Fungování zákona o obraně státu během Druhé republiky (1938–1939) a Protektorátu (1939–1945)

The study focuses on the changes in the state legal system in the early years of the Czechoslovak second republic and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia after 15 March 1939, with a focus on the functioning of the National Defence Act as an example of the specific legislation concerned. The government regulations and decrees of the occupation administration are key. However, in terms of the functioning of many of the laws adopted in the 1930s, unlike the dramatic impact on the lives of the population during the introduction of the new regime, this was not a change that was immediately manifested or reflected directly by the official authorities in the concrete new situation. This is particularly paradoxical for legislation that was enacted to protect the country's defences against external aggression. Thus, Act No. 131/1936 Coll. on the defence of the state remained in force even though there was de facto nothing left to defend because the country was occupied. The fundamental overall changes in society that accompanied this law immediately after the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The intentions of the National Defence Act should be set in the context of the situation in which it was created and how different the situation was during the Protectorate and the state structure, which had its own distinct specificities, including with regard to the functioning of the administration and the running of the authorities. In many respects it was even a kind of “legal lawlessness” that the occupation brought about.