On 8 May 1945, the German commander of Prague, General Rudolf Toussaint, signed an instrument of surrender with the Czech resistance. The deal was that the resistance would let the German armed forces leave the city without being shot at. Toussaint lamented: “Who am I now? A general without an army. All I can do is go home and sit in the ditch and look at the blue sky”.

The next morning a convoy of German armoured vehicles and trucks left the city. One brutal totalitarian regime had left.

That same afternoon a column of the Red Army arrived in the city. The Czechs had just switched one cruel oppressor for another – the Communists. It would be another 44 years before they would win their freedom from that one, with one brief period when a false illusion of hope would lift their spirits, only to be cruelly dashed. This programme looks at that oh so brief period of hope.

Tag words: Prague; General Rudolf Toussaint; Red Army; Prague Technical University; Strahov Dormitory; Leonid Brezhnev; Communist Party; Antonin Novotny; Alexander Dubcek; Hungarian Uprising; Action Programme; Prague Spring; Eastern Bloc; Vasil Bilk; Petro Shelest; Europarty; Shirley Bassey; Goldfinger; Big Spender; Narodni Street; Moody Blues; Mala Strana; Charles Bridge; The Nights in White Satin; Jaroslav Kovaricek; Oldrich Cernik; Warsaw Pact; Czechoslovakia; Hlavka Bridge; Vinoharadska Street; Wenceslas Square; A Prayer for Marta; Marta Kubišová; John Amos Comentus; Velvet Revolution; ABC Radio National; Russian State Symphony Orchestra; Albert Hall; Serendade in E; Dvorák;