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Postwar Czechoslovakia: the master key to Europe? -- Resurrecting Czechoslovakia from its Munich grave -- General Eisenhower declines to liberate Prague -- Spring 1945: the Americans return to the Schönborn Palace -- Ambassador Steinhardt's delayed arrival -- A chronicle of wasted opportunities -- Steinhardt encounters reality: nationalization, expulsions, and U.S. military withdrawal -- America's warning signs: from the Ŝtĕchovice raid to the May 1946 elections -- Great expectations and lost illusions: U.S. intelligence in postwar Prague -- Passing the point of no-return: Prague withdraws from the Marshall Plan -- The communists exchange popularity for absolute power -- The Schönborn Palace under siege: Americans as "spies and saboteurs

For decades historians have raised the question wether outside forces figured in the purge of the Red Army which Stalin initiated in 1937 with the arrest and subsequent shooting of Marshal Tukhachevskii. It was unclear whether Heinrich Himmler's Sicherheitsdienst falsified certain documents in Berlin which were to prove Tukhachevskii's conspiratorial plotting against Stalin, and later passed these on to the Czechoslovakian head of state Edvard Benes. Should this have been the case, Stalin, having been given this information by Benes, would immediately have set about purging the ranks of his own army. Recollections by members of the Sicherheitsdienst, as well as Benes' memoirs, appear to verify this sequence of events. However, archival material recently made available in Prague and Moscow proves without a doubt, that the involvement of the Sicherheitsdienst was instigated by one of Stalin's agents. Indeed Benes, who in fact received information from Berlin regarding Tukhachevskii's conspiracy plans, did not make this known to Stalin until after Marshal Tukhachevskii had been put to death. Thus, the purging of the Red Army was an act Stalin had planned and carried out independently and can be seen as one more aspect characterizing his totalitarian regime. - (Josef W. Stalin, Edvard Benesch, Miachail N. Tuchatschewski). (Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte / FUB)

Rudolf Slansky was a lifelong Stalinist, general secretary of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia (1945-1951), and one of the main strategists of the February 1948 coup d'etat. His surprising arrest in November 1951 and execution in December 1952 caused a sensation in the history of the Cold War. In seeking to expose the roots of the Slansky affair, this article focuses on the hitherto uncharted terrain defined by the lives of Rudolf Slansky, Noel and Hermann Field, and Major (later Colonel) Frantisek Zdenek Ostry. The main objective of the article is to expose the role played by OKAPI, an intelligence organization of Czechoslovak emigres operating out of the American zone in Germany, and its attempt to arrange Slansky's escape to the west. The overall argument is that the impetus for a show trial in Prague came from Moscow while OKAPI's operation aimed at Slansky provided the trigger for his destruction. The affair is seen as a Cold War episode in which the competing forces of east and west worked together in an entirely unintended, yet harmonious manner to cause Slansky's downfall and death. (Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte / FUB)

Der Autor verweist auf durchaus positive Folgen der NATO- Osterweiterung. Dazu zählt er u.a. den Gewinn der Jahrhunderte fehlenden Sicherheit Mitteleuropas, die Stärkung der Machtbalance zwischen den Kräften von West und Ost in Europa, die Verankerung des durch vorige Okkupationen unterdrückten Wertesystems der westlichen Zivilisation in Osteuropa. Vor diesem Hintergrund unterzieht er einer beißenden Kritik Argumente, die einige amerikanische Politiker und Publizisten gegen die Aufnahme Polens, Tschechiens und Ungarns in die Allianz vorbrachten, Besonders scharf geht er mit dem Konzept Kissingers vom Dezember 1988 ins Gericht. Demnach sollte zwischen den USA und der UdSSR ein Abkommen abgeschloßen werden, in dem Moskau jeglicher Gewaltanwendung in Mittelosteuropa abschwört und Washington die "legitimen sowjetischen Sicherheitsinteressen" in diesem Gebiet respektieren würde. Seine Kritik untermauert der Verfassr mit etlichen Hinweisen auf historische Geschehnisse und Paralellen, insb. auf die Abkommen von München, Locarno und Jalta. (BIOst-Hrs)