am i suposed to put something here?
7 Likes
As a born and raised Slovak, I can tell you the ‘native’ version of the story.
In the late 1930s there was a lot of nationalist propaganda in Czechoslovakia (some claim German sponsored), focused mainly in Sudetenland in west Czechia, but also in Slovakia to kinda drive a wedge between Czechs and Slovaks (focused on the little brother syndrome that we have as a nation to this day 
).
After the Munich conference and Vienna awards a large part of (present day) southern Slovakia was awarded to Hungary, and the Slovak-Hungarian relations were strained at least since 1848.
This all led to events of March 1939, where the Slovak State was declared on the 14th, Bohemia was occupied by Germany on the 15th and the Protectorate was declared on the 16th.
Now the more speculative part: Tiso (ex-prime minister and future president) met with Hitler before hand and the way it is taught in Slovakia is that Tiso was (alegedly) told that the invasion into Bohemia/Moravia was happening and Slovaks could either declare ‘independence’ and become an Axis ally, or that the Hungarian army is ready to step in. Now given the nationalist tensions between Hungary and Slovakia some people reason that it was actually good to have an ‘independent’ state. (And some people, especially in the past few years even claim that those were the best years of Slovak history, but that’ s a different story 
)
As I recall there were even some attempts to govern the Slovak state a bit different, but staunch Nazi supporters (Vojtech Tuka and the likes) were given more and more power, so the Slovak state became an obedient little puppet.
I understand that this version of events is biased, and most people from my experience know a different story (even the Czech version is quite different AFAIK). Also a lot of Slovaks were more than willing collaborators, but also some of them were just pointed at and dragged over to the Siberian lagers in the late 1940’s. And also a lot of people with German ties were harmed after the Slovak National Uprising started in August 1944.
I hope you find this view interesting, and I will gladly provide more details when I can, if anyone is interested.
7 Likes