The Beneš decrees were a series of laws drafted by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II. They were issued by President Edvard Beneš from 21 July 1940 to 27 October 1945 and retroactively ratified by the Interim National Assembly of Czechoslovakia on 6 March 1946.
Edvard Beneš, 1935–1938 and 1940–1948 President of Czechoslovakia
Adolf Hitler being welcomed by a crowd in Sudetenland, where the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party gained 88% of ethnic-German votes in May 1938.
Germans being deported from the Sudetenland after World War II
Hungarians forcibly relocated from Gúta (Kolárovo) unpacking their belongings from train in Mladá Boleslav, Czechoslovakia, February, 1947
Czechoslovak government-in-exile
The Czechoslovak government-in-exile, sometimes styled officially as the Provisional Government of Czechoslovakia, was an informal title conferred upon the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, initially by British diplomatic recognition. The name came to be used by other Allied governments during the Second World War as they subsequently recognised it. The committee was originally created by the former Czechoslovak President, Edvard Beneš in Paris, France, in October 1939. Unsuccessful negotiations with France for diplomatic status, as well as the impending Nazi occupation of France, forced the committee to withdraw to London in 1940. The Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile offices were at various locations in London but mainly at a building called Fursecroft, Marylebone.
Edvard Beneš
The Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion fighting alongside Poles and Australians at the Siege of Tobruk
Czechoslovak troops in London
Troops from the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade, part of the British army, photographed in De Panne in 1945