Lest We Forget

Abstract

In May 1984 the annual Whitsunday meeting of the Sudeten-German Homeland Association in Munich was a special occasion — it marked the thirtieth anniversary of Bavaria’s patronage declaration, which had officially bestowed upon the expellees from the Bohemian lands the honour of being the state’s ‘Fourth Tribe’. This was also celebrated with a 17-day exhibition entitled ‘Bavaria’s Fourth Tribe — The Sudeten Germans’. A lengthy brochure was published, listing many of the chief characteristics of Bavarian-Bohemian relations, past, present and future. The foreword confirms that, although forty years had passed since the expulsion and although Sudeten Germans had dispersed all over Germany and, indeed, all over the world, thanks to the obliging benevolence of the Free State Bavaria, they had still managed to maintain their common identity. The text includes a copy of the original patronage document which states that:

In the light of the century old historical and cultural bonds between the Bavarian and Bohemian lands and the family ties of the Old Bavarians, Franconians and Swabians to the Germans in Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and as a sign of recognition on part of the Free State Bavaria and the Bavarian people for the contributions made by the fellow citizens from the Sudetenland, the State government of Bavaria has used the occasion of the fifth Sudeten-German Whitsunday meeting 1954 in Munich to confer its patronage over the Sudeten-German folks group.¹