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Public broadcaster Czech TV will screen a documentary film on Thursday entitled Zabíjení po česku, or ‘Killings Czech style’. It features unique footage of a massacre of over 40 ethnic Germans that took place in Prague in May, 1945, shortly after the end of the war. The authors say they want to draw attention to the atrocities committed on German civilians in post-war Czechoslovakia, though some historians believe this particular murder was carried out by Soviet troops.

Czech President Václav Klaus and Prime Minister Jan Fischer have taken part in an event at Czech Radio marking the 65th anniversary of the start of the Prague Uprising. The two leaders and other senior politicians laid wreaths and spoke briefly in front of the station’s main building on Prague’s Vinohradská Street on Wednesday. Mr Klaus described the actions taken by Czechs in the final days and hours of the war as spontaneous and deeply admirable. On the morning of May 5, 1945, Czech Radio called on Prague citizens to rise up against the Nazi occupiers, four days before Soviet troops liberated the city. During a battle for control of the station around 90 people were killed. Around the city, some 30,000 people took part in the uprising, of which nearly 1,700 died. Other memorial events are also being held.

Wednesday is the 65th anniversary of the start of the Prague Uprising, when thousands of people took to the streets in an attempt to liberate the city from Nazi occupation, just days before the arrival of the Red Army. Several events have been held to mark the date, including a memorial at Czech Radio, which made a dramatic call on citizens to fight the occupiers on the morning of May 5, 1945.

A new photography exhibition marking the 65th anniversary of the uprising of Czech citizens against the Nazi occupiers in May 1945 opened at Prague’s Old Town Hall on Tuesday. The show, which features around 140 pictures from that time, has been put together by the Military History Institute, the National Museum and the Czech Union of Freedom Fighters. It will run until May 16. The opening of the exhibition also saw the launch of a new book entitled the Prague Uprising and the End of the War in Prague 1.

Thousands of people cheered American and Belgian veterans in Plzeň on Sunday during an event held days before the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the west Bohemian city at the end of World War II. The old soldiers, now in their 80s and 90s, waved to the crowd from jeeps which were part of a convoy of over 200 historical military vehicles that drove through Plzeň. Celebrations will reach a climax on Thursday, which is the actual anniversary of the liberation on May 6, 1945.

A convoy of American war jeeps drove through Prague on Friday at the start of celebrations marking the 65th anniversary of the end of WWII and the liberation of western Bohemia from the Nazis by the US 3rd army. The largest Czech city General Patton’s men freed in 1945 was Plzen - about 80 kilometres south-west of Prague – where the biggest celebrations with US war veterans are due to take place over the weekend. During the communist years the authorities only credited the Russian army with the country’s liberation from Nazi rule, downplaying the US role in the process.

The city of Brno has made up its mind on a contentious issue: the hammer and sickle on a public monument to fallen Red Army soldiers from the Second World War is coming down. In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the city council decided to end two years of protests and vandalism by removing the still-controversial symbol for good.

The 64th anniversary of the end of World War II was marked by a number of events in the Czech Republic. On Friday, President Václav Klaus laid a wreath at a monument to Czech soldiers who lost their lives in the service of other countries’ armies. The ceremony was attended by senior politicians including outgoing Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek. Mr Klaus said after the ceremony it was “a duty” to remind younger generations of what had taken place, while the head of the Czech Senate, Přemysl Sobotka, said it was necessary to remember those who had sacrificed their lives. This year, for the first time, the president did not name new generals to the Czech Army.

It was a now famous appeal broadcast from the Czech Radio or Český Rozhlas building on May 5, 1945, which sparked the Prague rising against the continued Nazi occupation. The 64th anniversary of the event was marked at the radio building on Tuesday at the precise time of the original broadcast.

A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990) was one of the best-known and most influential British historians of the 20th century. He is remembered in particular for his provocative left-wing political views and his conviction that German history made the country uniquely inclined towards aggression and expansionism. This made him an ardent opponent of attempts to rebuild Germany’s economy after the war, and a strong supporter of Czechoslovakia’s growing alliance with the Soviet Union. In July 1946, just after elections which saw the Communists emerge as the strongest single