DISINFO: Czech authorities engage in pro-Nazi historical revisionism
SUMMARY
There is an increasing tendency to underestimate the damage done by Nazi Germany to the Czech people and territory during the Second World War. Simultaneously, there is an ongoing strange and unacceptable campaign aiming to convince Czech people, especially young people, that the German occupation of Czechia was just another historical episode. Monuments to the liberators are being removed and only a minority of people commemorate the anniversary marking the end of the occupation. These efforts belong to various political figures and non-profit organisations.
RESPONSE
Contains a recurring disinformation narrative centred on the unsubstantiated claim that certain Czech politicians and civil society organisations promote pro-Nazi historical revisionism. The article is part of a wider smear campaign against Czechia in an attempt to deny and downplay the revelation in April 2021 that Russian secret services were involved in the 2014 Vrbětice munitions depot explosion.
This article also contains a disinformation narrative claiming that there is no conclusive evidence of the involvement of Russia's intelligence services in the Vrbětice explosion, which has been covered in a separate case.
Portraying countries that oppose Kremlin’s aggressive foreign policy as being Nazi or fascist is a recurrent tactic used by pro-Kremlin and Kremlin-controlled media to vilify them. The re-location of certain Soviet-era statues in Czechia is not connected to pro-Nazi historical revisionism, but to the oppression and terror that the Red Army inflicted on the Czech people after World War II. The re-location of a statue of Marshal Konev in Prague in April 2020, an event that was repeatedly misrepresented by pro-Kremlin media, is a case in point. Marshal Konev was a chairman of the Soviet military delegation sent to Prague in 1968 to prepare for the military invasion of Czechoslovakia. Notably, the statue was not removed, but was relocated to a museum, and was replaced by a monument commemorating the fight of all Soviet soldiers against Nazi forces, by decision of the democratically elected municipal council of Prague, disproving any notion of pro-Nazi historical revisionism by Czech officials.