Czech police officers burst into the radio station at Vinohradská Street and battled with the SS soldiers who were already occupying the building.

At 12:33 Prague radio called on all Czechs to take up arms in the organized resistance: it was the beginning of five days of fierce fighting that would see thousands lose their lives.

With the sound of combat as a backdrop, the announcer asked for public support with the following message: “Calling all Czechs. Come to our help at once. Come and defend Czech Radio. The SS are murdering Czech people here. Come and help us. You can still get through the Balbínova Street entrance…”

Resistance fighters in other parts of the city took over the Gestapo and SiPo headquarters. Civilians finally removed the hated German signs and began to attack and disarm the Germans. Barricades were built in the streets.

Antonin Sum, a teenager at the time, was involved in the resistance. “The uprising started in Prague,” he said. “You could see in the streets, as I saw myself, people with guns, which was absolutely impossible before. They were guns that had been hidden away somewhere underground in caves.… It was just the start, but nobody knew what was practically going on.”

In scenes reminiscent of European uprisings in the 19th century, cobblestones were torn from the streets to form the foundations of barricades. Carts, vehicles, and trolleys were overturned to block key intersections, and snipers took to the rooftops overlooking choke points.

By May 6, over 1,600 barricades had been constructed by thousands of citizens overnight. German reinforcements made their way to Prague and the fighting continued to escalate.

The Luftwaffe began to bomb areas of the city, hitting the radio broadcasting building, barricades, and civilian apartments. A battalion of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), a German army unit made up of Soviet POWs, defected and came to the aid of Czech defenders, successfully disarming thousands of German troops.

On May 7, while German leaders were signing their unconditional surrender to the Allied forces in France, German forces in Prague launched a massive attack on the city.

Upon hearing the news of Germany’s surrender, the ROA, who had been successful in slowing the German advance on the city, left Prague to surrender to the US Army. With a majority of the ROA gone, the ill-equipped resistance fighters suffered against the reinforced German units and lost much of the territory they gained over the first days of the uprising.

Though the Nazis surrendered on May 7, the fighting continued in Prague. On May 8, the Germans launched an air raid that was followed by an infantry attack. SS forces recaptured positions in the city, including the Masaryk rail station, where SS troops murdered roughly 50 captured resistance fighters.

With Allied help still not there and with both sides facing critical military situations, Czech and German leaders began negotiations, and a ceasefire was reached. German forces could pass west through Prague in exchange for disarming themselves.

On the morning of May 9, German forces exited Prague. Later that day, the Soviet Red Army arrived in Prague and put down any remaining German units in the city. Czech citizens flooded the streets to welcome the Red Army and celebrate their liberation.

 

May 8 is, as in several European countries, a national holiday in the Czech Republic for the observance of the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe; it was on this day in 1945 when Germany’s formal surrender was signed in Berlin.

On May 8, with Allied troops approaching from west and east, the Czechs negotiated a cease-fire with the Germans.

That afternoon, an agreement was signed in Prague between the com-mander of the Czech National Army and the German commander. All fighting would cease at 8 p.m. that evening.

All German army units, SS troops and German State organizations would begin to leave Prague and its surroundings. The Czechs had liberated their capital.

Entering Prague in the wake of its self-liberation, the First Ukrainian Army, commanded by Marshal Konev, acquired the prize that Stalin had so desired.

A previous agreement between American and Russian forces stated that the Red Army would be the one to liberate Prague; however, some American Army forces had come as far as the suburbs of Prague, and some negotiators persuaded General Toussaint, commander in charge of the German forces, to agree to the cease-fire.

The American tanks that had entered Pilsen in advance of the infantry, bringing Czechoslovakia into the European Theatre of Operations of the United States forces, were soon ordered back, as part of Eisenhower’s agreement with the Soviet High Comand that western Czechoslovakia would be in the Russian sphere. ‘

The date was officially named Liberation Day, although it was the Czech people, with KONR (Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia) backing, who liberated the city the day before.

Between 1,700 and 2,000 Czechs were killed in the uprising, and thousands more were wounded.

In the course of the Prague Offensive, the losses of the Red Army amounted to 50 thousand people, while over 140 thousand were lost in the battles for Czechoslovakia. Many units and regiments were awarded honors and medals for their performance in the operation.

The exile government returned to Prague on May 10 and promptly dissolved the National Council. Resistance leaders were delegated to minor positions and were not represented in the new national government.

Soviet forces now occupied almost all of the country, and within months, under the Potsdam Agreement, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans were expelled from the Sudetenland.

Under Soviet occupation, the fledgling democratic government went the way of Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, and other countries in the Russian sphere of influence. In 1947, the Slovak Democratic Party was made virtually impotent. By February 1949, all Czech democratic parties were eliminated, and a few months later the Communists officially took over control of the government.