Interwar Communist party of Czechoslovakia, one of the largest Communist parties in Europe, was the only political subject in the country that united members of all ethnicities in their ranks - and around one quarter of their members were German. This paper will focus on three specific sets of collective memories that were crucial for (re)constructing their collective identities. It will analyse how these imagined communities were built on the pages of newspapers but also how they were strengthened during demonstrations and festivities.
Firstly, Sudeten German Communists were members of international movement and shared the same lieux de memoire as Communists in other countries. They celebrated Lenin-Liebknecht-Luxemburg Feier or the anniversaries of the foundation of the Soviet Union. Secondly, they understood themselves also as Sudeten Germans and as part of greater German history. Especially in the time of the Great Depression, they saw Sudetenland as victim of Czech colonialism. Lastly, they also remembered the long tradition of cooperation between the Czech and German working-class movements. This narrative was more emphasized after Hitler came to power. In this regard, the Hussites were a Czech-German movement and part of a common Czechoslovakian history that should encourage Sudeten German people in the fight for the Czechoslovak Republic.
The topic of Sudeten Germans in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia is not well-researched, but their stories can show us the history of Bohemian and Central European working-class movement from a new angle. This paper argues that shifts and contradictions described above are not just an outcome of policies of the Comintern. They also derived from the specific reality of this movement which was caught between nationalism and internationalism. These three types of collective memory – Communist, Sudeten German and Czech-German – together shaped the identities of Sudeten German Communists.
