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The Prague uprising () was a partially successful attempt by the Czech resistance movement to liberate the city of Prague from German occupation in May 1945, during the end of World War II. The preceding six years of occupation had fuelled anti-German sentiment and the rapid advance of Allied forces from the Red Army and the United States Army offered the resistance a chance of success.
On 5 May 1945, during the end of World War II in Europe, occupying Nazi Germany forces in Bohemia and Moravia were spontaneously attacked by civilians in an uprising, with Czech resistance leaders emerging from hiding to join them. The Russian Liberation Army (ROA), a collaborationist formation of Russians, defected and supported the insurgents. German forces counter-attacked, but their progress was slowed by barricades constructed by the insurgents. On 8 May, the Czech and German leaders signed a ceasefire allowing all German forces to withdraw from the city, but some Waffen-SS troops refused to obey. Fighting continued until 9 May, when the Red Army entered the nearly liberated city.
The uprising was brutal, with both sides committing several . German forces used Czech civilians as and perpetrated several . Violence against German civilians, sanctioned by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, continued after the uprising, and was justified as revenge for the occupation or as a means to encourage Germans to flee. George S. Patton's Third United States Army was ordered by Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower not to come to the aid of the Czech insurgents, which undermined the credibility of the Western Bloc in post-war Czechoslovakia. Instead, the uprising was presented as a symbol of Czech resistance to Nazi rule, and the liberation by the Red Army was used by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia to increase popular support for the party.
The Nazis considered many Czechs to be racially Aryan, and therefore suitable for Germanisation. As a consequence, the German occupation was less harsh than in other Slavs, with wartime living standards being actually higher than in Germany itself. However, freedom of speech was curtailed by the occupational government and 400,000 Czechs were Totaleinsatz for forced labour programs in Nazi Germany. During the six-year occupation, more than 20,000 Czechs were executed by German forces and thousands more died in concentration camps. While the general violence of the occupation was much less severe than in Eastern Europe, it nevertheless incited violent anti-German sentiment in many Czechs.
In early 1945, former Czechoslovak Army officers set up the commanded by General Karel Kutlvašr to oversee fighting inside Prague, and the under General František Slunečko to direct insurgent units in the suburbs. Meanwhile, the , with representatives from various Czech political parties, formed to take over political leadership after the overthrow of the Nazi occupational government and the collaborationist authorities. Military leaders planning an uprising within Prague counted on the loyalty of ethnically Czech members of the city police, gendarmerie and the Government Army of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, as well as employees of key civil services, such as transport workers and the fire brigade. The 1st Infantry Division of the Russian Liberation Army (ROA), composed of Soviet prisoners of war that had agreed to fight for Germany, was stationed outside of Prague. Hoping that the ROA could be persuaded to switch sides in order to avoid accusations of collaboration, the Czech military command sent an envoy to General Sergei Bunyachenko, the commander of the 600th Infantry Division. Bunyachenko agreed to switch sides to help the Czech resistance. As the ROA soldiers were wearing German uniforms, it was decided that they would be given russian flag to distinguish them.
On 4 May, the US Third Army under General George S. Patton entered Czechoslovakia. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was the only political leader to advocate the liberation of Prague by the Western Allies. In a telegram to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Churchill said that "the liberation of Prague...by US troops might make the whole difference to the postwar situation of Czechoslovakia and might well influence that in nearby countries." Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, wanted Soviet forces to liberate the city, and asked that the Americans stop at Plzeň, to the west. The Red Army was planning Prague Offensive into the Protectorate, due to start 7 May. Eisenhower, disinclined to accept American casualties or risk antagonising the Soviet Union, acquiesced to the Soviet demands that the Red Army enter Prague.
Around noon, the radio broadcast a series of appeals to the police and gendarmerie requesting aid in fighting SS guards inside the radio building. A detachment of Government Army policemen responded to the call, and met stiff resistance as they retook the building. During the entire time, the radio continued to broadcast. Although not directed at the populace, the appeal ignited fighting all over the city, concentrated in the downtown districts. Crowds of unarmed civilians, mostly young men with no military training, overwhelmed German garrisons and stores. Many casualties were inflicted by German soldiers and civilians sniping from strong-points or rooftops; in response, Czech forces began to intern Germans and suspected collaborators. Czech noncombatants assisted by setting up makeshift hospitals for the wounded and bringing food, water, and other necessities to the barricades, while German forces often resorted to looting to obtain essential supplies. Czech forces seized thousands of firearms, hundreds of , and five armoured vehicles, but still suffered a shortage of weapons.
By the end of the day, the resistance had seized most of the city east of the Vltava River. The insurgents held many important buildings, including the radio, the telephone exchange, most railway stations, and ten of twelve bridges. Three thousand prisoners were liberated from Pankrác Prison. By controlling the telephone exchange, resistance fighters were able to sever communication between German units and commanders. German forces held most of the territory to the west of the river, including an airfield at Ruzyně, northwest of the city, and various surrounded garrisons such as the Petschek Palace.
At the orders of Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner, in command of Axis forces in Bohemia, Waffen-SS units were pulled from fighting the Red Army and sent into Prague. The SS was relatively well-equipped with tanks, armoured carriers, weaponry and motorised units. Information on this force movement reached insurgent headquarters late in the day. The radio broadcast appeals in English and Russian for an air attack on the tanks. Hearing of events in Prague, Patton asked for permission to advance to the Vltava in order to aid the Czech resistance, but Eisenhower refused. The Red Army was ordered to advance the launch of its offensive to 6 May.
SS General Carl Friedrich von Pückler-Burghauss ordered the Luftwaffe to firebomb Prague, but the attack had to be scaled back due to lack of fuel. The first strike was made by two Messerschmitt Me 262A jet fighter-bombers from elements of KG 51 at Ruzyně. One of their targets was the radio building, which was hit by a 250-kg bomb that disabled the transmitter. However, the radio continued to broadcast from alternate locations. In successive attacks, the Luftwaffe bombed barricades and hit apartment buildings with incendiary bombs, causing many civilian casualties.
At midday, the First Battalion of the ROA entered Prague and attacked the Germans; during its time in Prague, it disarmed around 10,000 German soldiers. An American reconnaissance patrol met with an ROA officer as well as Czech leaders. This was when the Czechs learnt of the demarcation line agreement and that the Third Army was not coming to liberate Prague. As a consequence, the Czech National Council, which had not been involved in negotiations with Bunyachenko, denounced the ROA. A Soviet liberation meant that they could not politically afford to endorse the ROA, whom Stalin considered traitors. Despite the rejection of the ROA, their aid to Prague became a point of friction between Moscow and Czechoslovakia after the war.
In order to gain control of Prague's transportation network, the Germans launched their strongest attack of the uprising. Waffen-SS armoured and artillery units arriving in Prague gradually punched through the barricades with several tank attacks. Intense fighting was accompanied with the SS use of Czech civilians as human shields and damage to the Old Town Hall and other historic buildings. When the Bartoš Command learnt of the Rheims surrender, it ordered an immediate ceasefire for Czech forces. This caused some confusion among the defenders, who were also suffering from desertion due to the worsening military situation. The ROA played a decisive role in slowing the progress of the Germans, but withdrew from Prague over the afternoon and evening in order to surrender to the US Army. Only a few ROA units stayed in the city, departing late on 8 May. With the bulk of the ROA gone, the poorly armed and untrained Czech insurgents fared badly against the reinforced German forces. By the end of the day, German forces had taken much of the rebel-held territory east of the Vltava, with the resistance only holding a salient in the Vinohrady-Strašnice area. ROA forces captured the Luftwaffe airfield at Ruzyně, destroying several aircraft.
Faced with military collapse, no arriving Allied help, and threats to destroy the city, the Czech National Council agreed to negotiate with Wehrmacht General Rudolf Toussaint. Toussaint, running out of time to evacuate Wehrmacht units westward, was in an equally desperate position. After several hours of negotiations, it was agreed that on the morning of 9 May, the Czechs would allow German soldiers to pass westward through Prague, and in exchange German forces leaving the city would surrender their arms. A ceasefire was finally agreed to around midnight. However, some pockets of German forces were unaware of or disobeyed the ceasefire, and civilians feared a continuation of the German atrocities which had intensified over the previous two days. Late in the evening, reports reached Prague of the liberation of Theresienstadt concentration camp, northwest of the city, and the advance of the Red Army into other areas north of Prague.
In addition to the war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht and the SS, Luftwaffe soldiers, along with the Sturmabteilung, participated in the torture and murder of prisoners held at the Na Pražačce school.
In Prague, Czech insurgents killed surrendered German soldiers and civilians both before and after the arrival of the Red Army. Historian argues that there was no clear-cut distinction between the end of the uprising and the beginning of the expulsions. Some captured German soldiers were hanged from lampposts and burned to death, or otherwise tortured and mutilated. Czech rioters also assaulted, raped, and robbed German civilians. Not all those killed or affected by anti-German violence were actually German or collaborators, as perpetrators frequently acted on suspicion, or exploited the chaos to settle personal grudges. In one massacre at Bořislavka on 10 May, forty German civilians were murdered. During and after the uprising, thousands of German civilians and surrendered soldiers were interned in makeshift camps where food and hygiene were poor. Survivors claimed that beatings and rape were commonplace. The violence against German civilians continued throughout the summer, culminating in the expulsion of Sudeten Germans. About three million Czechoslovak citizens of German ethnicity were stripped of their citizenship and property and forcibly deported.
Historian Mark Levene described the events in the city as a "tidal wave of anti-German mob justice" that he compared to the 1941 anti-Jewish pogroms in eastern Poland, Lithuania, and elsewhere before the arrival of the German army. (2025). 9780199683048, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199683048
The Western Allies' failure to liberate Prague was seen as emblematic of their Western betrayal, first demonstrated by the Munich Agreement. It also served as a blow to democratic forces within the country who opposed Czechoslovakia's drift towards communism in the years after the war. It was not forgotten that Stalin had opposed the Munich Agreement and Prague's liberation by the Red Army turned public opinion in favour of communism. Few Czechs were aware of the demarcation line agreement between the Western Allied and Soviet forces, allowing communists to accuse the American forces of "having remained a cowardly or cynical onlooker while Prague was struggling for life," in the words of Hungarian historian Stephen Kertesz. According to British diplomat Orme Sargent, the Prague uprising was the moment that "Czechoslovakia was now definitely lost to the West."
In 1948, the government of Czechoslovakia was toppled by a Communist coup d'état. Following the coup, Czechoslovakia became a communist state aligned Warsaw Pact until the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The Communist government attempted to discredit the Czech resistance, which was considered a threat to Communist legitimacy, by purging or arresting former resistance leaders, and distorting history, for instance overstating the role of the working class in the uprising and inflating the number of Red Army soldiers killed in Prague.
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