From the History of Czechoslovac Border Service - PS SNB during Socialist Times Cover Image

Z historie československé Pohraniční služby SNB za socialismu
From the History of Czechoslovac Border Service - PS SNB during Socialist Times

Author(s): Tomáš Dvořák
Subject(s): Government/Political systems, Security and defense, Military policy, Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
Published by: Západočeská univerzita v Plzni

Summary/Abstract: In my bachelor thesis, I tried to answered to the two main questions. At the first time I wanted to reconstruct the organization of border guard and history of it, from 1948 till the year 1989. I had to start before the year 1948, to get in the situation that had led to a communist coup, and changed border guard systém for a long time. I used archive files from Ministry of the interior and Ministry of Security Forces. To unterstand the low system of the Czechoslovak republic, I used the book of statutes especialy from the late 40s and early 50s. Because that was the main times for forming the guards. I wanted to describe technical side of a border system to. I also described border guard ranks and classification, that was deferent from the system that Czechoslovak army those times used. The system of border watch was very massive and contained many forms of passive and active defense systems. From the mines to an electric fence. I tried to figure out, how was it build and how much time did it cost. The second point of my thesis was to find out, If there was a political pressure in the work of border guards and to its members. In my thesis I also used a methods of oral history to find it out. I asked many people, specialy the exborder guardes and I wanted to interview them. But i found it very difficult. Most of them did not want to speak with me about this historical period. I try to find the answer also to a question of a basic daily life system of every person (not only guards) near the border line. This topic is even nowdays still very contorversial. Not only in society of exguards, but also in some part od todays czech society. There was some studies before the year 1989, but most of them was just the relicts of its own time. There were mostly secret and not so much of them were contained true information. Nowdays The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes starts to descover this topic very extensively. They uses new technology in history science and methodes of oral history to find the true about border guard system in the times of socialist regime. The main source of information comes from military chronicles. They are mostly unprocessed, so it takes many time to work with them. The chronicle of znojmo brigade was processed in 2009. The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes also working on the stories of victims of czech socialist regime. In this studies we can see also books about victimes on border line. The process that mapping this part of history is still running.

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 6-48
  • Page Count: 43
  • Language: Czech