Liberation Day, 8 May: three armies, three dates and one lasting argument

In most of Europe the end of the Second World War has a single date and a single story. In Czechia it has three dates, three armies and an argument that has lasted eight decades. Prague rose against the German occupiers on 5 May 1945, American troops stopped at Plzeň, Soviet tanks rolled into the capital on 9 May, and the German surrender was signed in between. Who deserves the credit, and how to say so, still divides opinion.

What happened, and how it is remembered, is set out here.

Six years of occupation

German troops entered the Czech lands on 15 March 1939, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed the next day. Czech political life was suppressed, universities were closed after student protests in November 1939 and resistance was punished harshly. After the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich, the deputy Reich Protector, in May 1942, the Nazis answered with mass executions and destroyed the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. The background is in the Munich Agreement and the occupation. The Czech Jewish community was almost wiped out, as told in the Czech Jewish heritage.

By spring 1945 the war was nearly over. Soviet forces were advancing from the east and from Silesia, the Americans from Bavaria in the west. Czech resistance groups and the underground Czech National Council (Česká národní rada) planned to act as the Germans weakened.

The Prague uprising

It began on the morning of 5 May 1945, when Czech radio broadcast in Czech, ending the German-language service, and appealed to the people of Prague. Barricades went up across the city, and Czech insurgents, police and civilians fought German troops and SS units. Heavy fighting took place in districts such as Žižkov and around the radio building. The insurgents were poorly armed, the outcome uncertain, and Czech leaders appealed for Allied help by radio.

On 6 May the Russian Liberation Army, a formation of Soviet citizens who had joined the German side under General Andrey Vlasov, switched sides and fought for a time with the insurgents, before withdrawing on 7 May to avoid capture by the Soviets. Their role remains controversial in Czech memory.

The American Third Army reached Plzeň on 6 May. It had orders to halt along a line agreed with the Soviet command and did not advance on Prague, although some commanders wanted to. That decision, taken at the level of the Allied high command, is why the Red Army and not the Americans entered the capital.

Surrender and arrival

On 8 May a ceasefire agreement was signed between the German command in Prague and the Czech National Council, allowing German troops to leave the city. The general German surrender was signed in Berlin that night and took effect at 23:01 Central European Time on 8 May, which was already 9 May in Moscow. Hence Western Europe marks 8 May and Russia 9 May.

The first Soviet tanks entered Prague in the early hours of 9 May. German forces elsewhere in Bohemia and Moravia, notably units of an army group in the east of the country, fought on for a few more days. The uprising cost many lives among insurgents and civilians; figures vary by source, and historians' research continues.

Who liberated Czechoslovakia?

It depends where you stand. Western and southern Bohemia were liberated by the American army, and Plzeň celebrates the arrival of the US soldiers every year in early May. The rest of the country, Prague included, was freed by the Red Army. Czechoslovak soldiers fought on the Eastern Front and alongside the British in the west, and the country had its own resistance at home.

Under communism the official story stressed the Soviet role and said little of the Americans. The holiday itself was moved from 8 May to 9 May in the early 1950s to match Soviet practice. After 1989 the emphasis shifted: the American role was celebrated and the Soviet one reassessed in the light of the invasion of 1968 and decades of Soviet domination after liberation. Some Czechs resent the idea that their country was freed by an army that then helped impose communism. Others point to the huge price the Red Army paid in lives in the final battles on Czechoslovak soil. The 8 May date came back as a holiday after the revolution. Americans in Czechia today, a community with its own paperwork questions, are covered in Americans in Czechia: visas, taxes and voting from abroad.

The postwar period brought darker chapters, among them the expulsion of the German population (Czech Germans and the Sudetenland, the Beneš decrees) and the communist takeover of 1948 (Czechoslovakia under communism). How the democratic state later handled the communist legacy is in Czechia and communist-era crimes, and how Czechs remember the era in nostalgia for communism.

A holiday and its arguments

8 May is a public holiday, the Day of Victory (Den vítězství), set out in the law on state holidays. The full list is in Czech public holidays explained. The day is marked by wreath-laying at memorials, speeches by the president and ministers, and commemorations in Prague, Plzeň and elsewhere.

Politics has intruded. In April 2020 the Prague 6 district removed a statue of Marshal Ivan Konev, the Soviet commander associated with the liberation of Prague, which had stood there for decades, citing among other things his later role in suppressing the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and in the Berlin crisis of 1961. The Russian embassy protested. Such disputes belong to a wider European argument about memory and the use of history in current politics.

Remembering today

On 8 May public ceremonies take place at the Vítkov Hill memorial and at cemeteries and memorials across Prague. Plzeň holds an annual liberation festival in early May, with parades of historic vehicles and re-enactors honouring the American troops. Schools and museums run exhibitions, and the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes and other bodies publish research on the period.

Opinion surveys over the years have shown Czechs giving different weight to the Americans and the Soviets, and the answers vary with the respondent's age and the wording of the question. Treat any single percentage with caution and check the source and wording.

Frequently asked questions

When was Prague liberated?

The uprising began on 5 May 1945. A ceasefire was agreed on 8 May and Soviet tanks entered on 9 May.

Why did the Americans not take Prague?

US forces stopped at a line agreed with the Soviet command, after liberating Plzeň on 6 May.

Is 8 May a public holiday in Czechia?

Yes, it is the Day of Victory.

Why is the Konev statue controversial?

Because of Konev's role in later Soviet interventions. The Prague 6 district removed the statue in April 2020.

If you are in Prague on 8 May, check the city's events listing for the programme of commemorations.