Prague, Czech Republic: Glory through sadness

September 13, 2015

PRAGUE is probably the most beautiful city in the world. The loveliest I've seen, anyway. Bruges is wonderful but it's an open-air museum, or the pretty bit is, and not a living, working city.

Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, and before that of Czechoslovakia.

Charles bridge, crowded with tourists from dawn to dusk

The glory of Prague, preserved by such sadness

But in all glory there is sadness. And for the Czechs it's what the West calls the Munich Agreement and what they call the Munich Betrayal. You may remember the story: British and French politicians flew to meet Hitler in the hope of averting war. They gave him permission to invade Czechoslovakia's fringes, where the people spoke German. But it was permission they couldn't give. Czechoslovakia, for the British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, was "a faraway country of which we know little."

The Czechs weren't even asked.

Crossing the border meant Hitler was now beyond Czechoslovakia's defences. So when he said he wanted the rest and offered the Czechs the choice of giving in gracefully or being destroyed, the Czechs accepted defeat. The decision is still debated.

Prague still stands in its lip-biting glory. And when the Germans arrived, Reinhard Heydrich snaffled the opera house for his offices. They pleased him in all but one detail. For around the roof were statues of great composers, and among them was Mendelssohn. And Mendelssohn had been born into a Jewish family.

Prague's opera house was the Nazi command centre; you can just see the troublesome composers on the roof

"I'm going away for two days," Heydrich said. "When I come back, I want to see that statue gone."

And, legend says, the job went to two squaddies. They knew as much about composers and their music as most other squaddies and had no idea which was Mendelssohn. But they reasoned that Jews had big noses and went round with a tape measure.

Heydrich was pleased with their work. Until he looked more closely and bawled: "What have you done with Wagner?"

The Americans bombed Prague in the belief that it was Dresden, according to locals

The Americans bombed Prague. Not intentionally; a lone crew mistook it for Dresden. Which, the people of Prague say, was an understandable mistake because both cities are in Europe.

The bomb left a gap in a street and the Russians filled it with a plush hotel open only to the highest communist dignitories. They took no chances. There was - still is - a nuclear bunker in the basement. And, less well signposted, an underground switchboard from which internal spies could listen to conversations in each room.

Under the communists' plush new hotel was a bunker and a command centre to deal with a nuclear strike

...and a secret switchboard connected to microphones in all the rooms

Communism differed in each of the satellite states. To some now, decades afterwards, it was a golden era that they didn't appreciate at the time. It may have been grey and there may have been shortages but there was a job for everyone, and free health care and a sense of certainty. Life was a giant safety net that it isn't now.

The great majority of Czechs were only too pleased to see it end. They weren't unhappy under communism so much as discontent. Never comfortable that their neighbours could be informers, as many turned out to have been when the secret police records were opened. But above all, no country likes to be occupied by another country. Because while Czechoslovakia and the other states were independent, they couldn't go further than Moscow thought reasonable.

The astrological clock: many come and many wonder if it was worth the trouble

When Alexander Dubček went too far as head of Czechoslovakia's communist party, the Russians brought him to heel by organising an invasion.

Czechs had learned Russian at school. They stood in front of the tanks and yelled "Why?" The teenagers driving the tanks were astonished. They'd been told they'd be welcomed and greeted by flowers. They were supposed to be bringing back fraternal liberty to an oppressed people.

The oppressed people saw it differently. As one Czech said: "We had tears in our eyes both times we saw Russian tanks in our streets. The tanks were the same but the tears were different."

Czechs have a talent for classical music; I've always loved Dvořák's New World Symphony

Wander the streets of Prague and the centuries of history leap at you. There are truly old sites, and there's one of the city's sons, Antonín Dvořák, up on his pedestal. I fell in love with his New World Symphony when I was a child and I love it still.

Franz Kafka: better known in the West than his homeland

There's a monument to Franz Kafka, an author of the absurd better known in the West than in the Czech Republic, where he wrote in German and where the city put up a statue mainly to please tourists unhappy to find there wasn't one.

And pass a corner by a college and you see a small memorial to Jan Palach.

And who was Jan Palach? Well, he was a history student. And at 21, in 1969, he set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square in the centre of the city to protest at the Russian invasion. The following April, Evžen Plocek also set himself on fire, in Jihlava. In 2003 six more burned themselves to death on almost the same spot as Palach. The end of communism was nigh, here and elsewhere.

The plush glory of just one of Prague's opera houses

Entertaining absurdity in an otherwise unremarkable street

Have a drink and pedal off the effects at Prague's bicycle bar

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