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PoliceThe Department of Documentation of the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism (referred to as ÚDV only) - as a part of the Police of the Czech Republic - is governed by the Direction of the Minister of the Interior N. 5/2001 as of 15th January 2001 altering the sphere of action of the Police of the Czech Republic the Office for the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism.
The Department of Documentation:
Beside that, an important legislative support of activities of the Department of Documentation is Act N. 198/1993 from the 9th July 1993, regulating unlawfulness of the Communist Regime and altering dissenting it. There is said that the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, its management and its members are liable for how our country was governed in the years 1948 - 1989 (e.g. for destroying the European values, violating human rights etc.) and that the regime which was in Czechoslovakia ruled by the Communist Party for four decades is in its nature criminal, illegitimate and blameable. The Communist Regime violated its citizens´ rights to freely express their political opinion, forced them to declare conditional agreements with actions of the regime, broke its own laws as well as international treaties of the State having raised the will of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia above the law. It persecuted its own citizens (executed them, murdered, tortured and imprisoned them, confiscated their property, denied their execution of work, obstructed their free travels abroad, drafted them for the Helping Technical Battalions and Labour Camps), benefited people who had committed crimes, allied with alien forces etc. Resistance of people against such a regime has been considered by ss. 3 and 4 as being legitimate, fair, morally rightful and respectable.
The ÚDV Department of Documentation therefore records processes of the prosecuting authorities of the Communist Regime and the roles of the apparatus of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the totalitarian system in the years 1945 - 1989. The documenting bases on an assumption that the elaborated topics are rather general or that a criminal prosecution is due to various reasons (e.g. a death of an offender) excluded. An important element of activities of the Department of Documentation is searching for evidence for prosecution and a consultation type of assistance to the Department of Investigation. The Department also helps other state administration authorities. To the highest possible extent it attempts to answer citizens´ questions and requests. The successful documenting is most importantly determined by unconditional access to archives. Only thanks to long-term and detailed work of the document writers may we break into the system of functioning of the totalitarian authorities with the state power (the State Security, the Defence Intelligence, apparatuses of the Ministry of the Interior and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the Czechoslovak People's Army1), People's Guards2) etc.). ÚDV exploits especially the following archives:
Other archives (the district ones) are attended according to specific topics of individual documents.
ÚDV also utilises the opportunity to cooperate with institutions tat are similarly profiled, both in the CR (e.g. the Institute of Contemporary History of the Academy of Sciences of the CR, the Czech Christian Academy, institutions and departments of university faculties, the association of persons directly harmed by the Communist Regime - KPVČ3), They Were the First, the Association of Helping Technical Battalions etc.) and abroad (e.g. in the FRG, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia). ÚDV representatives participate on seminars and colloquiums dedicated to the issues processed by the Office.
The file documents the history of censorship during the given period (concentrates on the situation in the Czechoslovak State Film and the Czechoslovak Television) from its commencement immediately after the seizure of power by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, establishment of a special censorship office, the “Head Administration of the Press Supervision” in the year 1953, the development of the Office, its interferences and its impact on the situation in the mass media which were expected to fully support the Government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. However, it also describes ineffective attempts of the censors to assist ceasing or at least slowing down the development heading towards the so-called Prague Spring in the year 1968 on which the media significantly participated. In 1968 the Office was abolished.
Nevertheless, immediately after the occupation of the CSSR by the Warsaw Pact Armies the censorship office was established again with a name “Federal Office for Press and Information”. It sustained active until 1990.
As the result of the work on that topic there was written a text trying to describe the above-mentioned evolution in relation to the development in Czechoslovakia and limitation of the mass media freedoms by orders and directions of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. It records even concrete examples of such acting.
It records activities of the Supervision Department of the Ministry of the Interior in 1968, investigations of the illegal acts of the prosecuting authorities of the Communist Regime in the fifties (psychic and physical torture of the imprisoned, murders etc. especially done by the State Security). According to the contemporary material there are monitored activities of a committee established by the Supervision Department of the Ministry of the Interior in correctional facility Leopoldov and the prison camps of uranium mines in Jáchymov area.
In 1952, during the "class enemy" persecution, the political secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia decided to review pensions of the “members of the governing bourgeoisie and its power apparatus”. The government ordered the review to be valid in the year 1953. The Regulation was abolished in 1956. In practice there were established special committees at regional and district National Committees that were charged with a task to enforce the Regulation. The file currently concentrates on the concrete cases of enforcing such sanctions.
The file is divided into two parts: each of them concentrates on emigrants from one of the two countries in Czechoslovakia after the year 1948 and also on inspections at Embassies of these countries.
In relation to the Yugoslavian state citizens it focuses on the events after the Soviet-Yugoslavian split in 1948. Then, J.B. Tito and his Yugoslavia turned from the Soviet ally to an unforgiving enemy, which was followed by political and economic sanctions against Yugoslavia as well as by hunting the "Tito followers" and the “Yugoslavian spies” in the Eastern Bloc States. The document records the reflection of such a situation in Czechoslovakia (especially in the materials of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Secret Service) and also concrete action cases (the case with Š. Kevič, the Yugoslavian Consul in Bratislava; conciliation of A. Novak, a cryptographer of the Yugoslavian Embassy, etc.).
As for the Greek state citizens, usually the former soldiers of the Communist Army ELAS and members of the Communist Party of Greece, the document records interests of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in these emigrants and their control by the State Security. Due to the fact that there were prisoners of war from the Greek Government Army among them who were trying to get back into their country, the State Security fully controlled them. Finally, majority of them were condemned in a fabricated trial.
The documentation has been prepared under a project focusing on the position of minorities in Czechoslovakia in the years 1945 - 1989 and their persecution by the Communist Regime.
The fund was dedicated solely to expenditures relating to the State Security agency-operative kind of work with secret collaborators (e.g. for maintaining hired and conspiracy apartments for secret meetings, to cover the costs of transport and catering for collaborators, for handouts, nonrecurring bonuses, but also to pay regular salaries of the important collaborators).
What is elaborated on is the general development of directives regulating the disposal of the special fund as well as concrete forms of management of the State Security regional administration in the years 1988 - 1989.
From the geographic point of view Czechoslovakia was the only European State in which was, at the end of WWII, mined the uranium bearing ore. They were first the German retributory prisoners and later on prison inmates of the Labour Camps (referred to as TNP only) and prisoners of the Correctional Labour Camps (referred to as NPT only) who mined the uranium. Into TNP (not only uranium ones) there were consigned people without a trial for a period from three months to two years. They were condemned on the basis of a simple decision of a committee, the so-called Regional Trio. In NTP there were especially prisoners of conscience who had been sentenced to high punishments, often for life, criminals and at the beginning of the fifties also retributory prisoners. The file attempts to record the history of the eighteen uranium mines built in Jáchymov, Slavkov and Příbram areas, focusing on the period 1948 - 1961. In Příbram area, prisoners mined uranium until the mid eighties.
The documenting covered at first activities of Jeřáb, the Guard Section of the National Safety Force4); later on the focus was transferred to the whole issue of camps (their structure, organising, Section Jeřáb of the National Safety Force, and subsequently the Internal Guard of the Ministry of the Interior and investigations of individual cases of illegalities). At present it is Příbram area (Vojna and Bytíz Camps) which is intensively documented, then the period of functioning of the Internal Administration of the Ministry of the Interior and fatal accidents at the places of work. Furthermore, there are confronted testimonies of the former prisoners with the archival material (the formally valid rules, notifications of irregular events etc.)
Based on the collected facts ÚDV issued a publication Tomek, P.: The Czechoslovak Uranium, Prague 1999.
The documentation focuses on the break period of the Czechoslovak after-war penitentiary system. At that time the focus on punishing “war criminals” moves towards eliminating or liquidating the anti-communist opposition. After the February 1948 the penitentiary system became one of the most powerful instruments of the Communist dictatorship. Nevertheless, the complexity of the issue is evident e.g. in fact that in the course of the recorded period, i.e. 1945 - 1989, the penitentiary system was under the responsibility of several Ministries (the Ministry of National Safety, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Defence).
The file attempts to reflect the history of penitentiary facilities (including the custody and military ones) in the CSSR. In detail it focuses on their locating, time of existence, structuring, organising, the number of prisoners, personal management, offences of the Prison Service Force5) etc.
Until today there have been recorded stories of the State Security investigatory prisons, the history of certain prisons (Ruzyně, Leopoldov) and the agency-operative work among prisoners. There was prepared a list of penitentiary facilities functioning in the years 1948 - 1989 (accessible on the ÚDV web site) and gathered material relating to the issue of the military penitentiary system; documented have been also the Penitentiary Rules in the years 1948 - 1989 and there has also been created a list of those who died during the execution of the punishment or custody.
With a view to the scope of the topic the documentation is prepared in steps (the deaths of prisoners, orders and laws regulating the execution of the service of a term of imprisonment, the development of the differentiation and listing of prisoners, staffing of the commanding positions in respective prisons etc.).
Pursuant to the collected data ÚDV issued a publication Tomek P.: Two Studies about the Czechoslovak Penal System 1948 - 1989, ÚDV Issues No. 3, Prague 2000.
It is a very broad issue as for the contents and the amount of documents. The document attempts to clarify the establishment, supportive legislation, development, structure and acting of the units of the People's (Labour) Guards - the armed forces of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia - from 1948 until their dissolution in 1989.
The People's Guards (LM) were unlawfully established by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from among the examined employees of companies during the February coup d´état in 1948. The members of the People's Guards were charged with the task of protecting factories against suppositional sabotages caused by the "objectors to the regime". However, later on these voluntary units turned into well organised and armed forces under the direct command of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and covered a broad scope of actions: from suppressing turmoil to eliminating impacts of calamities.
Currently there is prepared a study based on relevant material from various national archives, especially from the capacious archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. After reading and sorting out the basic documents, there will be elaborated on and published the individual areas of the topic.
The document records cases of German retributive prisoners who were in the mid fifties amnestied and before their release from the execution of a punishment and the following transfer to the FRG recruited by the Ist Administration of the Ministry of the Interior (a part of the State Security - the Civil Intelligence Service). The archival files deposited in the archive of the former Ist Administration of the Ministry of the Interior are still confidential and that is why it is more difficult to study them.
So far there have been exploited files of 14 chosen people. Nevertheless, in an absolute majority of cases the formally bound retributive prisoners refused, after leaving the CSR, collaborating with the Czech Intelligence.
Currently the attempt is to find all such cases and the focus is given to ongoing search for German retributive prisoners who may have been presupposed of working for the Ist Administration of the Ministry of the Interior.
After processing the studied material the information is expected to be presented in one of the ÚDV publications, especially if one considers the seriousness of the subject. The publication will focus on answering questions persisting to the motives of the Ist Administration of the Ministry of the Interior in this matter, character, type, frequency of employing the war criminals by the State Security authorities and last, but not least, on fates of the more important or highly valued agents of the Czechoslovak Intelligence.
The end of the Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia was accompanied by a creation of a number of new, independent initiatives (the Civil Society Movement, the Independent Peace Association, the Democratic Initiative etc.) which in some way or other participated on unbalancing the totalitarian claim of the state for an individual and thus preparing crowding up of the civil prowess in 1989. The Communist Secret Police were aware of the danger caused by these initiatives to the regime, and that is why they tried not only to monitor but also to disturb and break their activities by all various means.
The target of the documenting is, besides recording the steps taken by the State Security against the independent initiatives, to complement historical searching by how the independent initiatives contributed to the collapse of the regime, by an insight from another party, the State Security. Due to the fact that by the end of December 1989 the majority of the records relating to the representatives of the independent initiatives had been destroyed, it is now necessary to exploit to the maximum possible extent, say, the secondary type of material, i.e. the daily situation reports or various working plans and their evaluation.
The "Xth Administration of the National Safety Force" was an assumed name for the Intelligence Administration for Combating the Internal Enemy. The internal enemy was considered to be any kind of opposition from among the domestic citizens or the exile. The Administration was established in 1974 and its activity was ceased by rearrangements at the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the year 1988. The activity of the Administration included - as results from its title - the so-called “counter-espionage elaboration and protection” of persons and institutions from among all possible areas of then Czechoslovakia where might have appeared ideologically hostile activities against the totalitarian regime (e.g. the dissent, culture, science, education, emigration, churches). In practice it meant persecution of the civilians cumbersome to the regime on the one hand, on the other monitoring any kind of activity in those areas by the State Security collaborators.
The aim of the document is not only to cover the methods of such “counter-espionage elaboration” and how concretely they were exercised, but also to monitor the structures and personal engagement of the Xth Administration of the National Safety Force.
The State Security exploited and misused the mass media to disseminate defamations, propaganda and misrepresentation. The scope of the disseminated information varied from quite neutral informing about the security through propaganda glorifying activities of the security authorities to deliberately disseminated false defamations and disinformation persisting to the enemies of the regime. One of the methods used by the State Security operative bodies (intelligence and counter-intelligence) was to provide information altered in a specific way.
The document records the structure and activities of the bodies of the Ministry of the Interior that were, officially and unofficially, in touch with the mass media organising the propaganda campaigns (the Press Department of the Ministry of the Interior, the Press Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior and others). At the same time there have been documented the authorities coordinating the exploitation of the mass media by the State Security operative bodies (the disinformation unit of the counter-intelligence, the so-called Department of Active Measures /impact operating/ of the intelligence). Besides, there is recorded cooperation and linkage between the propaganda apparatus of the Ministry of the Interior and the main mass media institutions (the television, radio, main dailies) as well as the Party authorities managing the mass media. The output of the study will be issued in a form of separate articles recording the individual cases that were used for propaganda and also in a form of a full study on the topic. (Bašta Jiří: The Propagandist Utilisation of the Case of the American Émigré Professor G.S. Wheeler in Securitas Imperii N. 7, ÚDV 2001; Cajthaml Petr: High Game - A Story of One Defamation in Securitas Imperii N. 9, ÚDV 2002).
The aim of the documenting is to cover personal staffing of the senior official functions at the Ministry of the Interior (the ministers and their deputies) and to describe the management of the Ministry that was in charge of the communist political police - the State Security - in various stages and forms of its existence. For the document there is collected information regarding personal staffing of respective functions, the scope of activities of individual agents and the level of personal liability of these people. The output of the issue will become a study on the organisation of the management at the Ministry of the Interior and a file of biographic portraits of the senior officials at the Ministry of the Interior.
The Council of Free Czechoslovakia (RSČ) was established in 1949 as a top body of the Czechoslovak political emigration that was formed after the communist coup d´état in the February 1948. According to its establishers, generally politicians of the defeated political parties, it was going to put basis for a possible future exile government, a political organisation which would roof all politically active emigrants from Czechoslovakia and would represent them at the democratic governments. However, since its beginning the organisation was paralysed by repeated arguments between various emigrant fractions and due to these reasons it practically ceased its activities towards the end of the 50´s. Now there are studied files of the intelligence and counter-intelligence relating to RSČ itself and to its individual officers, which will be issued as a document.
The Special Assignment Service was a part of the Intelligence of the Ministry of the Interior since the sixties. Its activities concentrated on the preparation (and probably also implementation) of alternate and terrorist actions, which was a specific way of managing the intelligence activities.
The objective of the document will be to describe organising, personal staffing and the main courses of activities of this State Security authority, namely on the basis of relevant files collected by the intelligence. According to the scope of the detected facts there will be prepared a study on activities of this part of the State Security and if there be information regarding the concrete actions implemented by the Special Assignment Service, it will be submitted to the ÚDV Department of Investigation.
Based on the initiative of the Evangelical preachers, ÚDV investigates activities of the former State Security against the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. The original suspicion that there had been committed a crime of abuse of powers by the state Security officials was not confirmed and that is why it has been the ÚDV documentation unit that addressed the issue.
The aim is to document the agency penetration, approach and decomposition of the most numerous protestant church on the territory of the Czech Republic (c. 200,000 members), the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, by the State Security in the years 1948 - 1989. In order to fully complement the topic we generally exploit various evaluation and analytical material of the State Security counter-intelligence units from the 70´s and 80´s, especially due to the fact that the majority of agency documents relating to the issue (personal and subject-matter files) of the State Security had been destroyed before the end of the year 1989. That is why it is this period that has been put emphasis to as for the Church it represented the time of active work of the theological movement of young clergymen (Nová orientace). They worked against the existence of the Communist Regime.
As the result of the work there will be prepared a study which will become a part of the ÚDV Collection "Securitas Imperii" or will be issued as an individual ÚDV publication in a form of the "Issues" editorial series.
The Supervision Department of the Ministry of the Interior (IMV) concentrated on controlling the supervisory type of work on various levels of the Ministry of the Interior (the Special Supervision of the Administration of Cadres, Head Administration of the Public Security, Chief officers of local governments). People from the Department investigated crimes of the State Security and Public Security officials, illegal methods and investigations, examined when requested by the Office of the Public Prosecution or courts, and in 1968 made statements to rehabilitation requests.
The document systematically studies the IMV archival documents concentrating on the crimes of the members of the prosecuting authorities of the previous regime, namely in the years 1948 - 1989, aiming at the offences for which nobody was punished although they had been investigated by IMV. They are confronted with the card register of the aggrieved at ÚDV and the cases are linked to the respective investigation files. The cases, impossible to exploitable from the prosecution point of view, are sent forward to the publication group.
Arresting Czechoslovak citizens and their forced deportation to the USSR started as early as the Red Army entered the Czechoslovak territory in 1944 and went on until the end of the fifties.
The aim of the document is to record the share of the then prosecuting authorities on arresting and transferring the citizens to officers of the Soviet Intelligence Services called SMERŠ, and later on to the KGB. In case a criminal liability of any persons for illegal deportations to the USSR is detected, the cases are submitted to the ÚDV Department of Investigation. The already found out information has been used for publishing (Čuka Petr: Deportation of Augistin Vološin in Securitas Imperii 1, ÚDV 1994 and Čuka Petr: Abductions of persons from Czechoslovakia by the Soviet KGB in Securitas Imperii 7, ÚDV 2001). In accordance with Act N. 172/2002 Coll. the information among others serves as source material for admitting their claim for damage caused by the deportation.
After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact Army in the August 1968 a number of Czechoslovak citizens was put to death and injured by shooting and at accidents caused by military vehicles and there was also caused great damage to property. In the year 1968 the cases were addressed by the Government, in 1990 by the Office for Investigating Unconstitutional Activities of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The recording focuses on searching for the concrete cases, complementing the lists and specifying the damage.
For the need of the Office there are analysed respective cases of persons, processed statements, evaluated dissecting reports, respectively recommended the next steps.
The recording focuses on the development of the structure of the State Security during its first, the most bloody, stage of existence, i.e. until the year 1953. The file covers both the executed restructuring as well as the recommendations that were not implemented due to various reasons. An important part creates the existence of the independent Ministry of National Security in the years 1950 - 1953, which strengthened the position of the State Security in the society. At the moment there are studied selected personal files of the former officers of the National Safety Force and the individual operations are recorded.
The document has been created in order to record the State Security agency penetration into the specific environment of universities. There is collected source material relating to recourses against students and professors in the object period 1948 - 1989, reflections of that spirit in diploma theses of graduates of the University of the National Safety Force, the University of the 17th November etc.
Immediately after the February 1948 the Communist Regime concentrated on suppressing the usual academic freedoms, controlling accession to education and sanctioning students and teachers. A number of them were not allowed to carry out their professions. These people then left the country or emigrated after the August occupation in 1968. A significant number of them ended up in prisons, PTPs, TNPs or as manual workers under a constant supervision.
However, at the same time the State Security attempted to increase the number of their collaborators by persons coming from such an environment; an important aspect for the State Security was e.g. travelling abroad or contacts to important representatives of the emigration or dissent.
The documenting focuses on the activities of the Soviet advisors in Czechoslovakia (especially at the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of National Security) in the years 1949 - 1989.
The Soviet advisors officially worked in Czechoslovakia since the autumn 1949 and significantly afflicted the development of all the Soviet Bloc during the whole period of the so-called Cold War. They were, beside the Warsaw Pact, COMECO, the Soviet Embassy and the apparatus of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the coordinating elements between Prague and Moscow. Their activity was most visible in political proceedings in the CSR during the fifties. But even after that period of time their major impact sustained although softened in the force Ministries.
The status of the Soviet advisors equalled the exceptional position of the USSR within the so-called socialist camp.
The target of the documenting is to prepare a publication that would give a more detailed view of the fearful State Security investigator Miroslav Pich-Tůma. It was the Pich-Tůma who applied brutal investigating methods during the first stage of the Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia. Although he was tried as well, he remained a hard-shell communist until his death (after the year 1990 he even demanded his rehabilitation).
One of the areas constantly monitored by the KGB were the activities of the Russian emigration. Out of the whole spectrum of the Russian emigration ÚDV concentrates especially on the NTS organisation (Narodno trudovoj sojuz), which was during the Cold War based in Frankfurt upon Mohan. When penetrating into NTS, the KGB and subsequently also the State Security exploited linkages to the former interwar Russian emigration.
The NTS organisation was established in the year 1930 after uniting two movements (one had been established in the CSR). After WWII they transferred their activities to the FRG. They focused on disseminating independent literature, handouts and supporting the dissent in the USSR. NTS held various regular discussions and Russian language courses.
The Czechoslovak State Security coordinated their operations against NTS together with the Soviet advisors and through them with the KGB Headquarters in Moscow. That is why the activities against the emigration covered one of the key elements of the common work of the State Security and the KGB.
The documenting concentrates on the forced unification of the Greek Catholic Church with the Orthodox Church after the February 1948, prosecution of the Orthodox priests and also the State Security agency penetration into the Orthodox Church. As the Orthodox Church never had mass foundation in the CSR, it never became a big church (the majority of believers were especially the former Ruthenians and the emigrants). Nevertheless, it was the position of the Church within the Russian community and its linkages to the Russian emigration abroad in which the State Security was interested.
During their monitoring the State Security concentrated to the full on hotels and restaurants, namely on facilities with foreign clients. The head managers of such hotels or their assistants and also some other employees (receptionists, waiters, chambermaids or hotel drivers) were often either the directly employed officials of the State Security or belonged to their agents or occasional collaborators. The State Security often offered protection to them and covered their various aberrances, especially the ones relating to the economic crimes. The hotels with foreign clients had usually rooms furnished to the needs of the State Security. There was located the necessary technology for the State Security officials fro them to be able to eavesdrop and watch the monitored persons.
The target of the work on such a topic is to uncover practices of the State Security in relation to hotels and restaurants and to outline the scope of the agency network in these facilities.
As part of the Action “EVROPA” the State Security was in search of the existence of the so-called illegal agencies of the Western intelligence on the territory of the whole CSSR. It was a long-term and large-scale operation that took place from 1959 until the end of the Communist Regime with a short break in the second half of the seventies. Especially there were investigated persons whose identity was questioned or who had discrepancies in their Curriculum Vitae. The concrete cases related to two main groups. In the first group there were people who stayed in Czechoslovakia after 1945 and were hiding their real identity due to having been compromised during the WWII. In the second group there were cases of persons who came to Czechoslovakia after 1948 and whose identity was disputable. During the whole action the State Security did not manage to convict any real “illegals”, but they detected several war criminals who had been hiding in Czechoslovakia under an alias. In the 80´s, within the Action “EVROPA”, the State Security started complex crosschecking of the presumable hiding places of weapons and documents from the end of WWII. The investigation and the investigating operations, though having been very detailed and costly, totally failed.
The documenting of the Action “EVROPA” is in its final stage and will be soon accomplished.
The Ukrainian and German minorities in the CSSR created a part of those groups of citizens that became an object of full monitoring by the State Security. The Ukrainians were considered to be dangerous especially from the point of view of the USSR interests as they were presumed to cooperate with the Ukrainian Nationalist Organisations in the West and to drive for the independent Ukraine. The Ukrainians who lived in the Czech Lands were often the members or descendants of the so-called white emigration. The Czech citizens of the German nationality were suspect of the possible collaboration with the FRG intelligence services or of serving as foundation for the revenge movement on our territory. The whole topic was processed with a focus on identifying the essential political decisions which led to persecuting these national groups, on describing the development of the organisational structure of the State Security authorities concerned with the Germans and the Ukrainians as well as on preparing a summary of the agency condition, the number of monitored persons etc. The attention is also given to the State Security processes against unions and organisations of the German and Ukrainian minorities.
The documenting should be a part of a wider project focusing on the status of minorities in Czechoslovakia in the years 1945 - 1989 and their persecution by the Communist Regime.
Due to the fact that the topic is very broad the file elaborated especially on partial issues, e.g. the main clerical processes from the 50´s, the person of the Bishop of Litoměřice, Dr. Štěpán Cardinal Trochta, reports of the Xth Administration of the National Safety Force from the 80´s monitoring activities of the Roman Catholic Church, agency collaboration of some more important clergymen etc. Based upon the file there were incited several moves for investigations of those who participated on the persecution of the Church.
At present there is systematically processed the documentation relating to the penetration of the State Security into the structures of the Roman Catholic Church in Litoměřice Diocese at the end of the 80´s. As a part of such documenting there is also worked on the “official” relationship between the State and the Church (teaching religion at schools, the collaborate Association of the Catholic Clergymen “Pacem in Terris”, the devastation of the Church facilities etc.). The final output of this documenting should be issued in a form of an analytical study published in the ÚDV Collection.
The document "LIDICE" was filed in the year 2001 after detecting that one of the war criminals who had had a direct responsibility for extermination of Lidice municipality in the year 1942, the Chief of Kladno SD SS-Obersturmführer Office Max Rostock, had been pardoned in 1953 by President A. Zápotocký and subscribed collaboration with the State Security.
The Rostock Case was documented and individually published as a ÚDV study (Plachý Jiří: The Case Fritz - The War Criminal Max Rostock as an Agent of the State Security, Issue N. 5, ÚDV 2002). Currently there are some small investigations carried out that should update the Internet version of the publication. The final report is also under the preparation.
Exhibition of the Operative Technology of the Former State Security - Mgr. Daniel Povolný
In order to put the documenting file together there was collected the basic information relating to the organisational arrangements of the State Security bodies which developed and exploited the operative technology in the years 1948 - 1989. It covers the kind of knowledge relating to the scope of work of the individual departments of these bodies. Furthermore, the focus was also given to the personal issues, the number of employees of the State Security during the various periods, the list of Chief Officers of the respective State Security authorities and partially also to ordinary officials. The term “operative technology” of the State Security covers spatial and telephone eavesdropping, correspondence censorship and detection of cryptographs, secret searches of rooms and exploitation of assumed identity cards in the course of the State Security's operations and analyses of rules for their utilisation. Among others the concentration was also on knowledge pertaining to the radio counter intelligence services and the aiming of the agency radio stations, manufacturing of various kinds of the operative technology, purchase of electronics and embargo machinery in the West, cooperation among the secret services in the socialist countries when developing and manufacturing the operative technology, exchange of experience relating to its usage and various tactics of the western intelligence services in that area.
The exhibition of the operative technology under the title “Not only did walls have ears”6) was successfully presented in Prague (the Museum of the Police of the CR, April - May 2001), Pilsen (West Bohemian Museum, September 2001), Ústí nad Labem (Municipal Museum, the end of October - November 2001), Bratislava (the Czech Centre, January 2002), Košice (the Slovak Technology Museum, February 2002), Berlin (Forschung-und Gedenkstätte Normannestrasse, May - August 2002) as well as Jihlava (the District Office, December 2002). The exhibition will also be held in Moscow (the Czech Centre, March 2003).
For the purpose of the exhibition there has been written a publication with the basic list of the types of the operative technology (Povolný Daniel: Operative Technology in the Services of the State Security, ÚDV 2001). There are also some other publications to the topic (Schovánek Radek: Transformation of the Technical sections of the Ministry of the Interior 1948 - 1963 in Securitas Imperii 1 and 2, ÚDV 1994). In the editorial plan there is scope for another study relating to the operative technology.
For the documenting there has been collected information on the activities of the Czechoslovak People's Army in the period from approximately December 1967 to September 1968 with a focus on the essential moments of that period: preparation of the military coup d´état from December 1967 to January 1968, flight of Jan Šejna, the General, to the West, staffing changes in the Army, information regarding the possible interference of the Warsaw Pact Armies, visits of the senior military personnel in the CSSR in the Spring 1968, the training exercise “ŠUMAVA” as a preparation for the invasion into the CSSR in the Spring 1968, activities of the Warsaw Pact Armies during the invasion into the CSSR and a reaction of the Czechoslovak People's Army to the Czechoslovak occupation.
The exhibition is organised by the K-2001 Society in Brno. Its target is to record fates of the Czech and Slovak emigrants in the twentieth century. As it was a long period of time, rich in events, the exhibition is divided into the periods 1900 - 1955 (open in January 2003), 1955 - 1968 (will have been started at the end of the year 2004) and 1968 - 1989 (opening in the year 2006). Together with many other partners ÚDV takes part on the exhibition. There have been prepared texts accompanying the individual periods. For the period 1948 - 1955 they are the reports on the intelligence operations, kidnapping persons by the State Security, the system of protection of the state borders and a list of victims from among refugees, the State Security provocations against people who were trying to emigrate (the action “KAMENY”), restricting measures limiting travels abroad (issuing passports and visas), recourses against the family members and friends of the emigrants and correspondence censorship when mailing abroad.
The file elaborates on the issues of development of the organisation and activities of the armed border forces. Among others there is documented the development of the sapper technical protection of borders, the so-called Iron Curtain on the state borders of Czechoslovakia with the FRG and Austria. A special attention was devoted to the cases of killing concrete persons on the border, either by shooting done by the border patrols, mines that created a part of the border protection, or by electrocution. The concrete cases were submitted to ÚDV for their further exploitation.
In relation to the topic there has been published a study (Pulec Martin: An Outline of the Organisation and Activities of the Border Armed Forces in the Years 1948-1951 in Securitas Imperii N. 7, ÚDV 2001). Another summary study to the topic is now under preparation.
For the documenting there are studied archival documents relating to the so-called agents-footers, couriers of the foreign intelligence services crossing the Czechoslovak border in the time of the Cold War, especially in the years 1948 - 1956. Another stage of the documenting gives the focus to the search for interviewing and contacting the still alive former couriers in order to confront the archival material of the Secret Service with an insight by another party.
The document focuses on detecting the contacts of the Czechoslovak Security Authorities and the Italian terrorists.
It is a horizontal issue document concentrating on the persecution of the private farmers by the Communist Regime. The first part of the document addressed the so-called administrative measures, i.e. methods hoe to liquidate farmers via extra-judicial ways hidden in “laws” (acts regulating the fulfilment of the unified economic plan, regulating assistance to farmers, altering repurchase of mechanical machinery, management of the loss-making companies, acts altering the land tenancy, land acts etc.). The next stage will concentrate on recording the major trials with farmers (now the so-called Action Kukly - a proceeding in 1953 in North Bohemia). In case the necessary source material is found the vision is to detect the total number of farmers afflicted by the court.
The topic reflects the development of one of the first major after-February political proceedings with the group Choc & Co. An extensive group (more than 70 people who more less had not even known one another) were accused of murdering a senior communist guerrilla official, Maj. Augustin Schramm, and of seditious conspiracy, sabotages and terrorist actions. Though none of the allegations were approved in an evincible way, the State Court delivered a judgement of six death penalties (of which there were three executed, the youngest executed was 23), three life imprisonments and other long-term imprisonments.
It is a document recording the person - agent V-101, Valerij Vilinskij. Vilinskij was a long-term Secretary to the Minister of Transport Pietor and also a paid collaborator of the State Security. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia received from him detail information on the actions of the non-communist parties during the February crisis in 1948.
The intelligence service of the Ministry of the Interior of the former communist Czechoslovakia went through a complex development. Out of a totally inefficient service at the beginning of the Communist Regime it became, at the beginning of the 60´s under the direct supervision of the Soviet advisors and after a whitewash purge of a Stalin's type, a broad super service. As for the personal occupation and the number of used methods it was one of the bodies of the political Police - the State Security. However, it did not fully recover from another housecleaning during the liquidation of the so-called Prague Spring at the beginning of the 70´s.
The target is to record the development and activities of this still partially secret body of the State Security. There has been gathered information relating to the staffing, organisational development and its changes, stages of the internal political development and the general results. There are also monitored concrete intelligence operations, the cases of cadre personnel who flopped over to the “enemy” as well as those bodies of the intelligence service that were in charge of the active participation on terrorism. The topic is complicated by a difficult access to information which is often confidential. The output of the document serves sometimes as material for criminal prosecution in concrete cases and also for partial studies (Tomek Prokop: The Action MANUEL in Securitas Imperii N. 9, ÚDV 2002).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was established in 1951 as one of the projects of the American non-government organisation Free Europe Committee. It became the most persistent and the loudest instrument of the anti-communist resistance of the Czechoslovak exile. Until 1988 the Czechoslovak Communist Regime unsuccessfully tried to dumbfound this radio station by all possible means. There were sent agents to Radio Free Europe in order to get reports as well as to carry out destructive operations and to prepare violent actions. There was also held a massive communist propaganda campaign and its broadcasting was dearly interfered with by various technologies.
The purpose of the document is to record intelligence, propaganda and direct sanctioning activities of the offices of former Czechoslovakia. For that reason there have been carried out researches and studies of archival files of the intelligence and counter-intelligence State Security agents, detected propaganda actions and analysed outputs of the Secret Service activities. In relation to the interference with the foreign radio broadcasting for Czechoslovakia there was issued a publication (Tomek Prokop: Interference with the Foreign Radio Broadcasting for Czechoslovakia in Securitas Imperii N. 9, ÚDV 2002).
It records the State Security actions and the following recourse against a Charta 77 signatory, a member of the Committee for the Defence of the Unfairly Prosecuted and a former ÚDV Director PhDr. Václav Benda and his family in the years 1977 - 1989.
Due to the fact that the majority of the relating State Security files have been destroyed the document introduces a reconstruction of the State Security operations on the basis of studying the extant information outputs, files of the secret agents who worked against V.Benda and some other partial secondary material.
It documents the development of the organisational structure and operations (including rearrangements) of individual bodies (departments, units, sections) on the level of the inferior components of the State Security - regional and district administrations of the Ministry of the Interior (the National Safety Force). The recorded period is 1948 - 1989. The primary target is to gather sufficient pieces of general information on these structures followed by news about the respective administrations and departments on the territory of the current Czech Republic.
It records interventions of the prosecuting authorities of the former Communist Regime against demonstrations, strikes and other expressions of the civil commotion. The aim is among others to collect information on the less known turmoil suppressed by means of force in the years 1948 - 1989 excluding the events from the period 1968 - 1969 and 1988 - 1989 as they have been sufficiently described.
It documents a specific kind of operations of the State Security: kidnapping cumbersome persons (the Czechoslovak citizens as well as foreigners) from abroad to Czechoslovakia followed by their sentence or even possible propaganda exploitation or acquiring for collaboration.
The information regarding individual cases is usually collected accidentally, namely through oral or written history (newspaper articles, memoirs etc.) and by studying archives of the former State Security.
The Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia approved at their meeting on the 8th January 1971 a Directive according to which there was to be created a unified central register of the “representatives, exponents and bearers of the right-wing opportunism, organisers of the anti-party, anti-socialist and anti-Soviet campaigns and actions”. In March 1974 there were a total of 6,335 persons on the list and over the years the number grew a bit. The purpose of the list was to gain and maintain a review of where the people assembled. At the same time there were created conditions for their isolation. The listed persons had to be removed from their top positions and there was a task to prevent them from their return to work in the state and economic authorities, institutions and organisations with political and ideological impact on the consciousness of civilians in the social, cultural and educational institutions and organisations and in the area of international relations. Being listed in the register significantly afflicted the persons - the affected were repeatedly dismissed from jobs, transferred to inferior positions, they were not able to find new jobs, a number of them said that as a result of such measures their children had not been admitted to secondary schools and universities.
The output of the documenting will be issued in form of a publication.
In the year 2001 ÚDV issued a publication called the “Executed Death Penalties in Czechoslovakia 1918 - 1989” by Otakar Liška & Co. Among others there was published a data file of the executed ones with 1207 names of persons condemned to death penalty by the Czech and Slovak courts (i.e. not only by the nazi occupational courts). These judgements related to all crimes, i.e. the criminal and political ones. The publication will be completed, broadened and altered by data that have been possible to collect in between. Moreover, there will be issued a collection of works devoted only to the Czechoslovak citizens executed on the basis of political reasons. The Collection will among others also show photos and Curriculum Vitaes of the executed ones.
The document attempts to record the number of secret collaborators and cadre officers of the Czechoslovak State Security in the 70´and 80´s of the 20th century including the related data. It actually means the number and type of operative files, the State Security operations, preventive measures etc. As the issues is very broad and difficult and due to fragmented extent archival documents the work will be fastidious and tedious.
The ÚDV Headquarters decided to elaborate on the topic of activities of the Czechoslovak Judiciary in the years of lack of freedom 1948 - 1989. Currently it is a team of officials from the Office together with co-operators from the State Central Archive who work on the first part of the cycle recording the period 1948 - 1953.
Those years of the so-called “establishment period” of the Communist Regime in Czechoslovakia were a period of significant changes in the history of our country. The interferences obviously sensitively afflicted also the Czechoslovak judiciary. That, together with political and power authorities of the State, had a major share on the injustices caused to the Czechoslovak citizens during the period of the rule of the Communist Party. The most exclamatory wrongdoings were done during the first period 1948 - 1953, the period of operations of the state Court and the State Prosecuting Office, during the fabricated public political trials. According to the current research of the Office there were executed around 250 people of whom more than 80% on the basis of political reasons.
The Department of Documentation has processed the archival documents and has concluded the cases for their publishing. A significant impact is given to the professionalism of the texts.
ÚDV has already published 9 issues of the Collection SECURITAS IMPERII (also accessible on the ÚDV web site):
In 1999 ÚDV started issuing a new editorial series of ISSUEs. Since then there has been published:
Testimony Editorial Series - so far has been issued:
An integral part of the ÚDV outputs create publications in the press and cooperation on the preparation of documents for the television and the radio.
There was a very successful exhibition in 2001, showing the operative technology of the State Security, called “Not only did walls have ears”. The public could see it in Prague, Pilsen, Ústí nad Labem, Jihlava, Bratislava, Košice, Bucurest, Seget and Berlin. Its presentation in Moscow is now under preparation.
1) ČSLA, Československá lidová armáda, trans. note
2) Lidové milice, trans. note
3) KPVČ, Konfederace politických vězňů Československa, Confederation of the Prisoners of Conscience, trans. note
4) SNB, Sbor národní bezpečnosti, trans. note
5) SVS, Sbor vězeňské služby, trans. note
6) „Nejen stěny měly uši“, trans. note
7) ÚV KSČ, trans. note
8) StB - The State Security, trans. note
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