in compliance with the regulations of the foreign occupation forces had acquired German or Hungarian citizenship".
 * No Czechoslovak (Czech) legal norm (decree, law, etc.) ever existed that would have dealt with the displacement of the German population.
 * cf. Potsdam Agreement.

Posp68 (talk) 13:37, 19 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Potsdam Agreement 1945
 * President Decrees

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:07, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Edvard Beneš-1945.jpg

Neutrality
I have concerns about some of the recent edits made today, which seemed to be editorialising about Benes-going out of the way to say how "wrong" in his policies towards the Soviet Union. That is a common line of criticism of Beneš, but it is phased in a manner that seems to violate the neutrality rules. Anyhow of the statements here are wrong-Beneš was genuinely angry about the Munich Agreement, so to say that his criticism of Britain and France for the Munich Agreement was only an attempt to "appease" Stalin is downright malicious. Which brings us to the crux of the matter, which is the paragraph which shows that Beneš was wrong in trying to preserve his country's independence from Nazi Germany, and he just should had rolled over and accepted that having his country occupied by Germany was all for the best. George Kennan was a noted American diplomat, so I suppose there is nothing wrong about citing his views here, but Kennan should be given as the final word on the subject. There are a great many opinions about the wisdom and justice of the Munich Agreement, and Kennan is only one opinion.

Furthermore, Kennan was a Russophobe-anyone familiar with his work will note the recurring references to Russians as a stupid and brutal "Asiatic" people full of envy and hate at the superior civilization of the West. In this regard, note the admiring introduction Kennan wrote in 1989 to that classic work of Russian-bashing, The Empire of the Czars by the Marquis de Custine, which he significantly praised as a seminal work about "eternal Russia". In other words, what is he is saying here that through on the surface things have changed, but deep down nothing has really changed in Russia between 1839 and 1989, and what Custine wrote all the back in 1839 is just as relevant today. To say there nothing had really changed in Russia between 1839-1989 and there were really no importance differences between the policies of the Emperor Nicholas I and Mikhail Gorbachev requires considerable myopia and ignorance, if not downright stupidity. This whole idea about an "eternal Russia" that never changes is just as stupid as the equally popular and equally facile idea of an "eternal America" or "eternal England" that never changes. To be fair, Kennan was right about some lines of continuity between Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, but his claim that both Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union were manifestations of essentially the same thing requires considerable distortion of the facts. To take one example, all of the Russian emperors and empresses from Peter the Great on saw themselves as Europeans, and as a part of the West, an aspect of Russian history that Kennan had no interest in because it did not fit with his prejudices. My point here is that just because Kennan says somethings does not automatically make it right.

Kennan was a Germanophile and a recurring theme of his writings was that a strong Germany was required to keep Russia out of central Europe, which led him in the 1930s to see Nazi Germany as the lesser evil as at least Hitler was a "bulwark against Bolshevism". Kennan's commentary about the justice of the Munich Agreement as being all for the best needs to be seen in this light. Which of course brings us to the central matter: why at present does this article scream out in fury about how "wrong" Beneš was in letting his country fall under Soviet domination while saying also saying how "wrong" he was in opposing German domination of his country. So domination of the Czechs by Germany is good as it "was in the best interests of the country", but domination by the Soviet Union is bad? That strikes me as a grotesque violation of the NPOV rules. The article says that if it came to war in 1938, then Czechoslovakia would had be devastated so Beneš was not acting in the "best interests" of his country to seeking to preserve its independence. The part about a devastating war is true, but sometimes the price of freedom has to be paid in blood. In 1948, Beneš gave in to the Communists because he feared otherwise it would led to a civil war. Here, the article condemns Beneš, saying how "wrong" he was in trusting the Communists. This seems like a double standard. Note the way in which article goes out of its way to say that Beneš did not live enough to see the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, which proves how "wrong" he was. It might seem more relevant to note that he did see the occupation of his country by Germany in 1939. I think this needs to be noted that for him, Germany was the main danger, which guided his policies towards the Soviet Union in World War II and after. Talking about what happened in 1968 in the context of what was happening in 1943 is rather ahistorical. In 1943, for Beneš, what had happened in 1938 and 1939 were the things that were influencing his decisions, not something happened in 1968. This is a really obvious point that I should not be having to make.

A great deal of nonsense has been written about Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany being "mirror images" of each other. Both regimes were monstrous and inhumane, but not in the same way. For example, Stalin's hand can be seen in almost everything as there all sorts of documents bearing his signature or more commonly his initial. The same is not the case with Hitler who had an aversion to paperwork and hardly signed anything. Hitler envisioned exterminating entire peoples, most notably the Jews. Stalin carried out policies that led to deaths of tens of millions of people, but he never sought to exterminate nations. A case in point; in 1944, the Chechens were deported to Kazakhstan as a "traitor nation" and by 1946, 75% of the Chechens who were alive in 1944 were dead. This was monstrous and cruel, a horrific disaster for the Chechen people, but there is no evidence that Stalin wanted to kill every single Chechen men, women and child in the same way that Hitler wanted to kill every single Jewish men, women and child. It was within his power to wipe out the Chechens and he did not do that. The surviving Chechens were still alive when Stalin died in 1953 and were allowed to go home in 1957. My point here is that Soviet Communism was evil, but it was not a "mirror image" of Nazi Germany; these regimes were evil in different ways, not the same way. Getting back to Beneš, to say as some people say that the policies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union towards Czechoslovakia were a "mirror image" is profoundly stupid. Had Germany won the Second World War, the majority of the Czechs living in the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were going to be deported to a reservation in Siberia and millions of settlers from Germany were going to be brought in to replace them. Only a minority of Czechs who were willing to be "Germanized" would be allowed to stay and in case of these people, they were going have to renounce the Czech language and culture in favor of the German language and culture.

There were numerous injustices and wrongs during the Communist period in Czechoslovakia, but the Soviets never tried to deport almost entire Czech nation to Siberia while forcing the remainder to speak Russian instead of Czech. The Communist era lasted from 1948 to 1989, and the Soviets never deported the Czech people to Siberia to make way for way for millions of Russian settlers, and there is no evidence that they ever thought about doing that. Yes, during the Communist era, there was a state-sanctioned antisemitism under the guise of "anti-Zionism", most notably with the Slánský trial of 1952, but the Czechoslovak Communists never tried to exterminate the remaining Czechoslovak Jews in the same way that the Nazis did. So to say that there is no difference between German domination and Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia is wrong. What happened during the Communist era in Czechoslovak history was certainly terrible, but to make out as this article does at present that the Soviet domination of Czechoslovakia was far worse than domination by Nazi Germany shows a massive and appalling ignorance.

This comment by Kennan that is approving quoted here shows: "The benefit of the Munich agreement was that it has preserved for the exacting task of the future a magnificent younger generation disciplined, industrious and physically fit that would have undoubtedly been sacrificed if the solution had been the romantic one of hopeless resistance rather than the humiliating but the true heroic one of realism" shows that Kennan did not know much about history. If Germany had won the Second World War, most of this "magnificent younger generation" of Czechs would had been deported from their homeland to the "reservation" in Siberia that Hitler was planing to send them to. This difference between German policies towards Czechoslovakia and Soviet policies towards Czechoslovakia does much to explain Beneš's foreign policy. The British historian A.J.P. Taylor, who was a close friend of Beneš, claimed that in 1947 he had a talk with Beneš, during which the latter said that German domination meant the Czechs were going to be expelled from homeland while if his country came under Soviet domination, the Czechs would continue to live in their homeland and their language and culture would continue. This goes a long way towards explaining why Beneš considered Soviet domination to be the lesser evil compared to German domination. Beneš ended his talk with Taylor by saying he did not want Czechoslovakia to fall under Soviet domination, but if he to choose between Germany and the Soviet Union, he would go with the latter. One may object that we only have Taylor's word for this, but the views ascribed by him to Beneš are entirely consistent with what is known of his views. In the late 1940s, quite a few people in both western and eastern Europe took it for granted that the Germans would go back to their bad old ways if they had half a chance, so Beneš was by no means unique in thinking that the Germans were not going to change. Look at William Shirer's book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, published in 1960, which hints a number of times that West German democracy is not going to last, and there is a real possibility of the Germans going back to the bad old ways. As late as 1990, both Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterrand believed that German reunification would mean a Fourth Reich, so Beneš's fears of Germany after 1945 reflected what many people felt.

Moreover, this article goes out of its way to demonize Beneš as "wrong" and as the man who let his country came under Soviet Union because saw "the Soviet Union as a friend instead of an enemy". It is true that Beneš believed and wanted the Big Three alliance of the Soviet Union, the United States and the United Kingdom to continue after the war, and he was wrong about that, but he was far from alone in this. What Beneš saw Czechoslovakia's role was as the "bridge" that would help keep the "Big Three" alliance. So in other words, he was pro-Soviet, but this needs to be understood in the sense that he believed that the "Big Three" alliance would continue after World War II, and Czechoslovakia would play a mediating role in keeping the "Big Three" alliance going. Beneš did not think it would be necessary to choose between East and West, as he wanted Czechoslovakia to an ally of the all "Big Three" powers at once, as he failed to foresee the Cold War. So the article attacks him for not seeing the Soviet Union as an "enemy" as should have done is attacking him for being something that he was not. The real reason why the Czechoslovak Communists had such a dominant position in the Czechoslovak Third Republic is because in the elections of May 1946 the Communists won 38% of the vote, making them the largest party. The 1946 elections were free and fair elections, and if the Communists won the largest share of the vote in 1946, it is because a great many ordinary Czechs and Slovaks supported them. Whatever was a wise thing to do is another matter, but that is a fact, and that cannot be blamed on Beneš. Had another party won the majority of the vote, then the leader of that party would have named premier by Beneš in 1946. Gottwald was the leader of the largest party, and that is why he was named premier. And Gottwald abused that position to "pack" the civil service with Communist supporters.

What caused the "Velvet Coup" was that Beneš, promoted by the non-Communist ministers in the National Front, tried to stop the Communist "packing" of the police. The negative comparison this article draws between Czechoslovakia and Finland does not work. The same issue of the Communist "packing" of the police occurred in Finland in late 1940s, and the only difference is that the Finnish government chose not do anything about it for long time as would provoke the Soviet Union. And even when the Finnish government tried to restrain the Communist-dominated police, they went out of their way to assure the Kremlin that they wanted Finland to stay within the Soviet sphere of influence. And Yugoslavia is also different in the sense that the Communists did take over the state organs, but in that case, the majority of Yugoslav Communists were loyal to Tito, not Stalin. The majority of Czechoslovak Communists including Gottwald were loyal to Stalin. At present, this article is blaming everything that went wrong in Czechoslovakia between 1948-1989 solely on one man (which is neither correct nor fair), taking Beneš to task for not being a Cold Warrior, who should had pursued an anti-Soviet line, instead of hoping that the Big Three alliance would last. What Beneš should and should not have done is matter of much historical debate; for the sake of balance, one can cite historians who hold different views on this subject, which is something I strongly feel should be done, to provide the reader with the diversity of views on Beneš. But as interesting as all this is, I think the article on the whole should stick with a survey of what Beneš did and why, instead of going on at length about what he should have done.

And then there is a matter of this article calling the French "timid". Germany had three times the population as France did and likewise had an economy that was three times as larger. The greater size of the German economy gave the Reich a natural advantage over France, an aspect of history that does not interest at all those wanting to promote this stupid stereotype of the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". The French decision to adopt a defensive strategy made in 1929 after the French agreed to pull out of the Rhineland in 1930 is by no means as stupid and "cowardly" as it often made out to be. Indeed, one might actually argue that given that the greater population size and economy of Germany that the French were actually brave in deciding to ultimately resist this colossus rather than following the path chosen by many other nations, in seeking an accommodation with the Third Reich. It is true that French leaders like Georges Bonnet did want an understanding with Germany, but he was minority, and his views did not win out in the end. In September 1939, Bonnet was against declaring war on Germany, but France did declare war on Germany. The French strategy against Germany was that of la guerre de longue durée, in which the French would fight a defensive struggle that would gradually grind the Germans down. From the French viewpoint, given the disparity of numbers between Germany with 70 million people vs. France with 40 million people, this is not as irrational and stupid as it is often made out to be. Historians who blast the French for their "cowardice" in pursuing a defensive strategy and praise the Germans for their "courage" in pursing an offensive strategy ignore the fact that Germany's greater population meant the Germans could take far higher casualties and keep fighting as they always replace their losses, an option that the French did not have. Offensive operations as a general rule involve greater casualties than defensive operations, and the French could not take losses on the same scale that the Germans could if they wanted to win the war. And of the two nations that the French really, really wanted as their allies, the United States was isolationist while Great Britain until 1939 refused to make the "continental commitment", leading the French to the entirely reasonable conclusion that they might have to take on Germany without the support of les Anglo-Saxons the next time around. Despite what they said in public, the French were well aware that they had won in 1918 because of the help from the "Anglo-Saxon" powers, and it greatly worried them that they might have to fight another war with Germany without the support of les Anglo-Saxons, which is why I think this article calling the French "timid" is way off base. Demography and the lack of Anglo-American support instead of obnoxious and false national stereotypes about the French as "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" explain la guerre de longue durée strategy. If the treaty of alliance that the French signed with the United States and Great Britain in 1919 had come into effect instead of being stillborn, the French might have pursued a different strategy for they would have known that they had full support of the USA and the British Empire behind them.

The problem with French strategy was this. In the 1920s, Germany was more or less disarmed and the French were occupying the Rhineland, which served as a "collateral" for German good behavior. At the same time, the French created what they called the cordon sanitaire in eastern Europe, signing alliances with Poland in 1921, Czechoslovakia in 1924, Romania in 1926 and Yugoslavia in 1927. Where the problems started was when the French agreed in 1929 to pull out of the Rhineland in 1930. Without the Rhineland as "collateral", the French were pretty certain that Germany was going to rearm, bring in conscription and remilitarise the Rhineland, which is exactly what did happen. The decision to build the Maginot Line in 1929, which costed 3 billion francs, was a tacit French admission that Germany was going to violate Part V of the Treaty of Versailles in the near-future. The French pulled out of the Rhineland in June 1930 and by February 1932 Germany was demanding very loudly at the World Disarmament Conference the right to rearm. The problem with la guerre de longue durée strategy was the French still had the commitment to go to war if Germany attacked any of their allies in eastern Europe while they were planning to stick to a defensive strategy. The French never did work out to how to square this circle caused by their alliances in eastern Europe signed in the 1920s vs. building the Maginot Line in the 1930s. Beneš could see what the implications of the French building the Maginot Line were, and even more so after Germany remiltarised the Rhineland in March 1936. After Germany started building the West Wall in June 1936, Beneš knew the French would probably not launch an offensive into the Rhineland, which was the basic assumption made in 1924 when he signed the alliance with France. He stuck with the alliance with France because of the lack of a better alternative. That is why Beneš signed the alliance with the Soviet Union in 1935, to provide for an alternative great power to assist Czechoslovakia since the French were evidently going to stay behind the Maginot Line in the event of war. Beneš's pro-Soviet statements in the period 1935-38 have to been understood in this light. Unlike his allies, Milan Stojadinović of Yugoslavia and to a lesser extent King Carol II of Romania, Beneš was not willing to see his country enter the German sphere of influence. A great deal has been written on all this, but to call the French cowardly as this article does is really wrong. Does anyone else have any thoughts about this?--A.S. Brown (talk) 23:56, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the talk above. It seems to me that this section only offers two alternatives - war, and surrender. But to the participants at the time, there was a third, continued peace guaranteed by a strong coalition. We cannot say, for example, that the German army would not have invaded the Saar if opposed by France and Britain, but that they would have invaded Czechoslovakia in the presence of a guarantee backed by the USSR. It is possible that this would have at least delayed the beginning of the war and pushed Hitler's ambitions into other channels first. While the eventual outcome may have been similar, the possibility of peace needs to be mentioned. (user: G D Henderson) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.227.189.67 (talk) 23:40, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

There was no shortage of alliances. Czechoslovakia was allied with France, Soviet Union, Romania and Yugoslavia. France was allied with Britain, Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia - little Nato at that time. But Poland had a pact with Nazi-Germany, Romania and to a lesser extent Yugoslavia became Nazi-friendly and Chamberlain and Daladier was unwilling to stop Hitler. By September 1939, the Soviets were to all intents and purposes a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany, due to Stalin's fears of a second Munich Agreement with the Soviet Union replacing Czechoslovakia. In 1939 Time Magazine named Hitler: "1938 Man of the Year". 171.23.6.98 (talk) 08:46, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Freemasonry
People have been adding and removing and re-adding and re-removing the category "Czech Freemasons" to the article going back some time now, so I decided to Google if Beneš was a Freemason. According to this source, he was indeed a Mason, joining in 1927. However, I don't think that this fact is really notable or warrants mention in the article. Besides, I'm unsure where this could even be put. Do you guys have any opinions on the matter? - 212.130.152.24 (talk) 08:48, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion
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 * Edvard Beneš with wife.jpg (discussion)
 * Edvard Beneš-B.jpg (discussion)
 * Edvard Beneš-C.jpg (discussion)