The Sudeten Germans will announce an architectural competition for their museum

Munich - The Sudeten German Museum in Munich will open no earlier than 2018. The local newspaper Merkur reported this, confirming it with the chairman of the Sudeten German expatriate association, Franz Pany. For years, Germans displaced after World War II from former Czechoslovakia have been striving for the establishment of a permanent exhibition institution. The most recent opening date was set for 2015.
    "This timeline can no longer be adhered to," said Pany, who also leads the Sudeten German Foundation, which initiated the project. The Bavarian state government announced last year that it wants to take over the management of the construction. It plans to invest 20 million euros (550 million CZK), and the German state has promised to contribute another ten million (275 million CZK).
    However, according to Pany, it will still take some time before the land next to the Sudeten German House on Munich's Hochstrasse is transferred to the Bavarian state. Contracts should be ready in about eight weeks. In the following months, an architectural competition for the new building will be announced.
    In 1200 square meters, a permanent exhibition divided into three parts should be on display in four years. The section titled "Home!" will focus on the history and culture of the Sudeten Germans in the Czech lands, the section "Loss - the End of Certainties" will address the sensitive period of Nazism and post-war displacement, and the final part "Home?" will discuss the history of the Sudeten Germans after 1945.
    The new Bavarian Minister of Social Affairs, Emilia Müller, who traditionally oversees Sudeten German issues in the Munich government, described the establishment of the museum as a central project of Bavarian policy towards the displaced. "This project is its beacon," she stated.
    Support for the establishment of the Sudeten Germans museum was already expressed by the previous German government under Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was formed in 2009. At that time, its opening was scheduled for three years later.
    The museum is to be built next to the current Sudeten German House, which houses not only the Sudeten German expatriate association, the main organization for the displaced from the Czech lands, but also other Sudeten German institutions. The Collegium Carolinum, an association that focuses on the topic of coexistence between Czechs and Germans, with the participation of Czech historians, also has its headquarters there.
    After the war, around three million Sudeten Germans had to leave former Czechoslovakia. The largest portion settled in neighboring Bavaria, whose premiers became patrons of the Sudeten Germans and defenders of their claims towards their former homeland, which for decades soured political relations between Prague and Munich. The current Bavarian premier, Horst Seehofer, and the former Czech prime minister, Petr Nečas, have contributed to their normalization.