right|frame|Location of Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic

The Ústí massacre (, German: Massaker von Aussig) was a lynching of ethnic Germans, triggered by the explosion of an ammunition depot, in Ústí nad Labem (Aussig an der Elbe), a largely ethnic German city in northern parts of the Bohemian Sudetenland, that occurred shortly after the end of World War II, on 31 July 1945.

Neither the reason for the explosion or subsequent pogrom has ever been conclusively identified; the official government investigation following the massacre placed blame on the Werwolf forces (Nazi saboteurs), however the outcome of the investigation has been called into question by contemporary historians, as additional equally reasonable possibilities exist.

Munitions explosion and subsequent pogrom

On July 31, at 15:30, an ammunition depot in Ústí nad Labem, Krásné Březno, exploded. 27 people, 7 of which were Czech, died in the explosion and dozens of others were injured.

Immediately after the explosion, a massacre of ethnic Germans, who had to wear white armbands after the war and so were easy to identify, began in three places in the city, the local train station, the Dr. Edvard Beneš bridge and a local pond used as a supply of water for fire hydrants. They were beaten, bayoneted, shot, or drowned. On the Beneš bridge, the German Georg Schörghuber shouted something provocative and was thrown by a present crowd into the Elbe river below, he was then shot at by soldiers when he tried to swim out of the river. Soon after other people began joining in the attacking of other Germans in the city.

Cause and investigations

Concrete reasons and if there were organizers behind the massacre and explosion remain disputed and largely speculative. Historian Jaroslav Rokoský at the Jan Evangelista Purkyně University stated in an interview with Czech Radio that "[what or whom caused the munitions explosion] isn't clear". Vladimír Keiser, the former director of Ústí nad Labem archives, stated in the same interview "there are about 8 hypotheses, all of which are credible". Other historians, such as František Hanzlík, who was present in the city at the time as a child, disagree and find an accident to be the most likely explanation, stating "There were more similar explosions like this after the war. [It's just that those explosions] didn't happen ... in a city", Hanzlík attributes the explosion to a misfiring of a Panzerfaust. They concluded that while only indirect evidence survived, it was conclusive enough to show that the explosion and massacre were prepared by Communists within the Czechoslovak secret services, specifically Bedřich Pokorný, a communist secret service officer and leader of Ministry of Interior's Defensive Intelligence (Obranné zpravodajství) department who organized the Brno death march. The speculated motive for this was orchestrating an incident which would support the transfer of Germans from Czechoslovakia by presenting to the Potsdam Conference an argument that further cohabitation of Germans with Czechs was impossible.

Consequences

The explosion and subsequent massacre were used as a pretext by advocates of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia.

See also

  • Brno death march
  • List of massacres in the Czech Republic
  • Sudetenland
  • Potsdam conference

References

  • Massacre description by Vladimír Kaiser in 1995 city history
  • Interview with Jan Havel