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Some fifty communities across the western part of the Czech Republic are holding celebrations in the coming days to mark the 60th anniversary of their World War II liberation by U.S., Czech and Belgian soldiers under the command of the American General George S. Patton. The Allies' role in the liberation of Czechoslovakia from Nazi tyranny was, to put it mildly, played down by the Soviet Union for propaganda purposes. Ahead of the celebrations marking 'V-E' day, the U.S. Embassy in Prague has commissioned a compilation of raw, historical footage,

...At midday the Russians launched an almighty attack on Hrabyne, their air force led the barrage. From over the hills a whole chain of Russian tanks approached. The Germans retaliated with a desperate counter attack. This was the start of a terrible panzer battle, which is impossible to imagine for those who weren't there. The din of anti-tank weaponry, the explosion of grenades and the baying of the tanks' machine guns fused into one. There was a constant explosion of bombs and mines. The battle lasted all afternoon. Several times the Russians

Last year in the West Bohemian city of Plzen, the foundation stone was laid for a large bronze statue of General George Patton, whose 3rd US Army liberated the city in the spring of 1945. It seemed an apt gesture to remember one of the war's great generals, and the unveiling was to be one of the highpoints of this year's 60th anniversary celebrations taking place next week in Plzen. At the time no-one could have guessed that just a few months later the stone would be dug up again, and that the city would not have its statue after all, after city

At the end of World War II most of Czechoslovakia was liberated from the east by the Red Army, but until the fall of communism, the fact that it was the Americans who liberated the far west of the country was largely ignored. It was sixty years ago this week - on the 18th April 1945 - that General George Patton's 3rd Army entered Czechoslovakia, liberating Western Bohemia from six years of Nazi-German occupation. The largest Czech city they freed was Plzen - about 80 kilometres south-west of Prague - and this year the city is to mark the 60th anniversary

As you are probably well aware by now, a number of events are being held here this year to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. But while many of these commemorations focus on the liberation of Czechoslovakia by foreign armies, some events are also acknowledging the contribution of homegrown anti-Nazi resistance movements. One such event was a commemorative evening held in Prague on Tuesday to acknowledge the contribution of the Czech "partisans" in helping defeat Nazi Germany.

On the 8th May 1945 Prague was the last city in Europe to be liberated, a painful irony given that six years earlier, in March 1939, it had also been the first foreign capital to be occupied by German troops, months before World War Two had even broken out. So in this May's commemorations to mark 60 years since the end of the war in Europe, Prague will have a special place. Veterans of both the Soviet and American liberating armies, as well as survivors among the 50,000 Czechs and Slovaks who fought in the allied armies through the war, will be

The Allied bombing of Dresden towards the end of World War II remains a touchtone for the perils of war -- and a rallying cry for Germany's far right. The official death toll from the raids stands at about 35,000. Survivors say it was much higher, as bodies were reduced to ashes in the ensuing firestorm that levelled the historic city once known as the "Florence on the Elbe." Czech forced labourers and concentration camp survivors who lived through the February 13, 1945 bombardment were among those on hand for commemorations.

On February 14, 1945, the American Air Force carried out an air raid over Prague which ranks as the most futile attack on Czech territory of the Second World War. Sixty years later it is still not clear whether the attack was an accident caused by bad weather conditions and the fact Prague and Dresden looked similar from the air, or whether it was a deliberate attack.

Seventy prominent German intellectuals, writers and politicians, including the chairman of the federal parliament have signed an open letter to the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, very publicly renouncing claims to any property in the neighbouring countries of Central Europe. All the signatories have one thing in common. They, or their parents, originally came from what is now the territory of Poland or the Czech Republic, but were expelled after the Second World War. Millions of ethnic Germans were forced to move westwards, as the map of Europe

This Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the "Slovak National Uprising," the anti-fascist military action that began on August 29, 1944. In its simplest telling, the uprising was the culmination of years of planning by Slovak partisans, 18,000 of whom fought alongside 60,000 Czechoslovak soldiers against the Nazis and the nominally independent state of Slovakia led by President Jozef Tiso. But as Brian Kenety reports, the politics behind the uprising are far more complex.