No. IV.
Hlavní stránka » pages » Journal Soudobé dějiny » Volume VIII. (2001) » No. IV. »
Stanislav Kokoška
The Crisis of Nazi Occupation Policy in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, 1944, and the Attempts to Surmount It
Vít Smetana
Great Britain and Czechoslovak Gold: A Case Study of British Appeasement?
Hana Velecká
British Assistance to Czechoslovak Refugees, from the German Occupation till the Outbreak of World War II
Dalibor Státník
Between Resistance and Collaboration:
The Case of Arno Hais
Zlatica Zudová-Lešková
‘Courier 5’:
A Czechoslovak Parachute Unit
Material
Francis Dostál Raška
Refugee Camps in Bohemia and Moravia after the Munich Diktat
Reviews
Zlatica Zudová-Lešková
The Meaning of the Slovak National Uprising in the Late Twentieth Century
Jiří Pešek
Thomas Mann’s Reflections on Post-War Germany
Jiří Pešek
‘Munich was the Motivation for the Expulsion’
Petr Šafařík
A Social History of German Literature
Blahoslav Hruška
Germany’s Long Road to West
Šárka Daňková
Confessions of a Former Revolutionar
Lucie Pánková
German Research on the History of the German Democratic Republic, 1997–2001
Ivo Bock Replies to a Review of the Essay Volume
‘Recht und Kultur in Ostmitteleuropa’
Documents
Jan B. Uhlíř
The ‘Jindra’ Resistance Organization of the Sokol Movement:
The Final Report by the Gestapo
Chronicle
Vilém Prečan
The Second Life of the Past
Michal Kopeček
The Memory of Communism in the Czech Republic:
Report from a Symposium
Annotations
Bibliography on Contemporary History
Selected monographs, volumes and articles published abroad between 1998 and 2001
Summaries
Stanislav Kokoška
For charting out changes in occupation policy in the history of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, its history can usefully be divided into three main periods, each of which can be named after the top-level representative of the occupation administration at the time – namely, the Konstantin von Neurath period, the Reinhard Heydrich period (and, after his death, the Kurt Daluege period) and the Karl Hermann Frank period. The internal markers of this periodization comprise Heydrich’s appointment to the job of Deputy Reichsprotektor (on 27 September 1941) and the setting up of the German Ministry for Bohemia and Moravia (on 20 August 1944). The present article, however, is concerned only with the important features of Frank’s occupation policy in 1944.
The exceptional nature of his standing compared to that of the Nazi administrators of other occupied countries was based on the fact that, beginning in 1939, Frank was head of both the SS and the police in the Protectorate. Owing to this ‘personal union’, the Waffen SS units and German police forces in the Protectorate were subordinated to him, and, most important, in the administration of the Protectorate Frank was spared the intervention of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and his deputies.
Concerning the actual form of occupation policy, the author argues that Frank explicitly declared himself a continuator of Heydrich’s legacy. Frank thus emphasized targeted measures of retribution (which were also meant as a demonstration of Nazi power) and the development of open Czech collaboration (aktivism), the leading representatives of which were supposed to promote among the Czech nation the idea of active collaboration with the Reich.
In the summer of 1944, as a result of the military and political failures of the Third Reich, the occupation regime entered a period of permanent crisis. It seems to have been manifested mainly in the break-up of the Czech ‘activist’ front, the growth of a resistance mood in the Czech population, and the defeatism that began to spread among the German ethnicity in the Protectorate. At the same time, Frank’s room for implementing the existing policy of occupation was being rapidly encroached upon. As early as the summer of 1944 he had to introduce a series of measures in the Protectorate in connection with the conscription of slave labour; after the outbreak of the Slovak Uprising, the partisan movement also became a serious problem. Though the occupation regime tried to react to the emerging situation with a new propaganda campaign based on the putting down of the uprising in October 1944, its effect was minimal.
The author also describes how Frank’s conception of politics in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia met with the opposition of the NSDAP, represented mainly by the Gauleiter of the Lower Danube, Hugo Jury, for example over the organization of slave-labour conscription. Though Frank managed to defend the necessity of an untypical administrative arrangement for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Nazi authorities’ growing improvisation increasingly provided room for similar conflicts.
Great Britain and Czechoslovak Gold:
A Case Study of British Appeasement?
Vít Smetana
The author focuses on the most dramatic chapter in the history of Czechoslovak gold holdings during World War II. This part of the national reserves, raised from public collections in the 1920s and 1930s, became an object of German attention after the Munich Agreement of September 1938 and especially after the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. A considerable part of the gold was deposited abroad, in particular in London and Geneva. One amount of gold (28 309 kg) was held in the Bank of England on the account of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). Two directors of the National Bank of Czechoslovakia were forced by the Germans to demand the transfer of 23 087 kg of gold from one BIS account with the Bank of England to another, from where the gold was then sold or transferred to other banks within a few days, while its real value eventually reached the Reichsbank. Unlike the other amount of gold (26 793 kg), which had been deposited by the National Bank of Czechoslovakia directly in the Bank of England, this transfer was not blocked as part of a decision by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to freeze all Czechoslovak assets in Britain (a decision taken immediately after the German occupation of the rump Czechoslovakia).
Based on his research (especially in the Bank of England Archive and the Public Record Office in London), the author argues that the decision for the transfer was not made by either the British Government or any of the ‘appeasers’ – as opposed to what both Czech and British historians have most often argued. Rather, the directors of the Bank of England considered the transfer a technical operation. Though it seems they were aware of the actual origin of the gold held in the name of the BIS, they did not want political considerations to interfere with their banking operations. The Government started to inquire into the matter of the transfers only after criticism in the newspapers and the House of Commons – two months after the actual transfer had taken place. Though many prominent politicians, including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, severely criticized the transfers in numerous parliamentary debates, the whole affair remained cloaked in mystery, due to the general unwillingness of the Bank of England to provide sufficient information, even to the Government. Consequently, the Government had to limit its explanations to reiterating the legal arguments, which hardly satisfied the opposition parties. The author, however, maintains that the ‘Czech gold scandal’ contributed to the process of growing parliamentary control of the foreign policy of Neville Chamberlain’s cabinet in the summer of 1939.
British Assistance to Czechoslovak Refugees, from the German Occupation till the Outbreak of World War II
Hana Velecká
The article, based mainly on the author’s research on British archive records, attempts to explain the complexity of the situation facing Czechoslovak émigrés after the signing of the Munich Agreement in September 1938, and the phases of British policy towards them. The Munich Agreement and the consequent relinquishing of the borderlands of Czechoslovakia (commonly known as the ‘Sudetenland’) to the Reich led to a great wave of refugees from Czechoslovakia. Reich Germans and Austrians who had found asylum from Nazi persecution now sought to flee Czechoslovakia. They were joined also by Sudeten Germans who opposed the local Nazi leader Konrad Henlein and by Czechoslovak Jews. In the period of the Second Republic (30 September 1938 to 14/15 March 1939) a humanitarian system was organized, which classified refugees according to the extent they were threatened, and sought to provide new homes for them in Great Britain, Palestine and several other countries willing to accept them. A plan was also formulated for distributing financial assistance to refugees. At this time most of the responsibility for the assistance was with the Czechoslovak government and British non-governmental organizations and funds. With the signing of the Czechoslovak-British agreement on credits and grants to Czechoslovakia, beginning in 1939, the British government itself actively joined in the organization and financing of emigration.
The successfully developing operation to assist émigrés was interrupted by the German occupation of the Bohemian Lands beginning on 15 March 1939. The present article focuses on assistance to refugees in the five-and-a-half-month period from the beginning of the Occupation till the outbreak of World War II. The author analyzes British policy towards émigrés from Czechoslovakia and demonstrates how this policy frequently came into conflict with that of humanitarian organizations, particular the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, the most important aid organization in this area, which coordinated all operations assisting refugees in Czechoslovakia. Aid to refugees was limited mainly by a shortage of money and places of resettlement. The article describes the kinds of problems the British government struggled with in this area, and, in particular, focuses on its attitude towards Jewish émigrés. The situation of the Czechoslovak Jews with respect to the possibilities for emigration was grim, because the British authorities considered them economic emigrants rather than a group under threat; consequently they found themselves at the bottom of the list of British government interests. The most important thing for the British government in this respect was its obligations towards older Jewish émigrés from Germany and Austria.
The article considers in detail the changing situation in the Protectorate, refugee routes out of it and the refugees’ period in Poland, where most of them had assembled. Organized transports went through Poland, though many refugees also crossed the frontier illegally, particularly volunteers who were prepared to fight Nazism in the coming conflict and who wanted to return to Czechoslovakia once the war was won. In this connection the author analyzes the changing approach of the British government and humanitarian organizations to legal (that is to say, registered) and illegal emigration. She also describes the problems that support for illegal emigration caused British organizations in the Protectorate, their difficult negotiations with the Germans and, in general, Nazi policy towards refugees.
Between Resistance and Collaboration:
The Case of Arno Hais
Dalibor Státník
Based on records in the Archives of the Interior Ministry of the Czech Republic and the Trade Union Archives, Prague, the present article considers Arno Hais, an important Czechoslovak trade-union functionary whose life reflects the ups and downs of the first half of the twentieth century. In Russia Hais became a supporter of the Bolshevik revolution, later working as one of their ‘envoys’ in central Europe and, ultimately, in Czechoslovakia. Gradually, however, he came into conflict with the Czechoslovak Communist Party line that was being promoted in the trade unions, particularly after Klement Gottwald took over the Party leadership in 1929, when Hais, together with his father (who was also an important politician), left the ranks of the Party. Eventually he supported the Social Democratic Party and worked in its trade-union organ, the Trade-union Headquarters (Odborové ústředí zaměstnanecké).
After the German occupation of the Bohemian Lands, in mid-March 1939, his life seemed to split in two. On the one hand he became Deputy Chairman (in 1941) of the National Trade-Union Headquarters (Národní odborová ústředna zaměstnanecká – NOÚZ), the now homogenized trade unions of the Protectorate. The mere fact that he held this office meant he was forced to make a number of pro-Nazi statements in the press, radio, and at public meetings during the Nazi campaign after the assassination of Deputy Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich; speaking in the name of the Czech working class, Hais distanced himself from the assassination and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London. Apart from that, he published articles condemning the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union, referring to his personal experiences with them.
The author discusses Hais’s pro-German activity. In particular, he points to a parallel between the social aims of the programme of the left-wing trade-union movement and aspects of Nazi policy in the Protectorate, which to a certain extent could form a genuine component motivating Hais’s pro-Nazi behaviour. On the other hand, however, Hais was active in the home resistance. He was a member of the trade-union group of the resistance group called The `We Shall Remain Faithful!’ Petition Committee (Petiční výbor ‘Věrni zůstaneme!’ – PVVZ), and helped to formulate its programme, ‘For Freedom to a New Czechoslovak Republic’. He also played an important role as a middle-man between the leadership of the whole PVVZ and workers and trade-union employees from various factories. According to his co-conspirators in the resistance, he used to make his pro-Soviet thinking clear to them. As a result of increasing repression after the assassination of Heydrich, however, the non-Communist resistance in the Protectorate (including the PVVZ) was practically wiped out. Hais was arrested by the Gestapo in December 1942, and spent the rest of the war in prison. He was not, however, put on trial, owing to the intercession of Karl Hermann Frank, who valued Hais’s previous propaganda work for the Nazi German occupation.
After the war Hais was interrogated for his alleged collaboration, and together with the chairman of NOÚZ, Václav Stočes, he was put on trial before the National Court. Thanks to evidence in their favour, which was given by a number of witnesses, and probably also owing to the prevailing atmosphere in Czech society and the influence of the new revolutionary trades unions whose members included many former NOÚZ functionaries, Hais and Stočes were set free. The sentence of the National Court, however, shrewdly pointed to the considerable extent of Hais’s pro-Nazi collaboration, while excusing it as a justified stratagem in the struggle against the enemy. Hais did not enjoy his freedom in Czechoslovakia for long, however, because in February, by a decision of the action committee, he was dismissed from the Ministry of Food and shortly afterwards, in March, he emigrated first to Paris (by way of Vienna) and then to England. Abroad, he was an active member of the Free Trade Unions in Exile. He retired from public activity in 1962, and died in Vienna in 1971.
‘Courier 5’:
A Czechoslovak Parachute Unit
Zlatica Zudová-Lešková
The author presents the story of one of the parachute units aimed at Slovak territory during the uprising there, a story that has so far been unduly neglected by historians. In the spring of 1944 the headquarters of Czechoslovak military intelligence, based in London at the time, influenced by expectations of a sudden turnaround in the military situation on the Continent and by the new official position of the Czechoslovak government towards the struggle for the liberation of the Yugoslav nations, shifted its attention to the Balkans and the Apennine Peninsula, where it sent its best organizer and spy, Colonel František Hieke-Stoj, who was a member of the General Staff and official commander of the Czechoslovak military mission. Hieke-Stoj’s mission assumed its tasks in relation not only to Headquarters, but also to Allied intelligence services. One concrete result of Czechoslovak-British collaboration was the operation code-named ‘Courier 5’, comprising three men – namely, Lieutenant Imrich Eröš, Corporal František Holý and Jozef Chramec, former members of the 2nd Technical Division of the Slovak Army, who were supposed to work for intelligence in the territory of south-east Slovakia (which had been annexed by Hungary after negotiations in Vienna). Courier 5 was dropped in Slovakia on 15 September 1944 and, after overcoming technical difficulties, planned to begin its own activity on 26 September by transmitting from the mountain chalet called Na Trangoške pod Ďumbierom. That same day, however, the chalet was attacked and two members of Courier 5 were captured, thus ending for all intents and purposes the group’s activity. The operation – intentionally or by chance – had been disabled by partisans, in other words by the Allies. The article also discusses the fate of the commander of Courier 5 as well as his captured comrades, in particular the tragic fate of Holý.
Refugee Camps in Bohemia and Moravia after the Munich Diktat
Francis Dostál Raška
Little has been written about the 150,000 Czechs or other nationalities who left the frontier regions of Czechoslovakia, which were ceded to Germany after the Munich diktat. These people suddenly found themselves in alien surroundings in the Czechoslovak interior, often only with the barest of necessities. Most Czech refugees were placed in camps, of which there were three categories. First-category camps had the best facilities; third-category camps, where most of the refugees were housed, were the most primitive. From the outset, concerns were raised about dangers to public health and order, which were posed by the uprooting of so many people. Despite various bureaucratic obstacles, the Czechoslovak health authorities (the Mobile Epidemic Unit), in cooperation with Czechoslovak ministries, the armed forces, domestic and foreign charities, as well international organizations such as the International Red Cross, managed to ensure that the refugees would be well looked after and, ultimately, could rebuild their lives. The article cites materials mainly from the papers of the author’s late grandfather, Professor Karel Raška who, as a young army officer and epidemiologist, played a leading role in the Mobile Epidemic Unit.
The Meaning of the Slovak National Uprising in the Late Twentieth Century
Zlatica Zudová-Lešková
Dezider Tóth and Katarína Kováčiková (eds): SNP 1944 – vstup Slovenska do demokratickej Európy. Banská Bystrica: ADADE, 1999, 491 pp.
The reviewer acquaints the readers with a volume of essays from a 1999 conference in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, which was held to mark the fifty-fifth anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising (Slovenské národné povstanie – SNP).
Thomas Mann’s Reflections on Post-War Germany
Jiří Pešek
Thomas Mann, Fragile Republik: Thomas Mann und Nachkriegsdeutschland. Ed. by Stephan Stachorski. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1999, 240 pp.
The reviewer discusses a selection from the radio broadcasts, speeches, articles, diary entries and letters of Thomas Mann, from the years 1945-54. Written while maintaining a critical distance during Mann’s sojourn in America, they reflect the political and cultural situation in Germany and the viewpoints of German émigré circles from the field of arts and culture, in the United States at the time.
‘Munich was the Motivation for the Expulsion’
Jiří Pešek
Detlef Brandes, Der Weg zur Vertreibung 1938-1945: Pläne und Entscheidungen zum ‘Transfer’ der Deutschen aus der Tschechoslowakei und aus Polen. Preface by Hans Lemberg. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001, 503 pp. Maps, bibliography and indexes of persons, subjects and places.
This new publication by the respected German historian is, the reviewer believes, a ground-breaking monograph. It is densely written and chock-full of facts, comprising a broad spectrum of primary sources. The author has let the sources speak for themselves, which makes his work somewhat impersonal, but also convincingly authentic. Brandes clearly demonstrates that the expulsion and transfer of the Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland was the result of long political considerations and processes, as well as mental and ideological shifts in the minds of the populations of the occupied countries, their governments-in-exile, and leading politicians of the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the USA.
A Social History of German Literature
Petr Šafařík
Rolf Grimminger (ed.), Hansers Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Hanser, 1983-2000.
Vol. 7: Naturalismus, Fin de sičcle, Expressionismus: 1890–1918. Ed. by York-Gothart Mix, 2000, 760 pp.
Vol. 8: Literatur der Weimarer Republik 1918–1933. Ed. by Bernhard Weyergraf, 1995, 819 pp.
Vol. 10: Literatur in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bis 1967. Ed. by Ludwig Fischer, 1986, 908 pp.
Vol. 11: Die Literatur der DDR. Ed. by Hans-Jürgen Schmitt, 1983, 588 pp.
Vol. 12: Gegenwartsliteratur seit 1968. Ed. by Klaus Briegleb, 1992, 885 pp.
The reviewer introduces a monumental project of a German publishing house, which constitutes a rare piece of work in the social history of literature. He praises the generally high standard of contributions in the individual volumes.
Blahoslav Hruška
Heinrich August Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen: Deutsche Geschichte. Part I: Vom Ende des alten Reiches bis zum Untergang der Weimarer Republik. Part II: Vom ‘Dritten Reich’ bis zur Wiedervereinigung. Munich: Beck, 2000, 652 pp (Part 1) and 742 pp (Part 2).
The reviewer calls this two-volume history of Germany from the Napoleonic wars to re-unification a magnum opus and praises the author’s dramatic narrative and extensive scholarly knowledge.
Confessions of a Former Revolutionary
Šárka Daňková
Gerd Koenen, Das rote Jahrzehnt: Unsere kleine deutsche Kulturrevolution, 1967–1977. Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2001, 560 pp.
Koenen’s book, which charts out the development of extreme left-wing parties and groupings in Germany from 1967 to 1977, constitutes an important contribution to the current discussion on the legacy of 1968. The reviewer points out the advantages and pitfalls of the author’s approach, which combines biased interviews by a former student activist and member of a Maoist organization, on the other hand, with the objectivity of an historical chronicler thoroughly familiar with the relevant sources, on the other.
German Research on the History of the German Democratic Republic, 1997–2001
Lucie Pánková
This comprehensive annotation in clear thematic blocks provides information on sixty recent publications concerned with the history of the German Democratic Republic.
The ‘Jindra’ Resistance Organization of the Sokol Movement:
The Final Report by the Gestapo
Jan B. Uhlíř
The nineteen-page final report on the underground Sokol organization called ‘Jindra’, dated 10 December 1942, was written by Department II BM (political affairs – the Czech right-wing resistance movement) of Gestapo headquarters in Prague. It can conveniently be divided into three parts. The first is a general introduction, from which it becomes clear that the Gestapo considered Jindra a component of the group known as the ‘Sokol Community in the Resistance’ (Obec sokolská v odboji – OSVO). The middle part is mainly a summary of statements made to the Gestapo by the leader of Jindra, Ladislav Vaněk, from late September to late November 1942. The conclusion of the report provides a concise description of the activity of some members of the resistance organization. The report was originally supplemented with four addenda; the only two which seem to have survived are included here – a list of names and the organizational plan of Jindra. (The translation of a cable to London and the original minutes of the group have apparently not been preserved.)
The exceptional informational value of this report resides mainly in the fact that it summarizes the maximum of information available to the Gestapo at the time, outlines the work of the OSVO, provides a detailed description of the origin of Jindra and contributes considerably to explaining the role of the Sokol movement in the context of the whole democratic resistance in the Protectorate. It is so far the most detailed document of its kind ever to be published. The introduction to the document, written by Uhlíř, who edited the Gestapo report, places the document in its historical context, concisely describes the development of the Jindra resistance group, introduces the main actors and other figures of the resistance, and points out problematic aspects in the career of Ladislav Vaňek, who confessed to a great deal during Gestapo interrogations and worked for the Communist secret police (the StB) after the liberation.
Vilém Prečan
The article is a lecture given by Prečan when accepting the International Prize of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, on 21 September 2001. In it he offers his reflections on history and the role of the historian and, on the other hand, a topic central to his research, the Slovak National Uprising.
First Prečan recalls his close bonds with Slovakia and its culture, which permeate his professional and private life. He then makes the personal statement that the profession of historian became the basis of his present identity. He sees history as an attempt to understand the past, to present it in an organized and necessarily simplified way, that is, to interpret it. The past, however, is an essential part of the identity of every person and social group, and if it cannot be changed, it continues to live its second life in the form of consequences for the present and later generations. One deals with the past in order to come to terms with it, shed its burden, find the necessary distance from it, and to learn from it, to find strength, encouragement, and satisfaction in it; for without that one cannot understand the present or find one’s bearings in it.
History is a critical discipline in two respects – it uses the scientific method and necessitates of making judgements. The historian, believes Prečan, must search for the truth about the past. That truth, however, has no objective existence; rather it is determined by the behaviour of subjective actors of history. In a situation where the past is always used by some persons to achieve current goals, the historian has the indispensable role of guardian of the historical legacy, and brings our attention to the multitude of connections, circumstances and motives of past actions and events. The historian therefore cannot be objective or unbiased, because he or she occupies a certain place in society and professes certain values, at the same being able to doubt his or her own truths in the interpretation of the past.
In the second part of the lecture Prečan discusses the reasons he considers the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 to be the most dramatic and perhaps most important episode in twentieth-century Slovak history. No matter how one judges the course of the uprising, it cannot be denied that the people who fought in it took the fate of Slovakia into their own hands, and with their risky deed they made a historical juncture and co-determined the form of the post-war state. The uprising became a symbol of Slovak national identity and efforts for equal standing with the Czechs in a shared state; the struggle for the truth about the uprising subsequently became part of the struggle for freedom, which was waged against Communist totalitarianism.
In conclusion that author recalls the most relevant aims of historical research in relation to the Slovak Uprising, for which, he believes, a series of documents, a social history, and a comprehensive treatment of the Uprising for the general public are now needed.
The Memory of Communism in the Czech Republic:
Report from a Symposium
Michal Kopeček
The symposium reported on took place in Prague in October 2001, under the auspices of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. On the eve of the symposium Karel Schwarzenberg gave a paper in the Carolinum, Charles University, concerned with the Czechs’ selective approach to their own history. The present report then describes the papers by the French political scientist Jacques Rupnik, who focused on the question of ‘political memory’ in the Czech Republic and central Europe after 1989, the Czech historian Vilém Prečan, who talked about ways of ‘coming to terms with past’ in the Czech Republic, and his Polish colleague Andzrej Paczkowski, who did the same for the Polish case. The author of the report summarizes the discussions that followed the main papers. The symposium participants, he concludes, agreed on the need to study the history of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia both in the broader geographical and temporal contexts. Particularly in comparison with Poland, the symposium clearly demonstrated the relative absence of a broader public debate over the recent past, and also the absence of a truly fundamental social-science controversy in the Czech Republic.
Contributors
Šárka Daňková (1977) is employed at the Institute of International Studies, the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, where she specializes in German and Austrian history.
Blahoslav Hruška (1976) is a post-graduate at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, and is concerned with the cultural history of post-war Germany.
Stanislav Kokoška (1959) is a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, concerned with the home resistance during WW II, the liberation of the Bohemian Lands in the spring of 1945, and the history of military intelligence.
Michal Kopeček (1974) is a Researcher in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, concerned with twentieth-century history and political thought in central Europe.
Lucie Pánková (1981) is a student in the Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, where she focuses on German history.
Jiří Pešek (1954) is a graduate of Charles University and a former employee of the Prague Municipal Archives. He is currently concerned with German history in the Institute of German and Austrian Studies, Charles University. He is the author of a number of articles on cultural history.
Vilém Prečan (1933) was the founder of the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and its first director. He is currently the Director of the Czechoslovak Documentation Centre and Chairman of the Czech National Committee of Historians. His main area of professional interest is Czechoslovak history in its European context from the Munich Agreement of 1938 to the present.
Francis Dostál Raška (1971) is a Lecturer at the Department of American Studies in the Institute of International Studies, the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. He currently holds a research grant in the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague, and is concerned primarily with Sudeten German-Czech relations. His book on the subject is forthcoming.
Vít Smetana (1973) is a Researcher at the Institute of Contemporary History, concerned with the history of diplomacy during WW II and the initial phase of the Cold War. He is the editor of a Czech edition of Thirteen Days, Robert F. Kennedy’s memoirs of the Cuban missile crisis (Prague, 1999).
Dalibor Státník (1962) is an employee of the Archives of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic. He is concerned with the history of the trade unions and of culture in the twentieth century (in particular, the writer Jaroslav Maria and his times). He has published a book on sanctions in labor law (Prague, 1994).
Petr Šafařík (1973) is doing doctoral research in the Institute of International Studies, the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and is concerned in general with contemporary cultural history.
Jan B. Uhlíř (1972) is doing doctoral research in the Institute of Czech History, the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, and holds a scholarship from the Institute of Contemporary History, Prague. He specializes in the history of Nazi Germany, and in particular the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Czech home resistance to the Germans. He is the co-author of Sokol proti totalitě 1938–1952 [The Sokol Movement against Totalitarianism, 1938-52] (Prague, 2001).
Hana Velecká (1973) is a Researcher in the Institute of Contemporary History, concerned with the history of Czechoslovak émigrés and international relations during WW II. She is also doing doctoral research at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague.
Zlatica Zudová-Lešková (1957) is a Senior Researcher in the Historical Institute of the Czech Armed Forces, Prague. She specializes in the Shoah and Czechoslovak history, 1938-45, with a focus on Czecho-Slovak relations and the Czechoslovak military and political resistance. She has published a number of articles at home and abroad.
