The German population has a long tradition in the Karlovy Vary region. Until 1945, Germans formed the largest national and linguistic group living in the area, and they played a major role in shaping both the town of Karlovy Vary itself and its wider surroundings. After the Second World War, most of the local German population was expelled. Only certain groups were allowed to remain, such as specialists (for example, employees of the Karlovy Vary porcelain factory or miners), people in mixed marriages, and some anti-fascists. By May 1947, 6,197 Germans were living in the Karlovy Vary district about seven per cent of their pre-war number.
In the post-war years, various restrictive and discriminatory measures were applied to the German population, including confiscation of property and loss of civil rights. These brought hardship and excluded them from public life. Many were also affected by forced internal migration for political, economic, or assimilationist reasons.
In the Karlovy Vary region, several hundred German families classified as “politically unreliable” were forced to move away from the border areas. Others were relocated as needed labour to work in agriculture and industry, including in the Jáchymov uranium mines.
In communist Czechoslovakia, the position of Germans gradually changed — from initial restriction to limited and gradual emancipation. They regained civil rights in 1953, and many years later, in 1968, their national rights. However, as a result of post-war developments and state policy, many Germans assimilated into the majority Czech population or decided to emigrate or resettle legally, mainly in the Federal Republic of Germany. The German minority has therefore been characterised by a continual decline in numbers, a trend that did not stop even after 1989. The same pattern can be seen in the Karlovy Vary region: while in 1950 the district was home to 13,915 Germans (13.5% of the population), in the 2021 census only 1,235 people (1.1%) identified as being of German nationality.