Editing Bohemia (section)

===German occupation and World War II===
After the [[Munich Agreement]] in 1938, the border regions of Bohemia historically inhabited predominantly by ethnic Germans (the [[Sudetenland]]) were annexed to [[Nazi Germany]]. The remnants of Bohemia and Moravia were then annexed by Germany in 1939, while the Slovak lands became the separate [[Slovak Republic (1939–1945)|Slovak Republic]], a puppet state of Nazi Germany. From 1939 to 1945, Bohemia (without the Sudetenland) and Moravia formed the German [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]].

During [[World War II]], the Germans operated the [[Theresienstadt Ghetto]] for Jews, the Dulag Luft Ost, [[Stalag IV-C]] and Stalag 359 [[German prisoner-of-war camps in World War II|prisoner-of-war camps]] for [[French prisoners of war in World War II|French]], British, Belgian, Serbian, Dutch, Slovak, Soviet, Romanian, Italian and other [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] POWs, and the Ilag IV camp for interned civilians from western Allied countries in the region.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Megargee|first1=Geoffrey P.|last2=Overmans|first2=Rüdiger|last3=Vogt|first3=Wolfgang|year=2022|title=The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933–1945. Volume IV|publisher=Indiana University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|pages=128, 362, 417, 565|isbn=978-0-253-06089-1}}</ref> There were also 17 [[List of subcamps of Flossenbürg|subcamps]] of the [[Flossenbürg concentration camp]], in which both men and women, mostly [[Nazi crimes against the Polish nation|Polish]], Soviet and Jewish, but also French, Yugoslav, Czech, [[Romani people|Romani]] and of several other ethnicities, were imprisoned and subjected to [[Forced labor under German rule during World War II|forced labor]],<ref name=gf>{{cite web|url=https://www.gedenkstaette-flossenbuerg.de/en/history/subcamps|title=Subcamps|website=KZ-Gedenkstätte Flossenbürg|access-date=5 November 2023}}</ref> and 16 subcamps of the [[Gross-Rosen concentration camp]], in which men and women, mostly Polish and Jewish, but also Czechs, Russians, and other people, were similarly imprisoned and subjected to forced labor.<ref name=gr>{{cite web|url=https://en.gross-rosen.eu/historia-kl-gross-rosen/filie-obozu-gross-rosen/|title=Subcamps of KL Groß-Rosen|website=Gross-Rosen Museum in Rogoźnica|access-date=5 November 2023}}</ref>

Nazi authorities brutally suppressed any open opposition to German occupation, and many Czech patriots were executed as a result. In 1942, the Czechoslovak resistance [[assassination of Reinhard Heydrich|assassinated Reinhard Heydrich]], and in reprisal German forces murdered the population of a whole village, [[Lidice massacre|Lidice]]. In the spring of 1945, there were [[Death marches during the Holocaust|death marches]] of prisoners of several subcamps of the Flossenbürg, Gross-Rosen and [[Buchenwald concentration camp]]s in Saxony and Silesia, and Allied POWs from camps in Austria reached the region.<ref name=gf/><ref name=gr/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.aussenlager-buchenwald.de|title=Buchenwald war überall - Projekt »Netzwerk der Außenlager«|website=aussenlager-buchenwald.de|access-date=5 November 2023|language=de}}</ref><ref>Megargee; Overmans; Vogt, p. 274</ref>

In May 1945, Allied [[United States Army Central|American]],<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.liberationroute.com/stories/192/liberation-of-pilsen|title=Liberation of Pilsen|website=Liberation Route Europe|access-date=5 November 2023}}</ref> Polish,<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Wołek|first=Karol|year=2020|title=The liberation of the German concentration camp in Holýšov, Czech Republic, by the Polish Armed Forces|magazine=The Warsaw Institute Review|volume=2 |language=pl|issue=13|page= |pages=117–118|issn=2543-9839}}</ref> [[1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the Soviet Union|Czechoslovak]], Soviet and Romanian troops captured the region, which was then restored to Czechoslovakia. After the war ended in 1945, after initial plans to cede lands to Germany or to create German-speaking cantons had been abandoned,<ref name ="Arburg"/> the vast majority of the Bohemian Germans were [[Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II|expelled]] by order of the reestablished Czechoslovak central government, based on the [[Potsdam Agreement]]. The Bohemian Germans' property was confiscated by the Czech authorities, and according to contemporary estimates, amounted to a third of the Czechoslovak national income. Germans who were valued for their skills were allowed to stay to pass on their knowledge to the Czech migrants.<ref name="Arburg" /> The expulsion severely depopulated the area, and from then on, locales were called only their Czech names, regardless of their previous demographics. The resettlement of the formerly German-settled areas allowed many poorer people to acquire property, thus "equalizing" Czechoslovak society.<ref name="Arburg" />