For the first time, the Sudeten German Association, uniting the descendants of those expelled from Czechoslovakia after World War II, will gather in Brno, the second largest city in the modern Czech Republic. They were invited by the cultural festival Meeting Brno as part of their multi-day program at the end of May. The two organizations will discuss reconciliation and remember the victims of the Shoah.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is also expected to attend. The title of this meeting is “All Life is Meeting.”
As part of the gathering a Reconciliation Mass will be celebrated at the Brno Exhibition Centre.
Ulrike Scharff, Minister of Family, Labor and Social Affairs of the Bavarian state, told EWTN News that the event “shows that we are reconciling, that we have become friends.”
Scharff, whose agenda includes Sudeten Germans in Bavaria, stressed that reconciliation is “the essence of Europe”. In this “wonderful” European Community, “it is important that we meet in a friendly manner,” the politician explained.
The decision nevertheless caused controversy in Czechia, with public figures protesting and starting a series of protests, one of which was attended by Chamber of Deputies speaker Tomio Okamura. Instead of reconciliation, they see the gathering as a provocation and relativization of history.
Criticism also came from Miloš Zeman and Václav Klaus, who served as President and Prime Minister of Czechia. Klaus said, “We have nothing to reconcile with the Germans.” He clarified that he “does not feel incapable of reconciliation” with them.
“We did not wage two world wars” and “are not the cause of the millions of victims” of World War II, Klaus explained, arguing that as prime minister in 1997, he signed, together with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Czech-German declaration on mutual relations and their future development.
wounds that remain
However, the Bishop of Brno, Pavel Konzbul, “welcomes every initiative that leads to the union of people, dialogue and overcoming historical injustice,” he underlined to EWTN News.
Reconciliation between nations and individuals does not come from denying or simplifying the past, the bishop added, but from “talking about it truthfully and with respect.”
Thus, he sees “the presence of the descendants of the Sudeten Germans” in his diocese “primarily as an occasion for such a meeting”, provided “it takes place in a spirit of respect, without mutual accusations or spreading false slander and with openness towards the other.”
The local bishop appealed to participants, residents and critics to act with “peace, respect and a willingness to seek what can unite us”.
“Only such approaches are the basis of true and lasting peace,” the Bishop underlined.
When the new Archbishop of Prague, Stanislav Pribyl, Bishop of Litomerice, a few months ago, he declared 2026 the Year of Reconciliation in order to heal the wounds of World War II and its aftermath.
Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland, a majority-German region of Czechoslovakia, in 1938 and later established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the country. After Germany’s defeat, Czechoslovakia expelled approximately 3 million ethnic Germans.
