p Soviet operations designed to liberate Czechoslovakia began in 1944 and gained in intensity at the beginning of 1945. Apart from the difficulties created by the terrain, the Red Army had to cope with a strong enemy force. At the beginning of May two enemy army groups—Army Group Centre under General Fieldmarshal Franz Schoerner and Army Group Oesterreich under .Colonel-General Lothar Rendulic, were still deployed in the country, comprising 62 divisions, including 16 panzer and motorised.  [229•1  After the Soviet troops took Berlin, the Schoerner-Rendulic group was the strongest of the remaining German fascist forces and had no intention to lay down its arms until, at worst, it had fought its way to reach the US and British armies.

p Schoerner’s plans were anything but unrealistic. In a telegram to Truman on April 30, Churchill said: "The liberation of Prague and as much as possible of the territory of western Czechoslovakia by your forces might make the whole difference to the postwar situation in Czechoslovakia."  [229•2  The US and British governments wanted their troops push ahead as far as Prague. General Patton, US 3rd Army, entered Czechoslovak territory early in May. 1945. Before taking Pilsen, the city was bombed by US planes, demolishing or damaging as much as two-thirds of the housing. The US Command lost no time in dissolving the national committees in Pilsen and other Czech towns, replacing them with ah occupation regime.

p On May 4, in a letter to the Soviet General Staff, Eisenhower revealed his intention to advance to the rivers Vltava and Elbe, meaning to capture Prague.  [229•3  In its reply on the following day the Soviet Supreme Command insisted on 230 fidelity to the earlier agreed decision on the demarcation line between the Soviet and American troops along Czechoslovakia’s western frontier.  [230•1  On May 6, spokesmen of the US Command arrived in Schoerner’s residence in Velihovka, a health resort. They came to terms with the nazi general about his suppressing the resistance movement in Czechoslovakia and continuing actions against the Red Army, with the subsequent surrender of his troops to the US Command.

p In the meantime, the people of Czechoslovakia were poised for a general armed uprising. The first to rise were the workers of Kladno, a large industrial centre. On May 5 a rising flared in Prague, with the armed citizenry occupying strategic points. But the 40,000 nazis stationed in the city mounted a counter-offensive. In the order of the day, Schoerner said the rising "must be suppressed with all available means."  [230•2  The Czechoslovak capital was attacked by the SS Panzer Reich Division, SS Panzer Wiking Division and a reinforced Reich Division regiment.  [230•3  But the ranks of the insurrectionists swelled. They were 3O,ooo,  [230•4  but arms and combat experience were lacking. The nazis pressed forward steadily to the centre of the city. Unable to withstand the onslaught of the strong enemy force, the Prague patriots appealed urgently for help over the radio. And help arrived from the Soviet Army.

p There was only one way to help Prague: while the monthslong offensive of the 1st, and and 4th Ukrainian fronts (the last-named included the Czechoslovak Corps) continued, a task force would strike from Berlin at the rear of the Schoerner group. On the way were the Krusnehory Mountains, a difficult natural barrier. "To rout Schoerner’s million-strong group which had established itself in Czechoslovakia as quickly as possible, to take Prague, save the city from destruction and save the inhabitants of Prague, and not only of Prague, from annihilation, we had no alternative but to break directly through the Krusnehory Mountains."  [230•5  Ten Soviet tank corps of the 1st Ukrainian Front, a total of 1,600 tanks, were dispatched to Prague.  [230•6 

p The Prague Operation opened on May 6 with a Soviet 231 lunge to Dresden. On May 8, the Red Army and Polish troops captured the city. Near Dresden, across the Elbe, in the corridors of an old mine, Soviet soldiers found the priceless paintings of the famous Dresden Picture Gallery, hidden by the hitlerites.

p On the night of May 8, the tank corps of the ist Ukrainian Front traversed 80 km to literally race across the Krusnehory Mountains and at 02.30 hours of May 9 reached the outskirts of Prague. The reception they received from the people was truly enthusiastic.

p On May 10, the Soviet troops closed the ring round the main Schoerner forces, preventing them from fleeing west. During May 10 and n most of the nazi troops, comprising 780,000 men and officers and 35 generals, were taken prisoner.  [231•1 

p The swift manoeuvre saved Prague from destruction and the insurgents from annihilation. The liberation of Czechoslovakia was complete. Furthermore, the Soviet Union frustrated the US imperialist plan of capturing Prague and occupying the country. But for this resolute action, Czechoslovak independence would not have been regained and the country’s historical territory—the Sudeten region and other areas handed to Germany under the disgraceful Munich terms-would not have been returned. As many as 140,000 Soviet men and officers paid with their lives for Czechoslovak freedom.

p The brilliant Soviet operation in which Prague was liberated and Schoerner’s troops defeated, was legitimately the crowning event of the European war. Until the final shot the Soviet Union was a true champion of legitimate liberative aims. It lived up to its lofty mission of liberator and discharged fully its internationalist obligations to the peoples of Europe.

The military defeat of German fascism liberated the German people from the nazi yoke.