Velké dějiny zemí Koruny české XV./a 1938 –1945 – Kuklík Jan (2006)

The fifteenth volume of the Great History of the Lands of the Czech Crown is dedicated to a short but key period from 1938 to 1945. The independent Czechoslovak state, after only 20 years of existence, was first territorially diminished, stripped of the basic political and economic prerequisites for independent existence, and survived in the form of the Second Republic for only half a year at the mercy of Nazi Germany. After the declaration of an independent Slovak state in the spring of 1939, Bohemia and Moravia found themselves under German protectorate, and despite some attributes of sovereignty, they faced the threat of becoming an integral part of the Third Reich in a relatively short time. The Czech nation, in existential danger, took a wide range of positions from active collaboration with the Nazis to armed resistance. In particular, its military and, first and foremost, foreign component significantly contributed to the restoration of the continuity of state development, greatly aided by the outraged reaction of international public opinion to the most blatant manifestations of Nazi persecution.