Province of the Sudetenland
The Province of the Sudetenland (German: Provinz Sudetenland) was established on 29 October 1918 by former members of the Cisleithanian Imperial Council, the governing legislature of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire. It consisted of German-speaking parts of Moravia, Bohemia and Austrian Silesia, and was meant to become an integral part of the newly proclaimed Republic of German Austria.[1]
| Provinz Sudetenland Province of the Sudetenland | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Province of the German Austria | |||||||||
| 1918–1919 | |||||||||
 Flag | |||||||||
| Capital | Troppau | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 1918 | ||||||||
| 10 September 1919 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of |  Czechia | ||||||||
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The province was originally established by the provisional government of the so-called "German Moravia", which meant to represent German interests in Moravia. The provisional capital was declared as Troppau (Opava). It mimicked a similar provincial establishment in Bohemia, where Reichenberg (Liberec) became the capital.
Along with various other German-speaking parts, these provinces were intended to eventually integrate into Austria, on the basis of Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which emphasized the right to self-determination of peoples.[1] This would not come to pass, however. Both the provinces of German Bohemia and German Moravia were given to the newly proclaimed Czecho-Slovak Republic. Czechoslovak troops occupied the province by the beginning of 1919, and the position of the said province within Czechoslovakia was confirmed by the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, which was signed 10 September 1919.
In 1919, about 646,800 ethnic Germans lived within the province, along with about 25,000 ethnic Czechs.[1]
The majority of ethnic Germans in all of Czechoslovakia, including what was once this province, were expelled after the Second World War.
References
- Adrian von Arburg (in German): Die Festlegung der Staatsgrenze zwischen der Tschechoslowakei und Deutschland nach dem Münchener Abkommen 1938. Grin Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-638-016-48-3.
- Emil Franzel (in German): Sudetendeutsche Geschichte. Mannheim 1978, ISBN 3-8083-1141-X.
- Prinz, Friedrich (1993). Deutsche Geschichte in Osten Europas: Böhmen und Mähren (in German). Berlin: Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag GmbH. p. 381. ISBN 3-88680-200-0. Retrieved 25 February 2013.