Günter Bischof - The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

31. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/316, memorandum on a discussion between the minister for foreign affairs of the GDR, Winzer, and the ambassador of the ČSSR in the GDR, Kolář, on 1 April 1968.

32. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3616, pp. 235–41, memorandum on a discussion between the first secretary of the Central Committee of the SED, Walter Ulbricht, and the ambassador of the ČSSR in the GDR, Kolář, 16 April 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #15.

33. The “April plenum” took place from 28 March 1968 until 1 April 1968.

34. From the record of the information provided orally by Dubček and other members of the Czechoslovak delegation regarding the meeting of the Communist parties in Dresden, 23 March 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #76.

35. See Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 95–110; ÚSD, sb. KV ČSFR, D IV/25, extract from the Action Program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, 5 April 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #13.

36. Information no. 23/68, see Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , 104.

37. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3616, pp. 221–24, information from the GDR embassy in Prague regarding a discussion with the director for fiction in the party’s publishing house “Svoboda,” J. Hájek, 5 April 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #14.

38. SAPMO-BA, DY, 30/3617, pp. 17–19 and 26–32 (see note 23).

39. A MVnR, op. 5 sh, a. e. 516, 112, coded telegram from the Bulgarian ambassador in Berlin, Daskalov, to the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry, 30 April 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #20.

40. AdBIK, holding “Prager Frühling,” minutes of the discussion between the heads of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the heads of the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR and Poland, 8 May 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #77; SAPMO-DA, DY 30/11835, pp. 1–48, notes made by Ulbricht on this discussion, 8 May 1968; the subsequent verbatim quotes from Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 118–32.

41. Pauer, Der Einmarsch des Warschauer Paktes , 45–62.

42. On this, see also the chapter by Mikhail Prozumenshchikov, “Inside the Politburo of the CPSU: Political and Military Decision Making to Solve the Czechoslovak Crisis,” in this volume and Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 158.

43. On this, see also the text from Rüdiger Wenzke, “Die Nationale Volksarmee der DDR: Kein Einsatz in Prag,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 673–86.

44. Pauer, Der Einmarsch des Warschauer Paktes , 58.

45. Hartmut Zwahr, Die erfrorenen Flügel der Schwalbe: DDR und “Prager Frühling” (Bonn: Dietz, 2007), 81.

46. Zwahr, Die erfrorenen Flügel der Schwalbe , 75.

47. Robert Havemann (1910–1982) was in 1943 sentenced to death by the Volksgerichtshof , but the physicist/chemist survived by carrying out research in jail; in 1950 he was a member of the SED and professor at Berlin’s Humboldt University; in 1964 he lost his professorship, was ejected from the SED, and was the voice of opposition in the GDR until his death.

48. Quoted from Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 139.

49. “Stalinism is the system of distrust and hypocrisy; democracy is that of trust and the free and critical expression of opinion. In Stalinism, the state has the citizens; in democracy, the citizens have the state.” Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 140.

50. On this see also the text from Vondrová, “Der ‘Prager Frühling’ 1968 und Moskau,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 171–204.

51. Vondrová, “Der ‘Prager Frühling’ 1968 und Moskau,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 171–204.

52. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3617, p. 9, embassy in Prague, 13 June 1968, assessment of the May plenum by the Central Committee of the KSČ (29 May–1 June 1968).

53. SAPMO, DY 30/3618, p. 6, in a letter from the CPSU to the Presidium of the KSČ from 4 July 1968, it says: “The offensive announced at the May plenum of the Central Committee of the KSČ against the right-leaning and anti-socialist forces was neither ideological, nor political, nor organizationally secured; it simply didn’t take place” (extract from the German version).

54. SAPMO, DY 30/3618, p. 17.

55. On this, see also Vondrová, “Prag und Moskau,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 171–92.

56. At the 14th Party Congress conducted underground on 22 August 1968, these persons were indeed not elected to the Central Committee: Jiři Pelikán, ed., Panzer überrollen den Parteitag, Protokoll und Dokumente des XIV: Parteitags der KP Č am 22 August 1968 (Vienna: Europa Verlag, 1969).

57. On this, see also Prozumenshchikov, “Inside the Politburo of the CPSU,” in this volume.

58. Hejzlar, Reformkommunismus , 194–200; the draft of a new party statute is printed in Pelikán, Panzer überrollen den Parteitag , 143–84.

59. Hejzlar, Reformkommunismus , 179-80.

60. BA-MA, VA-01/12826, pp. 115–18, report of the operational group of the NVA from the operational headquarters of the supreme commander of the Unified Forces of the Warsaw Pact in Legnica, 25 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #92.

61. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3617, pp. 169–79, 28 June 1968. The manifesto of the “2,000 Words,” 28 June 1968, is reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #28.

62. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3618, pp. 14–21, report of the GDR ambassador in the ČSSR, Peter Florin, regarding the preparations for the extraordinary 14th Party Congress of the KSČ, 3 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #29.

63. Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 177.

64. RGANI, F. 3, op. 72, d. 183, pp. 3–17, Politburo resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU P 88 (I), 3 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #37.

65. See Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 180–86.

66. Priess et al., Die SED und der “Prager Frühling , ” 182.

67. On this, see also Prozumenshchikov, “Inside the Politburo of the CPSU,” in this volume.

68. On this, see also Vondrová, “Prag und Moskau,” 171–92.

69. RGANI, F. 3, op. 72, d. 186, p. 19, Politburo resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU P 90 (12), 11 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #81.

70. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/3618, p. 8, letter from the “Warsaw Five” to the Central Committee of the KSČ, 15 July 1968. The “Warsaw letter” is reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #45.

71. SAPMO-BA, DY 30/11836, 1–116, stenographical record of the meeting of the interventionist coalition in Warsaw, 14 and 15 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #82.

72. On the politics of the United States and the Federal Republic, see the articles from Horst Möller, “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der ‘Prager Frühling,’” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 549–58; and Udo Wengst, “Die bundesdeutschen Parteien und ihre Reaktionen auf den Einmarsch,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 559–70; as well as Günter Bischof, “‘No action’: Die USA und die Invasion in die Tschechoslowakei,” in Karner et al., Beiträge , 319–54.

73. RGANI, F. 2, op. 3, d. 114, pp. 27–54, speech of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev, 17 July 1968, reprinted in Karner et al., Dokumente , #38.