The sociologist Václav Houžvička's history of the “Sudeten question” was timely when first published in Czech in 2005 as Návraty sudetské otázky. As the Czech Republic prepared to enter the European Union (EU) in the early 2000s, the postwar expulsion of Czechoslovakia's three million Sudeten Germans remained an irritant in Czech-German relations and a possible wrench in the works of the Czech Republic's EU accession. But the country did enter the EU on schedule in 2004, and the “Sudeten question” has not hindered the normalization of Czech-German relations. Though there is much of interest in this English translation of Houžvička's book, the political and historiographical context has changed a great deal in ten years. Some readers will appreciate Houžvička's summaries of pre-2005 Czech and German historiography on Czech-German relations, as well as the sizable collection of maps and translated primary sources, but the book's polemical goal—to counter Sudeten German narratives of Bohemian history—seems dated. It is not that this history does not matter, but that the terms and stakes of the debate have shifted.

So what is—or what was—the “Sudeten question”? Even though the term Sudeten German only came into common use in the 1920s, Houžvička uses it to refer to a longer history of struggle between Czech and German nationalists over the ethno-linguistic and political status of the Bohemian and Moravian borderlands. Long part of the Bohemian Kingdom ruled most recently by the Habsburg Monarchy, these largely German-speaking regions became a flashpoint of Czech-German nationalist conflict in the late nineteenth century. Houžvička blames escalating national radicalism on individuals like the Pan-German antisemite, Georg von Schönerer, whom he identifies with an ongoing tradition of German expansionism in Mitteleuropa. Though Czechs were not immune to national radicalism, Houžvička prefers to emphasize the liberal, civic ideals of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of independent Czechoslovakia.

Houžvička's account, which juxtaposes generally reasonable Czechs with “unrealistic” (129) Sudeten Germans, continues through World War I and the foundation of Czechoslovakia. The author rightly points out that Wilsonian self-determination led to conflicting claims over the status of the borderlands, with Germans arguing for the right of the borderlands to join German-Austria, and Czechs insisting on the integrity of the historic Bohemian state. But in such a context, were German attempts to separate from Bohemia really a sign of disloyalty, or rather a calculated risk in a time of emerging and shifting borders and sovereignties? “Sudeten German separatism and unrealistic Sudeten demands on the new republic,” Houžvička concludes, “fatefully tainted the relationship between Czechs and Germans in the new state” (129).

Houžvička sees fundamental continuities between earlier Pan-Germanism and Sudeten German separatism in 1938. He recounts how the popular Sudeten German Party became a servant of Adolf Hitler's expansionism, and he eloquently describes the Czechoslovak dilemma in September 1938, which required deciding whether to fight a lonely and apparently hopeless war against Germany, or submit to the dismemberment negotiated at Munich. Czechs were understandably bitter and angry at Sudeten Germans, who overwhelmingly supported the annexation of the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. The sometimes brutal German occupation of the remnants of Bohemia and Moravia further radicalized Czech attitudes toward Sudeten Germans. Yet, the Czechoslovak wartime government in exile only gradually developed plans to expel all the Sudeten Germans from the pre-Munich territory of Czechoslovakia. Houžvička provides a superb overview of the international context in which massive population transfers became not just thinkable, but ultimately a common policy in the reestablished postwar states. Exile President Edvard Beneš's “ideas on the postwar expulsion of the Sudeten Germans,” Houžvička concludes, “were fully within the frame of reference of politicians of the Western Allies and their political culture, which considered the relocation and exchange of population to be a legitimate way of solving ethnic conflicts” (299).

Much of the rest of the book is devoted to criticism of the “ahistorical application of the contemporary concept of human rights” (259) to the internationally sanctioned population transfers of 1945–1946. Though Houžvička offers the obligatory condemnation of retributory violence, and is not an apologist for the expulsions, he rejects the efforts of Sudeten German expellees to cast themselves as victims. He is also particularly critical of historians such as Philipp Ther (“A Century of Forced Migration: The Origins and Consequences of ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’” in Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944–1948, ed. Philipp Ther and Ana Siljak [ 2001], 43, 63), who reformulated the “transfer” of Germans as “ethnic cleansing” (379) in the early 2000s. In a telling passage, Houžvička suggests that “every re-interpretation of historical realities and definitions inevitably finds its reflection in the field of real politics sooner or later” (379). This is meant as a warning that applying the language of human rights and the term ethnic cleansing to the expulsions legitimizes the revisionist agenda of some Sudeten German expellee groups. Yet, Houžvička misses the wider context of the historiography of “ethnic cleansing,” which included ethnic warfare in Yugoslavia and combustible ethnic tensions in the former Soviet Union. The goal of this scholarship was not to undo postwar borders or revive old compensation claims; rather, it was to draw on history to delegitimize forced migration as a solution to domestic and international ethnic conflicts.

A great deal was at stake when Houžvička was writing this book in 2004, and it is understandable that such a realist would reject a “postmodern re-evaluation of history” (259) that might threaten Czech interests in the expanding European Union. But by his own standards, which emphasize the importance of historical context, Houžvička should recognize that historical narratives and interpretations shift over time. Since his book was first published in 2005, historians of Habsburg Bohemia have, for example, questioned narratives that suggest Czech and German communities were inherently divided in the late nineteenth century. North American scholars such as Jeremy King (Budweisers into Czechs and Germans: A Local History of Bohemian Politics, 1848–1948 [2002]), Pieter Judson (Guardians of the Nation: Activists on the Language Frontiers of Imperial Austria [2006], and Tara Zahra (Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948 [2008]) have shown that nationalist activists worked hard and often in vain to propagate the notion of ethnic difference. Instead of naturalizing the categories of Czech and German, they suggest, one should speak of “nationalists” and the “nationally indifferent.” Houžvička views this history through a more traditional lens, assuming the existence of distinct and exclusive national communities. The time may be ripe for new questions and new ways of looking at the history of Bohemia, and for rethinking both the narrative and the lessons of postwar ethnic cleansing.