The study analyzes the process of peace settlement with Germany after World War II and the Czechoslovak, or rather Czech, participation in it over a time span of more than sixty years. It examines the influence of the "time factor" on the constellation of actors in the peace settlement, on its formal procedure, on the structure of its material problems, and last but not least, on the position of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic in its context, i.e., primarily on the possibilities of Czech foreign policy to promote its specific interests within it. In the form of an excursion, it also presents the expellee associations in the Federal Republic of Germany and their influence on the country's internal and foreign policy. Special attention is given to three issues that had particular significance in the context of Czech-German relations: German reparations, the right of Sudeten German expellees to return to their homeland, and the problems associated with the confiscation of their property.
