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Recollection of long-standing contacts with Alena Pazderová, archivist at the National Archives
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Josef Willinger was from the generation of Czech Germans who sought a position in the new Czechoslovak state. His post-war study of Czech at the German University in Prague opened the door to a position as a secondary school teacher in minority (German) education where Czech language was a new compulsory subject. In addition to teaching Czech, Willinger also launched into preparing language textbooks for youth. In frontier areas, however, he was increasingly influenced by German nationalism instigated by the Third Reich. His teacher’s career in Cheb continued successfully even after the secession of the frontier zone and during the integration of the local German schools into the Third Reich’s organisational structure. In the summer of 1941, Willinger’s personal contacts cleared the way to a position of the head deputy of the department of secondary schools and educational institutions at the Ministry of Education and National Enlightenment in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He was appointed to actively participate in the destruction of the Czech secondary education. Willinger kept this position until the end of the war, even after the administrative reform where, consequently, the German heads of the ministry departments were moved to the educations sections of the Reich Protector’s office.
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In the first half of the 17th century, tens of noble families from all over Europe arrived in Bohemia. Their arrival was primarily connected to political events. The immigrants included the members of French families Frintropp and de Lamotte. The first was Joachim Erhard von Frintropp, the Wallenstein army’s officer. His wife was Gertrude, née Schivelberg or Schinelberg von Schnellburg, originally from the Low Countries. The couple had a son, Vincent, and daughters Margaret, Maria Magdalene, and Maria Angela. After Joachim died, not known when, Gertrude married Pierre de la Croix, sieur de la Motte. Pierre then adopted her first-marriage children who then used the predicate de Lamotte von Frintropp. Pierre was Wallenstein’s officer as well; for his military merit, Wallenstein granted him the estates in Poustka and Boleslav in the Frýdlant Region in 1624. After Pierre’s death before 27 January 1627, Albrecht von Wallenstein admitted his debt of 30,000 Rhenish guldens to Gertrude, in which he sold her the Návarov domain. The widow Gertrude de Lamotte ran the property together with her son Vincent but the Thirty Years’ War strongly affected their lives. In the 1640s Návarov Castle was conquered by the Swedish troops who took Vincent captive and imprisoned him for eight months. The fortress was then besieged several times and conquered, eventually falling into the hands of the imperial troops. Since the castle served as the enemy’s strongpoint during the Swedish invasion, the emperor ordered its demolition on 29 June 1644. It has remained in ruins ever since.In 1651 Gertrude and Vincent concluded their long-term dispute with Nicholas Des Fours, the owner of the neighbouring Semily domain. Gertrude wrote her testament on 3 February 1654, bequeathing Boleslav and Poustka estates together with Návarov and Jesenný castles to her children. Vincent and Maria Angela received Návarov and Jesenný, while Maria Magdalene acquired Poustka and Boleslav. When the siblings split in 1664, Maria Angela kept Návarov; she married Johan von Nounckel and their descendants retained the castle up to 1873.Vincent’s departure for Jesenný terminated the short period of the Lamotte ownership of the Návarov castle and homestead. They owned Návarov for 37 years, from 1627 to 1664. During this short period, many significant events occurred. The uncomfortable medieval castle remained permanently desolate. The owners built a new comfortable palace on a courtyard below that became a new centre of the domain. The time of the Lamotte von Frintropp thus remains a significant milestone in the Návarov history.
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Introductory text on the 80th anniversary of the death of archivist Bedřich Jenšovský
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A prominent figure in Bohemian archival science, PhDr Bedřich Jenšovský (24 September 1889 – 12 February 1942) was an archivist, Director of the Czech Lands Archives, teacher, secretary, and also briefly Director of the State School for Archivists. He was admitted to the Czech Lands Archives on 1 October 1908 as a copier of archival documents and remained faithful to the institution until his violent death. The volume of his work was enormous; over time, he participated in the archives’ organisational issues as well as leadership. In 1916 he was appointed the head of the archives branch in Bredovská Street, frequently deputised the director at meetings during the construction of the new building, and organised the moving of the archives between 1930 and 1933. His appointment as the Czech Lands Archives head administrator on 1 July 1933, immediately after the retirement of his predecessor J.B. Novák, and as director on 1 January 1934 marked the pinnacle of his career.Jenšovský was the first director to work at full capacity, along with his team, in the new archives building in Belcredi Street (today M. Horákové 5/133) in Prague 6. He was at his prime with creative and professional interests exceeding the scope of ordinary archival work; he was devoted to archival education and ranked among the best connoisseurs of printed Bohemica in Roman archives. He was present at the beginning of the stand-alone Czechoslovak Historical Institute in Rome and, in some periods, was one of its chief representatives. Moreover, he was a member of other professional organisations. The arduous years of the German occupation entailed very difficult work conditions for the Czech Lands Archives’ employees, including enforced German administration, forced extradition of archival materials, and irrecoverable personal losses. B. Jenšovský was one of the six employees who died because of the violent Nazi regime during 1939–1945. The Gestapo arrested him at the archives on 8 October 1941 as part of the ‘Sokol Action’, launched against the Sokol Movement representatives, and he died on 12 February 1942 in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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Based on the travel reports of Dr Bedřich Jenšovský, providing a vivid testimony of his daily work in Rome, yet to be fully used, the study charts his five sojourns to Rome from the eve of the First World War to the 1920s and 1930s. Jenšovský is not only presented as a prominent researcher and connoisseur of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, Vatican Apostolic Library, and other Italian archives and libraries but also as an experienced editor and author of the third volume of the series Monumenta Vaticana res gestas bohemicas illustrantia. Moreover, he was an assiduous heuristic and editorial contributor to other volumes in the series (Tomus prodromus, vols. VI and VIII) that later editors successfully continued. His research of Bohemica in Italian and Vatican libraries was of no less import; his study about the Barberini Library laid foundations for their scientific analyses. His heuristic works on the research of the nunciature at the imperial court in the late 16th and the first quarter of the 17th centuries were equally significant and serve current editors of the nunciature editions. The enormous diligence, systematic character, and dutifulness of Jenšovský’s research are further evidenced by a wide array of remaining copies of the Vatican and Italian documents in the National Archives, today also used as erudite sources for historians and researchers of the Middle Ages and early modern times. In the 1920s and 1930s, Jenšovský mingled with the masterminds of the newly established Czechoslovak Historical Institute in Rome that he chaired during his sojourns there and he worked at full capacity on its organisation, scientific tasks, and international presentation, often with the assistance of the Czechoslovak ambassadors to Italy and the Vatican. It was also thanks to his initiatives that the institute could boast about successful collaboration with foreign historical institutes accredited in Rome (especially the Austrian, German, Romanian, and the Görres Society) as well as with Italian institutes (Istituto per l’Europa Orientale, Assoziatione per gli studi mediterranei, Annales Institutorum, Istituto di Studi Romani), by participating in their conferences and sessions. Furthermore, Jenšovský paid great attention to the proper operation of the Czechoslovak Historical Institute in Rome, both the organisational and administrative aspects, as documented by his efforts to develop the institute’s status, care for its registry, whose plan he drew up in 1930, and he also put extended efforts into the cataloguing and continuous re-stacking of the institute’s library. His great, though unfulfilled dream was the establishment of the Czechoslovak Academy in Rome. Fortunately, he did not live to see the sad end of the Czechoslovak Historical Institute in Rome, to whose administration he devoted such a great deal of effort. Nonetheless, his legacy continues in the newly established Czech Historical Institute in Rome that actually has implemented many of Jenšovský’s ideas that were on a waiting list for more than half a century.
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The article presents Dr Bedřich Jenšovský’s activities in the State School for Archivists, a specialised educational institute that was founded in 1919, after the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic. An archivist with the Czech Lands Archives, Bedřich Jenšovský was not present at the start of the school, but he taught there from nearly the very beginning; first the history of administration and archival science from 1926 forward. He basically taught these two subjects till the end of his engagement at the school. In the early 1930s, as a member of the Czechoslovak Archives Association, he co-designed the school’s curriculum reform that became effective from 1934. In addition to his educational role, Bedřich Jenšovský was also the school’s secretary. In the second half of the 1930s, he fully represented the headmaster, Professor Gustav Friedrich, and he was appointed director in 1940, despite the difficult situation in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. For many years, Bedřich Jenšovský was also editor and contributor of the School for Archivists’ Periodical, strongly influencing its form and development, and he is also credited for the school’s development and operation in propitious and unpropitious times.
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Selected bibliography of the archivist and historian Bedřich Jenšovský
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Programme study on Czech historical research in Rome and the tasks of the Czechoslovak Historical Institute in Rome.
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Introduction to the monothematic issue of the journal on Crisis and State. On the Example of Czechoslovakia in the Interwar Period
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The study presents the attempts to apply sociology to the management of (modern) society based on the founders of sociology and from the strong influence of T.G. Masaryk that was especially significant in the Czech environment. Along with other pioneers, Masaryk introduced sociology to Czech society as early as the late 19th and early 20th century. The success of his exile politics during the Great War that resulted in the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia further enhanced the importance of sociology as an emblematic science of the state. In inter-war Czechoslovakia, sociology enjoyed a prominent status (in the European context) and further developed, even though its contribution to the solution of the social problems and crises of the time was only marginal. It proved more usable during the first occupation by the Nazis during World War Two, and primarily as part of the post-war restoration before the communist power (temporarily) eliminated it. Even then, sociological attempts to manage society only reached the rhetoric and preparation levels, and even then sociology did not become a widespread modern cameral science in Czechoslovakia.
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Analysis of the work of edvard beneš and his analysis of the post-war crisis.
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All of the dramatic events of the first half of the 20th century affected JUDr. Jan Karlík. Although he had no personal disposition for military service, he actively participated in the fighting on the Great War fronts. Not only did he acquire battlefield experience, but he also received an excellent specialised military education. He eventually used all of it as a member of the Czechoslovak Legion in France and thus contributed to the establishment of an independent state. Although he remained in the new Czechoslovak Army after the war, his disputes with political and military leaders of the time constantly worsened. At last, he left the armed forces, but did not cease his diligent research and publishing in the field of military science and military theory. Politically, he drew closer to the Czechoslovak far right, even though he again kept his distance and went his own direction. During World War Two, he actively participated in the anti-Nazi resistance movement, risking his own life and the lives of his closest relatives. At long last, he was executed and despite his contradictory personality and political opinions, his family received recognition and accepted a special award for Karlík. His military-scientific beliefs published in the 1920s continue to have a permanent input in the profusion of ideas about the Czechoslovak theory of state defence, although they can be regarded as nearly forgotten today.
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The article is dedicated to the Czechoslovak Catholic philosopher and essayist Rudolf Ina Malý. It emphasises the basic aspects of his political philosophy that opposed the ideological trends that prevailed in the First Czechoslovak Republic and Malý hoped it would be applied in the period after the Munich Agreement, the so-called Second Czechoslovak Republic. The article thus also deals with Malý’s attempts to approach the Second Republic’s political establishment and his efforts to influence and then change Czecho-Slovak cultural politics.
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Based on the peace conditions stipulated by the Versailles Treaty, Czechoslovakia was confronted with a wide array of crisis situations during the first years of its existence. The First Czechoslovak Republic was a multinational state which caused many problems, especially when the members of these ethnic groups often did not identify themselves with the independent republic. Taking into account the economic and social issues as well as many disputes with the neighbouring states, the initial situation in Czechoslovakia was very complicated. However, it was crucial for future development to find out whether and how the new state’s representatives would deal with critical moments.The first elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1920 definitively confirmed the democratic path on which Czechoslovakia embarked after its establishment in 1918. Despite great efforts, the elections did not take place throughout the Czechoslovak territory due to plebiscites that were under way, and in Carpathian Ruthenia, the elections were postponed to 1924. Social democrats were clear winners of the elections, although this success did not mark the end of the nationwide crisis or the crisis inside the party. The newly assembled government did not last long. Its fundamental destabilising element was the increasing dissension among the social democratic party members.As a consequence, the elections were inconclusive and could not bring a quick end to the crisis, but they were tangible evidence of the distribution of power in society and, in many aspects, the catalyst of the internal political situation. The solution in the form of a caretaker government produced a plethora of polemics and doubts whether such a government could be associated with democratic principles and constitutionality. The government based its legitimacy on gaining trust for the Chamber of Deputies and on support of the political parties forming the majority in the parliament. Executive power was stabilised, but further stabilisation was endangered by the escalating dispute in the social democratic party provoked by the adherents of the communist – Bolshevik ideology. The President, one of the crucial stabilisation elements in society, became ill at the beginning of 1921 which caused further instability. In this situation, the rather unique Pětka (Five) grouping of five state-forming ‘Czechoslovak’ political parties was established. The grouping had a majority in parliament and substantially influenced (not only) the political milieu. It was instrumental in the entire state’s stabilisation, but it was also an object of criticism for its non-institutional status. Little by little, Czechoslovakia overcame all of the crises and became a successful democratic country in post-war Europe.
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After the First World War, the new Czechoslovakia quickly stabilized. It created an internal republican regime of parliamentary democracy and consolidated its international position. However, relations with Hungary remained a serious problem . Indeed Budapest still give up the hope of re great Hungary in headed ruler with habsbu r tion Dynasty. The overthrown emperor and king Charles in exile, his aristocratic adherents as well as various monarchist groups and movements in the territory of the former Habsburg Empire they still did not cope with its disintegration. At the same time, they also relied on monarchist and conservative circles in Germany, France and Great Britain, as well as other European countries. They began to make plans to restore the Habsburg monarchy and restore the ex-Emperor and ex-King Charles to the throne. Hungary, which did not accept the disintegration of historic Hungary and had a strong monarchist and especially nationalist movement, openly opposed the post-war constitutional order of Central and South-Eastern Europe and the existence of successor states, seemed most favorable. They first assumed the re-establishment of Charles as the king of Hungary. Then, under appropriate internal and especially international conditions, to restore the Habsburg Empire, perhaps in some reformed form of a constitutional and federal monarchy. Historically, the term "restauration of the Habsburgs" has been used for these efforts. Charles and his followers first tried to return to Hungary in March 1921, but failed due to the internal resistance of regent Horthy, who did not want to give up his position of power, and the international power pressure on Hungary, which was instigated by Czechoslovakia. Then again in October 1921 he tried again to return to Hungary. This time regent Horthy deployed an army against his supporters and Czechoslovakia mobilized part of its army. Karel was interned and transported to the Portuguese island of Madeira.
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The letter prepared for publication by the Hungarian Prime Minister Count Pal Teleki dates back to August 6, 1920. The author of the letter, using the reports of Hungarian civil servants who massively left the territory of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus, draws the attention of representatives of the Allied military mission of the Entente countries in Budapest to two key, from his point of view, questions. Firstly, the letter deals with the situation of the Hungarian population remaining in the territories that had ceded Czechoslovakia under the Trianon Peace Treaty. Secondly, the Hungarian Prime Minister draws the attention of representatives of the Entente countries and their allies to the growth of revolutionary sentiments in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus and to the strengthening of the “left wing” of the Socialist Party of Slovakia. All these processes are associated with events in Soviet Russia and the suppression of the Soviet Republic in Hungary.This document is interesting for everyone who is interested in the history of the first years of the Czechoslovak state.
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Thus far, Czechoslovak historiography and military specialists were convinced that the Nazi intelligence service was familiar with the seat of the Czechoslovak Army headquarters at Račice Castle and its surrounding villages; however, it was not true. The closest estimate of the German secret service officers was that based on the extensive radio operation, the Czechoslovak Army was headquartered in the Morava River valley near Kroměříž. They had been ambivalent about it until the turn of September and October 1938 when the Czechoslovak Army staff returned to Prague. Unlike the persisting belief, the Germans were unclear about the precise deployment of the individual corps and divisions of the Czechoslovak Army. Neither the Nazi Abwehr, nor the Wehrmacht leaders had a clear idea about the structure of the individual corps and divisions, or the deployment of their staffs and subordinated troops, until the German soldiers were released from the Czechoslovak Army at the beginning of October 1938. Regarding the Czechoslovak Air Force, the German intelligence service officers were even convinced that it was comprised of seven air regiments, while there were actually only six. Until the demobilisation, the Nazi secret service officers had more precise information about areas with a majority of German inhabitants. Otherwise, they groped in the dark and even admitted they had no clue how the Czechoslovak Army could form so many reserve divisions and regiments. The estimate about the overall strength of the Czechoslovak Army was similar. For example, on 28 September 1938, the Abwehr officers estimated that 562 thousand soldiers were mobilised, while there were actually twice as many by 30 September 1938 – 1.28 million. Up until now, no research focused on the German radio intelligence service that acquired very precise information. However, its greatest contribution was that in May 1938 they confirmed within two and a half hours that the Czechoslovak Army announced a mobilisation. As testified by General Lieutenant Albert Praun, the last commander of the Wehrmacht intelligence service, they arrived at this conclusion based on the immediate renaming of Czechoslovak military broadcasting stations and changed frequencies. Although they could not determine the types of units behind the encrypted codes, Praun commented with contempt that during the mobilisation in September 1938 these procedures and broadcasting codes remained unchanged, and so the eavesdropping officers could confirm the mobilisation within just two minutes.
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Several years ago, Radan Lášek published a series of testimonies of the State Defence Guard members about the dramatic autumn of 1938 and spring of 1939. The life destiny of Karel Souček could be included in the notional group of ‘one of the many’ who participated in these interviews but unlike them, the life story of Karel Souček shows continuity in the Czechoslovak resistance during 1939–1945 and mainly the good condition of available sources about his life. Karel Souček was born in 1908. In 1937, he joined the Czechoslovak gendarmerie and was immediately posted to Carpathian Ruthenia. In addition to short departmental service, he became involved in guarding strategic buildings when the securing of borders was declared on 21 May 1938; later, as part of the State Defence Guard, he participated in the most extensive clashes with Hungarian terrorists near Šalanky in October 1938. Subsequently, as a member of the gendarmerie emergency troop, he suppressed the rebellion of Ukrainian nationalists supported by Germany at Khust on 14 March 1939 and retreated to Romania. Starting in May 1939, he continued his service in the Protectorate gendarmerie and began a family; his second child was born at the end of January 1945. As a qualified driver and member of the Box Sporting Club, his superiors addressed him about the seizure of the Czechoslovak Radio building by the resistance movement. It materialised on 5 May 1945 when Karel Souček was in the first line of the special assault team of the Prague police and gendarmerie that occupied Czechoslovak Radio. He commanded the rebels until 15 May 1945. On 31 November 1945, he joined the Czechoslovak Police and continued his service until 7 September 1947 when he was seriously injured while guarding The Golden Helmet of Czechoslovakia motorcycle race. One of the racers, who died at the scene, ran over him with his motorcycle. Karel Souček did not recover from his injuries and died of health complications on 27 November 1953. The life destiny of Karel Souček thus demonstrates the continuous belief about the moral rightness of the service of the First Czech Republic’s security forces under difficult circumstances during the epoch-making years 1939–1945.
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