German Empire & Austrian Empire – 1871

In 1877, their country had been  Austria-Hungary for over 400 years.  After WW1 the monarchy was split up among 9 countries and 2 countries were newly created in 1918, ie. Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia according to the Treaty of Versailles.  This was a questionable move, because ethnic groups suddenly found themselves in foreign countries. This did not sit well with the majority of the German speaking Austrian population.  Hitler took over the German area, known as the Sudetenland, from 1938 until end of WW2 1945.  In retaliation, the Czech people expelled 3.2 million Germans from their homeland to Germany and recreated Czechoslovakia leaving large areas devoid of people and nearly ruined the economy of that country.  During 1945-1947 a brutal expulsion took place under the Benes regime, which was stopped when the Communist Regime took over in 1948. After that, nobody was allowed to leave, although Czech nationals were seeking connection to their German friends in order to leave the Communist homeland.  After the Iron Curtain fell, Czechoslovakia became the Czech Republic minus Slovakia, which was “high-jacked” to form a Slavic majority to establish Czechoslovakia and hightailed out of that connection as soon as they could.  Therefore, the new Czech Republic is formed only from an area that would never have been able to show a Czech majority, namely Bohemia and Moravia.   The Benes Decretes were upheld under the new regime of the Czech Republic.