ORIENTATION " 

Catholic Church in the Czech Republic 
         
MUSIC 00:00

TEXT The St. Vitus Cathedral on Prague Castle. The landmark of Bohemian Catholicism. But the Gothic structure is a "church without a church." It is - after a Supreme Court ruling in March - as since 1954 - the state.

00:22 
Jan Sokol is Catholic. The former dean of the Charles University in Prague in 2003 was a candidate for the office of president. A return of the St. Vitus Cathedral is a problem - but actually not such a big deal, says Sokol.

00:37

OT Jan Sokol (former Rector, Charles University, Prague) 
"The legal status of the Church of St. Vitus Cathedral is not clear in the Middle Ages, he was himself so in a legal entity, today we would say as a Foundation. It is not clear who owns the properly and I must say that the church now enjoys complete freedom, which is very important. The quarrel at the St. Vitus Cathedral was really a tempest in a teapot. "

01:14 
With a yield of 10.8 billion euros, the Czech state would have to compensate the church for Communist expropriation, according to experts.

01:24 
TEXT Anton Otte is Sudeten Germans and priests. He works in the Executive Board of the "Ackermann community," a Christian community, which is campaigning for a reappraisal of the strained relations between Czechs and Sudeten Germans expelled.

01:37 
He regularly attended the church of Our Lady Victorious "at Prague's Lesser Town: A few days before yesterday, Pope Benedict was here visiting. The Carmelite Church is a place of popular piety. At its center: the Infant Jesus of Prague. But what many do not know believers who pray here for the fulfillment of their desires and so affixed votive: The church was formerly a Protestant and was forcibly re-Catholicised the Thirty Years War.

MUSIC 02:12 
TEXT In the apse behind the altar - a picture of grace. Then - between Emperor, King and the Carmelite cloister General - a representation of the Battle of White Mountain. 1620, the Catholic League defeated the Bohemian estates - the beginning of the reintroduction of Catholicism.

02:33 
OT Anthony Otte (priest, "Ackermann community", Prague) 
"I am now aware that I really do not know about the church, even though I was here so often. That is displayed on the altar, the Battle of White Mountain, which I've never considered. What turns me on my visits has never been interested. And I think this is just great, because the people in his mind, the battle of the White Mountains are regarded as a degradation of the Czech people. That is probably true historically not quite, but it is felt, but at the same place, the Infant Jesus and worshiped the same people coming here. Here you come here just because of the Infant Jesus of Prague. "

03:35 
TEXT The "house of golden sun" - not far from the church. For Anton Otte, the museum is a place that shows how the reconciliation began. It documents the life work of evangelical pastor Premysl Pitter, who as a humanist in the period immediately after the World War II made a name.

03:50 
MUSIC [allow to be free!]

TEXT 03:52 
Premysl Pitter and his assistant, Olga Fierz founded during World War II orphanages. Immediately after the war, she took on the state provided locks both children of victims and perpetrators. The Nazis, such as children whose parents had been interned as war criminals, also helped children of murdered Jews.

04:15 
OT Anthony Otte (priest, "Ackermann community", Prague) 
"Some time later, I entered the work of reconciliation between Germans and Czechs, which is why it is so important that has been at the very beginning in this terrible time even people who have said: 'It can not go!" This cannot be the last word.

04:37 
[top left: Archive 1938] 
Czechs and Sudeten German Czechoslovak citizens of Czech language - a history of conflict. 1938 - annexing the Sudentengebiete by Hitler's Germany. Anonymous amateur filmmakers documented:

04:57 
More than six years flying over the Prague Castle 'the swastika. In May 1945 the Czechs to practice retaliation to the Sudeten Germans. About three million towards the west are deported. After the evictions, many throw off the white bandages, must bear the Sudeten Germans. Hundreds of thousands found in Germany and Austria, a new home.

05:21 
Thousands did not survive the relocation - one example - the "Brno death march" in May 1945.

05:32 
A cross on the road to Brno recalls that about 900 people who lie buried here. Killed or died of typhoid.

05:45 
The Czechoslovak President Edvard Benes adopts Presidential 143, which is confiscated by the "enemies of the Czechoslovak people." But many Jews and Sudeten German anti-Nazis are not spared. The Benes decrees are still valid today.

06:02 
Even Anton Ottes father was convicted as a German collaborator, executed after the war. He himself became a priest and spiritual advisory board of the old Bohemian legend, named after an Ackermann community.

06:15 
OT Anthony Otte (priest, "Ackermann community", Prague) 
"The Ackermann-community is a community of fate of displaced Christians in Bohemia and Silesia. And overcome in a way a community that has set itself the goal of the pain of displacement and addition to the integration and mutual aid was an issue that - if it is truly to become a real healing - reconciliation with the Czechs to.

07:01

TEXT Even Christians are now in the Czech language Ackermann community. The most prominent member is the Deputy Minister for Cultural Affairs - Jaromir Talíř. The Catholic agrees that the Czechs would have to practice dealing with the past.

07:16 
OT Jaromir Talíř (Deputy Minister of Culture, Prague) 
"As Catholics we are convinced that the blame lies on both sides, that is, on the German, as regards the period before and during World War II and the Czech Republic as regards the so-called" wild deportation. "We need each other forgive and find ways into the future. "

07:37 
TEXT Prague - a city of bridges. Maybe even a place for bridges of understanding - which guarantee a good neighbourhood in a united Europe. 
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