Czechoslovak Political Prisoners - über das Projekt Political ...

functionaries. These trials were mainly run by the State secret police. They prepared the trials
very well, in many cases they were preparing them, constructing the charge, forcing the victims
with physical and psychological violence, pushing them this way to memorize the scenario of
the trial. The accusations were supposed to be very big because the punishments to fit the
crime were to be very severe. This way, the Communist regime was strengthened and the other
purpose was to threaten the Czechoslovakian population. The Soviet consultants were taking
part in the biggest trials, making them up, and giving advice to the investigators on how they
should obtain the confession. Besides this, they were also providing psychological help. They
legitimized the violent actions of the investigators and if there were some doubts towards the
political trials and the tactics used, then they told them that the Soviet Consultants had extra
secret information. Since Czechoslovakian investigators did not have this information, these
steps could have seemed excessive. One of the main investigators who worked on the big trials
wrote in his memoirs, “I remember one chat with a guy from the people’s militia named Mr.
Bruha, who told me shortly after his entrance into the secret police, ‘You know, if there weren’t
these consultants I wouldn’t believe anything and I would think we’re doing some pretty dirty
business, but this way it’s different. Those people know what they are doing.’” 10
The main wave of the political trials took five years. The national court, which was established
for these purposes gave out 232 death penalties out of which 178 were executed. This number
is the highest number of executions of European countries gathered in the Soviet Bloc. One of
the biggest trials was the one with General Heliodor Píka 11 , who worked in one of the foreign
partisan groups during WWII. In January 1949 he was sentenced to death and was executed. 12
By the way, General Heliodor Píka used to be a schoolmate of the French President De Gaulle.
When he was executed a whole day of national sorrow was observed in France.
The whole world was paying attention to the trial of the ex-National Socialist politician
Milada Horáková 13 in June 1950. There were another twelve politicians, publishers, and public
officers involved in that. The prep time for the trial was coordinated by Soviet Consultants,
who among others established special preparation for the accused. The accused people had to
learn and memorize their speeches for the court over and over again. The way the processes
looked and that everything was decided before the trial are illustrated in words of Antonie
Kleinerová, who was one of the thirteen accused in Horáková´s process, “Šváb was present at
my hearing three times. During each visit he smashed my face until it would bleed. At the last
meeting he yelled at me, ”If you confess or not, that doesn´t matter. We have sentences for
you anyways…”
10 StB o sobě: výpověď vyšetřovatele Bohumila Doubka. Připravil Karel Kaplan. Praha: Úřad dokumentace a vyšetřování
zločinů komunismu PR, 2002, s. 61 an.
11 General Heliodor Píka (1887–1949) was a Czechoslovakian soldier and legionnaire. During WWII he formed an army
unit out of Czechoslovakian soldiers in Soviet camps. In May 1945 he returned to Prague where he was named the Deputy
of the Chief of General Staff of Czechoslovakian Army. After February 1948 he was arrested and executed. In 1968 his
process was renewed and fully rehabilitated.
12 Historians are convinced today that Communists executed General Heliodor Píka because he had all the Soviet concentration
camps monitored since he was a chief of the Czechoslovakian Million Army in Moscow. Plus he knew what
inhuman things were done there. In Process s Heliodorem Píkou. První poúnorová justiční vražda. In http://www.totalita.
cz/proc/proc_pikah.php. Last observed on November 3, 2008.
13 JUDr. Milada Horáková was a Czech politician. During WWII she was arrested and brutally interrogated by Gestapo.
She was sentenced to death and then this was changed to life imprisonment. The rest of the war she spent in the concentration
camp in Terezín. After the war she joined the National Socialist party. In 1949 she was arrested, sentenced in the
communist political processes to death. She was fully rehabilitated in 1968.
12