Summary of Madeleine Korbel Albright's Prague Winter

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 On March 15, 1939, the Czech city of Prague was invaded by Nazi troops. Two men, who had been Czechoslovak spies in Germany, asked for asylum at the U. S. Legation. The diplomat turned them away, as there was nothing he could do.

#2 In Prague, the German army marched through the city, taking over the government buildings and stations. Hitler declared Bohemia and Moravia to be part of greater Germany, and their government a protectorate of Berlin.

#3 The Czech Republic was originally inhabited by the Boii, a Celtic tribe on the run from northern floods. The Romans called the land Bohemia after the Boii, demonstrating that the territory was named by Italians in honor of the Irish.

#4 The Czech Republic was formed in the late ninth century AD when the Germans, Slavs, and Čechs migrated to the region. By the end of the tenth century, control of the Czech lands had been consolidated by the Přemyslids, an indigenous clan.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669384670

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Insights on Madeleine Korbel Albright's Prague Winter

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On March 15, 1939, the Czech city of Prague was invaded by Nazi troops. Two men, who had been Czechoslovak spies in Germany, asked for asylum at the U. S. Legation. The diplomat turned them away, as there was nothing he could do.

#2

In Prague, the German army marched through the city, taking over the government buildings and stations. Hitler declared Bohemia and Moravia to be part of greater Germany, and their government a protectorate of Berlin.

#3

The Czech Republic was originally inhabited by the Boii, a Celtic tribe on the run from northern floods. The Romans called the land Bohemia after the Boii, demonstrating that the territory was named by Italians in honor of the Irish.

#4

The Czech Republic was formed in the late ninth century AD when the Germans, Slavs, and Čechs migrated to the region. By the end of the tenth century, control of the Czech lands had been consolidated by the Přemyslids, an indigenous clan.

#5

The Czech lands were thriving under the Přemyslid kings. Prague was a model of diversity, with Czechs, Germans, Jews, Poles, Roma, and Italians living in the city’s crowded buildings.

#6

The Czech nation was the political icon of the Bohemian nation, and their martyr, Wenceslas, was the spiritual one. He developed into a popular preacher and was named rector of Charles University in 1409.

#7

In 1415, when Catholic leaders assembled in the German city of Constance, the fate of Jan Hus was on their agenda. Despite being given a promise of safe passage, the troublesome rector was confined in chains to a jail next to a cesspool. When confronted by his accusers, he refused to recant, prompting the Church delegates to condemn him.

#8

The Hussite movement in Prague was led by Jan Žižka, a military strategist who had lost his right eye early in his career but remained a brilliant strategist. He helped the Czech aristocracy seize vast landholdings from the Catholics, while also developing the national language and a populist culture noted for its devotion to universal literacy.

#9

The Battle of White Mountain, in which the Protestants were defeated by the Catholics, marked the end of Czech history as it was known. The Czech people were pushed to the margins, and their language was replaced by German.

#10

The Czech lands are located to the east of Slovakia, and they have been home to the Bohemians, who were Slavs, for centuries. The two peoples were united under the Great Moravian Empire, which had, in the ninth century, exercised a loose sovereignty over much of Central Europe.

#11

In the pre-industrial era, the majority of Czechs still pursued a rural life, tilling the soil, tending livestock, and working as millers, gamekeepers, blacksmiths, cabinetmakers, and shepherds.

#12

The story of Sherlock Holmes and the king of Bohemia is a story designed to make Czech nationalists grind their teeth. But by 1891, the time of Doyle’s writing, the cultural balance was already shifting. Any assumption that a gentleman of Bohemia must be a German speaker was becoming less and less secure.

#13

The Czechs were a very democratic people, who did not care about fancy titles or address their countrymen as brothers and sisters, but