Trying to understand history on the basis of past events is a methodological error, however logical and intuitive it may seem. In reality, the foundation lies in plans, assumptions, and ambitions for the future. The image of the past is derived from them.
Today the past is being rewritten so that Hitler was the good one and the Red Army were the villains. For many people in the Czech Republic, this is especially sensitive, because the Germans at the time sought the complete annihilation of the Czech ethnic nation, and the arrival of the Red Army was a last-minute rescue. Until quite recently, nobody disputed that, regardless of one’s views on communism, the Soviet Union, and so forth. That makes the issue far more sensitive than it is, for example, for the French, the Dutch, or even the Finns.
When the past is fundamentally rewritten today, the primary issue is a change in the underlying assumptions and goals for the future. A change in ideas about the kind of life the citizens of the Czech Republic ought to live.
What is disappearing is the vision of a country with a relatively high degree of independence — including economic and cultural independence — a highly educated society where people quietly live ordinary lives. A country that does not rush into conflicts and maintains decent relations with everyone around it. A country for which Russia is an important trading partner, and perhaps something more, though certainly not an exclusive partner. Belonging to that future is a past defined by the defeat of German evil, or more precisely by liberation through the Red Army with significant American assistance. A past that also says the Czechs themselves contributed in some measure — as paratroopers, partisans, members of the domestic resistance, participants in the Prague uprising, and so on.
That vision is being replaced by another. A vision of a territory serving higher cultures and races as a reservoir of extremely cheap labor — labor that must not become too educated, and therefore too ambitious — along with timber and other commodities, raw materials, and space for the settlement of Germans, migrants, or anyone else. The Slavic ethnic population may be tolerated on this territory only so long as no better use is found for it. Belonging to that future is a past in which the Germans did a few bad things, but were not fundamentally to blame for them. Then, in 1945, the insane Russian hordes arrived, and the criminal Czech ethnic population helped them. The eighth or ninth of May ought to be observed as a day of mourning.
Of course, the same realities could be described in different words. The first vision might be framed as “we will live under the influence of Russians who do not even have flushing toilets,” while the second might be described as “we will become part of the most advanced and freest civilization.” But in this case, different words do not signify a different reality.
When we return to the events of 1945, the central issue is not what is historically more precise. The issue is what kind of future such an interpretation is meant to support.