German-Czech Talks Wanted

Bavaria’s governor called on Prague on Sunday to talk directly with a group of Germans who forcibly were exiled from Czechoslovakia after World War II.

Gov. Edmund Stoiber offered to mediate such negotiations. The exiles’ leader, Franz Neubauer, said they would be willing to talk without setting any conditions.

As punishment for the war, some 2.5 million German-speaking Czechs were expelled from Sudetenland, encompassing about a third of the present-day Czech Republic. The area, which had been inhabited by Sudeten Germans for six centuries, borders the German state of Bavaria.

Many of the exiles and their descendants are seeking the right to return to the land or at least be compensated.