August 25, 2005
The Czech government has officially apologized for wrongs done to ethnic Germans who opposed the Nazis during World War II when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia. The gesture only includes a narrow group of Sudeten Germans but touches upon very sensitive ground in Czech-German relations, soured by the war and subsequent expulsion of about 2.5 million to 3 million ethnic Germans. "The government of the Czech Republic expresses its apology to all affected active opponents of Nazism – regardless of their citizenship and place of residence," the government resolution said. The often violent expulsion and property confiscations remain a political issue mainly in Bavaria, home to many of those expelled from Czechoslovakia, a country that split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.