Editing Sudetenland (section)

===Expulsions and resettlement after World War II===
{{main|Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia}}
[[File:Vertreibung.jpg|thumb|The [[expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia]] as the result of the end of World War II]]
[[File:Vertreibung 1938.gif|thumb|From the territory occupied by the Third Reich, 160,000 to 170,000 Czech-speaking inhabitants were forced to leave or were expelled]]
Shortly after the liberation of Czechoslovakia in May 1945, the use of the term ''Sudety'' (Sudetenland) in official communications was banned and replaced by the term ''pohraniční území'' (border territory).<ref>Zdeněk Beneš. ''Facing history: the evolution of Czech-German relations in the Czech provinces, 1848–1948''. Gallery, 2002. p. 218.</ref> The [[Berlin Declaration (1945)|Berlin Declaration]] of 5 June 1945 disabled German annexation of Sudetenland legally.

In the summer of 1945, the [[Potsdam Conference]] decided that Sudeten Germans would have to leave Czechoslovakia (see [[flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–50)]]). As a consequence of the immense hostility against all Germans that had grown within Czechoslovakia because many of them had helped the Nazis, the overwhelming majority of Germans were expelled though the relevant Czechoslovak legislation had provided for Germans to remain if they could prove their anti-Nazi affiliation.

The number of expelled Germans in the early phase (spring-summer 1945) is estimated to be around 500,000 people. After the Beneš decrees, nearly all Germans were expelled starting in 1946 and in 1950 only 159,938 (from 3,149,820 in 1930) still lived in the Czech Republic. The remaining Germans, who were proven antifascists and skilled laborers, were allowed to stay in Czechoslovakia but were later forcefully dispersed within the country.<ref>"Přesun v rámci rozptylu občanů německé národnosti."</ref> Some German refugees from Czechoslovakia are represented by the [[Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft]].
[[File:Wappen der Sudetendeutschen.png|thumb|left|Coat of arms of ''Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft'']]
Many of the Germans who stayed in Czechoslovakia later emigrated to [[West Germany]] (more than 100,000). As the German population was transferred out of the country, the former Sudetenland was resettled mostly by [[Czechs]] but also by other nationalities of Czechoslovakia: [[Slovaks]], [[Greeks in the Czech Republic|Greeks]] (arriving in the wake of the [[Greek Civil War]] 1946–49), [[Carpathian Ruthenia]]ns, [[Romani people]] and Jews who had survived [[the Holocaust]], and [[Hungarians]] (though the Hungarians were forced into that and later returned home—see [[Hungarians in Slovakia#Population exchanges|Hungarians in Slovakia: Population exchanges]]).

Some areas, such as part of Czech Silesian-Moravian borderland, southwestern Bohemia ([[Šumava National Park]]), western and northern parts of Bohemia, remained depopulated for several strategic reasons (extensive mining and military interests) or are now protected national parks and landscapes. Moreover, before the establishment of the [[Iron Curtain]] in 1952 to 1955, the so-called "forbidden zone" was established by means of [[Czechoslovak border fortifications during the Cold War|engineer equipment]] up to 2&nbsp;km (1.2&nbsp;mi) from the border in which no civilians could reside. A wider region, or "border zone", existed up to 12&nbsp;km (7 miles) from the border in which no "disloyal" or "suspect" civilians could reside or work. Thus, the entire [[Aš|Aš-Bulge]] fell within the border zone, a status that remained until the [[Velvet Revolution]] in 1989.

There remained areas with noticeable German minorities in the westernmost borderland around [[Cheb]], where skilled ethnic German miners and workers continued in mining and industry, until 1955, as sanctioned under the [[Yalta Conference]] protocols;{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} in the [[Egerland]], German minority organizations continue to exist.

In the 2021 census, 24,632 people in the Czech Republic claimed German ethnicity, out of which 15,504 in combination with another ethnicity.<ref>{{cite web |title=Národnost|url=https://www.czso.cz/csu/scitani2021/narodnost|work=Census 2021|publisher=[[Czech Statistical Office]]|language=cs|access-date=7 June 2022}}</ref>