| Original caption: “Czech patriots in Prague, the last Nazi stronghold, rose in revolt May 5, in an Endeavour to wrest the capital from the Germans. After driving the civilians from their houses, S.S. troops engaged in a mass slaughter. Along the highway from Benesov to Prague, anti-tank barricades were built, while German tanks ringed the city. Street fighting ensued, and many patriots were killed. Patriot snipers were posted behind barricades, in cellars, and in attics, pending the arrival of Russian troops. Improvised barricade built across one of Prague’s main streets during the uprising prior to the city’s liberation.” Czech partisans erected this barricade at 55 Spálená Street, renamed by the Nazi Germans as the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren (“Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia”) as Brenntgaße, near the crossroad of Národní Třída Street in May 1945. By the end of April 1945, the Wehrmacht (“Nazi German Armed Forces”) had lost their ability to maneuver, caught between the Western Allies and the Soviet Red Army. In Czechoslovakia, which Führer und Reichskanzler (“Leader and Reichchancellor”) Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945) had dismembered by April 1939, 1st signing the Munich agreement, which carved off the Sudetenland, and then occupying all of the country in April 1939 and breaking it up into the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren and the Slowakische Republik (“Slovak Republic”). Anticipating the arrival of the American 3rd Army, commanded by General George S. Patton (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945), Czech partisans began to subtly rebel against their Nazi German occupiers. Train conductors began using Czech, not German, station names and stopped collecting Reichsmarks on May 4. That afternoon a Czech policeman gunned down a Nazi soldaten firing on Czechs releasing prisoners from a prison train. The crowd dispersed, fearing reprisals. People gathered in Vrsovice District and tore up a swastika flag and sang the Czech national anthem. By the morning of May 5, Czech flags began to appear on buildings, and Nazi German signs were pulled down. At 0600 Hours Radio Prague began its broadcast day, but for the 1st time in years, used the Czech language instead of German. A large crowd, carrying Czech national flags, scuffled with Nazi German soldiers in Wenceslas Square. At 1233 Hours, what would become a famous radio broadcast in Czech history issued from Radio Prague – “Calling all Czechs! Calling all Czechs! Come quickly to our aid. We appeal to all members of the police, army and government to join the patriots who are defending our radio station. Outside the building shots are already being fired. Prague must remain free!” Thus, the rebellion began. Years of Gestapo torture and reprisal shootings and hangings, mass executions, forced labor, and the oppression of Czech language and culture left a deep resentment among the people of Prague and Czechoslovakia. Partisans seized buildings across Prague and announced the overthrow of the Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren at 1400 Hours. General of the Czech Army Karel Kutlvašr (27 January 1895 – 2 October 1961) led the uprising. A charismatic figure from World War I, he rallied thousands of civilians from all over Prague and the surrounding area to fight. They lacked weapons, but not spirit. By 1600 Hours, fighting had broken out all over Prague. The Schutzstaffel SS under Gruppenführer Carl Friedrich von Pückler-Burghauss (October 7, 1886 – May 12, 1945) responded by committing atrocities against Prague’s civilians. SS killed civilians on the Mendel Bridge and the Masaryk Train Station, among many other massacres. Luftwaffe (“Nazi German Air Force”) aircraft bombed rebel positions as von Pückler-Burghauss called for SS to make their own lines with swastika flags. At 0300 Hours on May 6, hoping to hear American tanks, instead the rebels were confronted with Nazi panzers. Panzerfausts arrived to stop the tanks, but there were too many. United States Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), Supreme Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), had a strategic and tactical dilemma. Patton clearly saw the need for American units to push on past the agreed demarcation lines into Prague, but that risked confrontation with he Soviets. Reichsminister without portfolio and former Gauleiter of the Generalgouvernement of Poland Hans Frank (23 May 1900 – 16 October 1946) saw counseled that Nazi German units in Prague offer to surrender to the Americans but not the Soviets. This put Eisenhower at odds with the Yalta Conference accords, which stopped the Western Allies at the Elbe – no specific arrangement was made for Czechoslovakia – and Prague was beyond that line. Eisenhower would appear to be making a separate peace with the Nazi Germans. Eisenhower had to directly scream for Patton to halt on the telephone; 3rd Army Cavalry reconnaissance had already pushed into Prague and reported back. If the Americans had rushed into Prague, many lives would have been saved. Instead, the rebels made a deal with the Russische Befreiungsarmee (ROA – Russkaya Osvoboditel’naya Armiya; “Russian Liberation Army”) under Lieutenant General Andrey Vlasov (September 14, 1901 – August 1, 1946). The ROA had been recruited from Soviet Red Army Prisoners of War taken by the Nazi Germans on the Eastern Front; they were well relatively trained and equipped, especially compared to the rebels. The Nazi Germans didn’t trust them and had called for their disbandment. After harsh treatment, the ROA had broken with the Nazi Germans on May 1, 1945, becoming a wandering armed mass in their hinterland. But the Nazis didn’t understand how deeply the ROA had come to hate their new masters. The ROA entered the Prague Uprising on the side of the rebels after tense negotiations. For the rebels, it was a matter of survival. But Vaslov’s Army was not without problems. They were a mix of hardline anticommunists, opportunists wanting better conditions than a prison camp, and uneducated Soviet peasants just trying to survive. They would not be looked on with favor from the Soviet Red Army approaching from the East. Nevertheless, they brought 22 tanks and other heavy weapons to fight with the insurgents. They brought up artillery to drive the SS out of the airport and drove the panzers back from the barricades at the Old Town Square. But then on May 8, the rebels demanded they leave. They were afraid of what the Red Army would do if Vlasov’s Army were the victors. The SS took this opportunity for renewed assaults, using women and children as human shields for their panzers. By 1500 Hours, the Town Hall was on fire. The SS would have won. But by 1615 Hours, the SS were asking for surrender terms. The Soviet Red Army had finally arrived, and their artillery could be heard outside the city. The Nazi Germans offered to end the fighting if they could leave Prague. Captured insurgents were forced up on Wehrmacht vehicles as hostages to drive through rebel checkpoints. 27 panzers, 32 trucks, and 3,000 infantrymen left at 1815 Hours. Jaroslav Oliverius (May 8, 1933 – August 13, 2020) spent his 12th birthday dodging bullets. “May 8, 1945, was the worst birthday of my life. We were all huddled in the basement. The Germans had started to move along the street clearing each house of its occupants. All the men inside them were being shot. And then they reached our house. We suddenly heard blows on the door, hobnailed boots on the stairs and the chilling command: ‘Alle männer aus!’ — ‘All the men out!’ We were hauled on to the street and lined up. We all thought the end had come. Instead of being shot we were ordered to sit up on the front of their tanks. The Germans now knew that the Red Army was approaching — it was more important for them to evade their clutches than expend further time crushing the uprising.” The very 1st Russian units arrived in the Czech capital at around 0600 Hours on May 9. They were warmly greeted by the city’s inhabitants. The Czechs were now making Sudeten Germans dismantle the barricades. In victory, there would be a settling of old scores. The Germans were forced to lie prostrate on the ground as the Red Army soldiers approached. Oliverius recalled, “On the morning of May 9 we heard on Prague Radio that Red Army troops were approaching. The sense of relief was extraordinary — people began to shout, hug and cry. A group of us rushed to one of the main thoroughfares and began to pick sprigs of lilac, which had just come into bloom. And then a line of Russian tanks and lorries could be seen. The soldiers were grubby and covered in dust—they had clearly been on the move for days—but were smiling at us. One tank stopped right by our group. We presented the driver with lilac — and he offered us a ride. A day earlier, I had been carried to Prague’s outskirts by the German tank; now I was being brought back to the city-center on a Russian one.” Prime Minister Edvard Beneš (May 28, 1884 – September 3, 1948) and 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. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0886.jpg |
| Image Size | 239.54 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 1434 x 928 |
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| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | May 5, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Prague |
| State or Province | Bohemia |
| Country | Czechoslovakia |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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