Brno 2026: Continuing Together on the Path of Reconciliation and Partnership

Europe – and indeed the world – is going through a challenging period. This makes us value even more the friendships between peoples and nations who, despite a difficult past, have been able to shake hands, listen to one another, and start anew. One of the most meaningful and, at the same time, most sensitive examples of such reconciliation is the relationship between Czechs and Sudeten Germans. Despite the painful episodes in our shared history – particularly during the Nazi era and in the aftermath of the Second World War – recent years have seen the emergence of mutual respect and cooperation.

Brno has played a key role in this process. In 2015, the city adopted the Declaration of Reconciliation, in which it expressed regret over the events at the end of May 1945. This declaration was a response to numerous gestures, apologies, and requests for forgiveness and reconciliation from German partners, both individuals and institutions. It became an important milestone in Czech-German understanding and laid a solid foundation for further dialogue. Since its founding in 2016, the Meeting Brno festival has become a symbol of openness, historical awareness, cooperation, and shared values – values of humanism, human rights, mutual respect, solidarity, and European unity.

In this spirit, we invite the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft to hold its annual gathering in 2026 in Brno – a place that was once marked by suffering and is now a space of hope and understanding.We invite our German friends to a city where Czech- and German-speaking residents lived side by side for centuries, often in the same families, contributing together to a unique culture, economy, and civil society.

We invite them to a city that has chosen not to gloss over its past – and therefore can speak credibly about the future.

This appeal builds on two recent initiatives. The first is an invitation from Czech intellectuals, artists and public figures issued in June 2025, initiated by Milan Uhde and Mojmír Jeřábek. The second is the invitation extended by the Meeting Brno festival, which was awarded the Human Rights Prize at the Sudeten German Congress on 7 June 2025. The prize was given in recognition of the festival’s contribution to reconciliation and coming to terms with history, its courage to engage in dialogue, and the powerful message it sends in support of a Europe of peace and human rights at a time of growing nationalism. We believe that a gathering of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft in Brno would be another meaningful and dignified gesture of reconciliation – and an inspiration for future generations to uphold the urgently needed values of partnership and shared commitment to the principles of our modern European society.

Please consider supporting this call with your signature. It is our heartfelt wish that, after many years of division and discord, we may meet again in the land we once shared as our common home. We are fully aware of the human tragedies and cultural and social losses that occurred during and after the war. But we also express our hope that, through an honest understanding of these historical events and their consequences, such tragedies will never be repeated – anywhere in the world. We also express the wish that past injustices may be forgiven, and that we may, unburdened by the past and united in cooperation, look forward to a shared future. Let us meet in Brno in May 2026 – not as guests and hosts, but as friends writing a new chapter of our common history.

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