Last days of WWII in Czechoslovakia - Darkovicky, Czech Republic
Posted by: 
ToRo61
N 49° 55.551 E 018° 13.444
34U E 300764 N 5534081
This reenactment recalls the last days WWII in former Czechoslovakia
- especially Ostrava-Opava operations
Waymark Code: WMYKAP
Location: Moravskoslezský kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 06/24/2018
Views: 17
Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) was liberated from the Nazis German during March-May in 1945. Soviet Red army entered in March / April from south-east and north-east.
The coal mines and steel industries of the Ostrava region were providing crucial raw materials to support Adolf Hitler's war machine, and an estimated 35 percent of Germany's economic potential. A. Hitler saying: "If we give them Ostrava, then we give them Germany - it is necessary to hold Ostrava whatever the cost."
The largest industrial enterprises, like Vítkovice Mining and Iron Corporation and the Ferdinand Northern Railway, came under the administration of the German Reich’s Herman Göring Werke concern and were refocused toward war manufacturing. Near the end of the war in August 1944, bombing attacks by Anglo-American allies seriously damaged the town.
Ostrava and its inhabitants waited till April 30, 1945 to see liberation. The armed forces of the 4th Ukrainian Front of the Red Army and the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Tank Brigade thus engaged in heavy and bloody combat during the Ostrava-Opava operations.
Opava was liberated by the Soviet Army on April 22, 1945 during the Ostrava-Opava operations (
visit link) and only at the cost of heavy losses when 3,000 Soviet soldiers were killed during the fights
On the occasion of anniversary of liberation of city Ostrava and Opava was held this annual reenactment.
See more photos: (
visit link)
and videoclips: (
visit link) (
visit link) (
visit link)