Crime and Punishment in Communist Czechoslovakia: The Case of General Heliodor Píka and his Prosecutor Karel Vaš¹

1. When Karel Vaš was sentenced, I wrote a brief essay under a somewhat similar title, “Crime and Punishment in Prague”, which was published in the World Policy Journal (Winter 2001/2): 93–6.

Abstract

Shortly after the Communist Putsch in February 1948, General Heliodor Pika, deputy chief of the general staff and former head of the Military Mission in the USSR, was arrested by the Communist‐controlled security services and accused of high treason as a British spy. He was to be sentenced on trumped‐up charges and executed in 1949. This was the beginning of bloody purges in Czechoslovakia under the Communist regime. The story becomes more complex, allowing a rare insight into the mechanism of pseudo‐justice in that country, by the fate of Pika's prosecutor, Karel Vaš, who alternates in the role of crime perpetrator and crime victim.

Notes

1. When Karel Vaš was sentenced, I wrote a brief essay under a somewhat similar title, “Crime and Punishment in Prague”, which was published in the World Policy Journal (Winter 2001/2): 93–6.

2. Two of the most brutal interrogators from the Slánský Trials, B. Doubek and V. Kohoutek, were arrested in 1955 and tried for applying “unlawful methods” while carrying out their investigations. To mitigate his nine‐year sentence Doubek volunteered to write an account of his participation in the Slánský Trials. This 460‐page testimony has been edited and provided with detailed introduction by Karel Kaplan: STB o sobě. Výpověd vyšetřovatele B. Doubka [“Secret Police about Itself. Interrogator B. Doubek Testifies] (Prague: Edition Svědectví, 2002). After 1990 enough evidence became available to charge Doubek with several cases of murder. However, with reference to his previous prison sentence he had received from communist judges in 1955, his lawyers successfully used the legal principle borrowed from Roman Civil Law, Ne bis in idem crimen iudicetur [“Not to be judged twice for the same crime”].

3. Dr Milada Horáková, member of the Parliament, figured as the chief defendant among a group of non‐communist politicians, who had been accused of “anti‐state activities”. They were sentenced to death and executed in June 1950.

4. The Communist Party Secretary General Rudolf Slánský, the driving force behind repressions in Czechoslovakia, who pressed for General Píka’s execution, was himself arrested in November 1951. Together with a group of high‐ranking Czechoslovak Communists, he was accused of Zionism. Twelve months later Slánský and 10 others received death sentences and were promptly executed.

5. Karel Vaš, Moje perzekuce v právním státě aneb epochální výlet české justice do 50.let XX.století [“My Persecution in the Legal State OR a Fancy Journey of Czech Justice to the 1950s] (Prague, 2001). This brochure, in spite of its humorous title that is a literary pun in the Czech language, was in fact Vaš’s appeal against the verdict of 15 June 2001. It was prepared with the help of his counsel Čestmír Kubát in December 2001 and distributed as a brochure. Antonín Benčík and Karel Richter responded with a critique, carrying even a longer title: “Ukázkové zneužití demokracie – aneb Epochální pokus dvojnásobného doktora Karla Vaše a jeho obhájce JUDr.Čestmíra Kubáta o rehabilitaci uměle vykonstruovaného obvinění a zločinného odsouzení generála Heliodora Píky” [“An Exemplary Abuse of Democracy – OR a Fancy Attempt of Dr Dr Karel Vaš and his Defence Lawyer Dr Čestmír Kubát to Save the Artificially Construed Indictment and Punishment of General Heliodor Píka”], published in Přísně tajné – literatura faktu 4 (2002), pp.116–33.

6. ČTK (Czech Press Agency), 22 June 2005. See also the interview of the legal historian Zdenk Vališ with Mladá fronta – Dnes, 27 June 2005, and his detailed internet article “Quid Iuri?” (www.Vas Karel ZV 0705).

7. See The Prague Post, 27 January 2002; http://muchr.radio.cz, 16 January 2002.

8. ‘Vas’ in Hungarian means iron. Vaš was born in Uzhgorod (Ungvár) where Hungarian was spoken.

9. Karel Richter and Antonín Benčík, Kdo byl Generál Píka? (Brno: Doplněk, 1997). For earlier accounts on Czechoslovak–Soviet cooperation in intelligence matters, see: J.Křen and V.Kural, “Ke styků mezi československým odbojem a SSSR 1939–1941”, in Historie a vojenství 3 (1967), pp.437–71, and 5 (1967), pp.766–70; J.Šolc, “Československá zpravodajská skupina v SSSR, duben‐červen 1941”, Historie a vojenství 5 (1997), pp. 51–52, 65–71; Col. F. Hieke‐Stoj, “Mé vzpomínky z druhé světová války”, Historie a vojenství (1968), pp. 581–619.

10. Bruce Lockhart, who was the Foreign Office representative and liaison with the Czechoslovak Government, used to translate Píka’s highly valued dispatches into English for further circulation. See his Giants Cast Long Shadows (London: Putnam, 1960), pp.166–9; Kenneth Young (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, vol. II., 1939–65 (London: Macmillan, 1980), p.222.

11. Original documents have been compiled in 1968 for the rehabilitation trials of General Píka by his defence lawyer R. Váhala. This collection of 710 pages, entitled “Život a smrt gen.Heliodora Píky” [“Life and Death of General H. Píka”], has been available since 1985 in the Hoover Institution Archives, Czechoslovak holdings, Stanford, CA. Hereinafter referred to as the Píka Dossier. Píka’s lawyer, Rastislav Váhala, has used the documents in his monograph, Smrt generála [“The Death of a General”] (Prague: Melantrich, 1992).

12. Consisting of President Gottwald and Central Committee members Zápotocký, Slánský, Kopřiva and Veselý. Reicin was also invited (Píka Dossier, note 11, pp.519–620; Váhala, note 11, pp.126–36).

13. A comprehensive synopsis of the Píka case, based on the Píka Dossier and other sources, was prepared for the rehabilitation trial by two experts, Antonín Benčík and Jaromír Navrátil: “O životě a smrti generála Heliodora Píky” [“About the Life and Death of General H. Píka”], whose shortened version was published as a documentary supplement in the popular weekly Reportér, IV/8, 27 February 1969.

14. The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the Czech portion of the former Czechoslovak Republic occupied since March 1939 by Nazi Germany. For details on Reicin see Benčík and Richter (note 9), pp.168–71; Benčík and Richter (note 5), 125; M. Lichnovský, “Bedřich Reicin a Československá armada”, Historie & Vojenství, 1–2 (1994).

15. L. Svoboda, Z Buzuluku do Prahy (Prague, 1968); L. Svoboda, Cestami života. Prague: Naše Vojsko, 1971; V.V. Mariina, “Chekhoslovatskii legion v SSSR 1939–1941gg”, Voprosy Istorii, 2 (1998), pp.58–73.

16. In fact Vaš prepared the main prosecution document himself since the nominal chief prosecutor, Colonel J.Vaněk, admitted on several occasions that he had no time to study the script and had to rely entirely on Vaš (Píka Dossier, note 11, pp.295, 600–2; 815–19, 829–32).

17. A special NKVD unit under Captain Bragin, whose task was to arrest and ‘remove’ unwanted witnesses, was closely cooperating with Vaš’s unit. Cf. Benčík and Richter (note 5),pp.126–9; Vališ (note 6), pp.4–6.

18. Josef Bartovský, Cesta až na dno zrady – Rub historie druhého zahraničního odboje (Praha, 19490, p. 6.

19. Vaš (note 5), pp.3–4.

20. That is by Vaš himself, since he was the deputy to the chief military prosecutor, Colonel J. Vaněk, present at the main trial of Píka, from 26–28 January 1949. For Vaš’s manipulation with Píka’s dispatches, testimonies of the witnesses, see: Píka Dossier (note 11), pp.519–54; Váhala (note 11), pp.99–113, 126–136; Vališ, pp.14–15.

21. Vaš (note 5), 4. While imprisoned Vaš appealed several times. In the longest appeal of some 250 pages, dated 26 January 1956, addressed to the Minister of Justice, he described his activities in detail including his close cooperation with Soviet intelligence before and during the Píka Case (Vališ, p.8). At the age of 90, Karel Vaš agreed to give a four‐hour interview to the Czech Radio, in which he emphasized over and over that he did not wish General Píka’s death – despite the evidence, as he claimed, that Píka pleaded guilty to acts of espionage for the British. When urged by the reporter to be more specific, Vaš conveniently claimed weak memory and fatigue. The shortened version, which was broadcast on 18 June and 23 July 2006, is available on a diskette “Příběhy 20.století” [“Stories of the 20th Century”], Collection “Post Bellum” (further information: [email protected]). I am grateful to Mikuláš Kroupa, interviewer and editor of the Czech Radio, for enabling me to listen to the unabbreviated version of the interviews.

22. At the time of Vaš’s recorded enrollment with the Czechoslovak unit in January 1943, he was already ‘directed’ by the following NKVD officers: Kambulov, Myshin, Tokarenko, and from the autumn of 1945, Tikhonov. From the end of 1946 to the summer of 1950 it was indeed Khazanov (Vališ, pp.10–12).

23. Kaplan and Paleček, Paleček, Komunistický režim a politické procesy v Československu. Brno (2001), p.87; K. Kaplan, Sovětští poradci v Československu, 1949–1956 [“Soviet Counselors in … ”] (Prague, 1993); A. F. Noskova, “Moskovskie sovetniki v stranakh Vostochnoi Evropy”, [“Moscow Advisers in E.European Countries”], Voprosy Istorii 1 (1998), pp.104–13.

24. Named after Rudolf Slánský, secretary general of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, who spent the war years in Moscow. He was arrested in November 1951 and executed a year later.

25. The English Common Law refers to it as “Double Jeopardy”. The European Convention of Human Rights protects against Double Jeopardy (7th Protocol, Art. 4), which has been ratified by all but six EU members (Czech Republic is not among the six dissenting members).

26. K. Kaplan, “Zamyšlení nad politickými procesy”, [Political Trials Reconsidered …], Nová mysl 7 (1968), 15.

27. Based on Muriel Blaive’s dissertation, Le regime de terreur tchécoslovaque et l’année 1956 en Tchécoslovaquie; Blaive, “1956 – Anatomie d’une absence”, in F. Fejtö and J. Rupnik (eds), Le Printemps tchécoslovaque 1968 (Brussells: Editions Complexe, 1999), pp.50–63; and also the Czech version: Promarněná příležitost. Československo a rok 1956 (Prague, 2001), pp.187. Although Mme Blaive may be correct on Kaplan’s deficiency in acquiring statistics on victims of political purges in the rest of eastern Europe, she is unfair in calling Karel Kaplan a “regime historian”. It is true that Kaplan, who joined the CP as a teenager, served briefly prior to 1968 on a government commission for the investigation of the judicial crimes of the 1950s. However, after the crushing of the Prague Spring Kaplan was sacked, his research materials confiscated, and he himself compelled to leave the country in1972. He settled in Munich and thanks to the assistance of colleagues and West German foundations, Kaplan was soon able to resume his writing (e.g. K. Kaplan, Die politischen Prozesse in der Tschechoslowakei 1948–1954 (Munich, 1986), Collegium Carolinum, vol. 48.

28. J. Rupnik on “Coming to Terms with the Communist Past”, Soudobé dějeiny [Contemporary History] IX/1 (2002).

29. The following statistics have been mostly drawn from Benjamin Frommer, National Cleansing. Retribution Against Nazi Collaborators in Postwar Czechoslovakia (Cambridge, 2005), p.91.

30. Frommer (note 29), pp.78–94; for the English translation of the “Great Decree”, no. 16/1945, see pp.348–63. See also Karel Jech and Karel Kaplan (eds), Dekrety prezidenta republiky 1940–1945. Dokumenty (Brno: USD, 1995), p.179; an earlier monograph is K. Kaplan’s, Die politischen Prozesse in der Tschechoslowakei (1986), note 27.

31. Abbreviated from “Smert Shpionam” (“Death to Spies”) were special NKVD units raised to deal with deserters and POWs recovered from captivity.

32. Among them were “White Russians”, who emigrated from revolutionary Russia after 1918 and settled in Czechoslovakia, e.g. General Sergej Vojcechovsky, who belonged to the top generals of the Czechoslovak armed forces and one of the few senior officers convinced that the army should have fought in September 1938. When he was arrested by Smersh in 1945, President Beneš did nothing to save his life.

33. M. Borák et al., “Perzekuce občanů z území dnešní České republiky v SSSR” [“Persecution of Czechoslovak citizens in the USSR”]. Sborník příspěvků. Sešity ÚSD 38 (Prague: USD, 2003), p.125.

34. During the Prague Spring of 1968, one of the most influential new political parties and most effective pressure groups, composed of former political prisoners sentenced by the Law no. 231/1948, called itself “Klub 231”.

35. See Petr Blažek, “Politická represe v komunistickém Československu 1948–1989”, in: Moc verzus občan. Úloha represie a politického násilia v komunizme [“Political Repression in Communist Czechoslovkia, in: “Power verus Citizen. The Role of Repression and Political Violence under Communism”] (Bratislava: Ústav Pamäti Národa, 2006), pp.8–22, here p.13. I am grateful to Mr Blažek for showing me an earlier draft of his paper, containing the most updated and comprehensive statistics of political repression in communist Czechoslovakia.

36. Blažek (note 35); Karel Kaplan and Pavel Paleček, Komunistický režim a politické procesy v Československu (Prague & Brno: USD, 2001), p.40.

37. Kaplan and Paleček (2001), p.42. Blažek (note 35, p.12) estimates that there were 240 ‘victims of judicial murder’ by 1960.

38. V. Pacl, Tajný prostor Jáchymov (České Budějovice, 1993); L. Petrášková, “Vězeňské tábory v jáchymovských uranových dolech 1949–1961”, Sborník archivních prací 44/2 (1994), pp.335–447.

39. Blažek (note 35), pp.13–14.

40. F. Gebauer et al., Soudní perzekuce politické povahy v Československu 1948–1989 [Judicial prosecutions of political nature …] (Prague: USD, 1993), p.64.

41. Recent figures published by the Bureau for Investigation and Documentation of the Crimes of Communism in 2006. Information broadcast by the Prague Radio News on 9 May 2006.

42. Blaive (note 27), p.52.

43. Blaive (note 27). The Hungarian figures do not include hundreds of further executions which had taken place during the suppression of the 1956 rising.

44. Françoise Mayer: “Vězení jako minulost, odboj jako pamět”. [“Prison as History, Resistance as Memory”], Soudobé dějiny 9/1 (2002), p.45.

45. In addition to his doctorate in jurisprudence(1939), Vaš acquired a doctoral degree in history after his release from prison.

46. František Gebauer”,Základní zásady zákona o soudní rehabilitaci č.119/1990”, in: Soudní perzekuce politické povahy v Československu 1948–1989 [Judicial Persecutions of Political Nature…] Prague, USD, 1993. For more accurate figures see Blažek (2006).

47. Lidové Noviny, 25.11.2005.

48. This law was after ten years modified by no. 107/2002 Law, allowing access to the police files to any person older than 18 years. The word ‘lustration’ has two meanings. First, the obvious Latin root meaning a kind of a purifying rite associated with washing. The second meaning is that of extracting from declassified files information about cooperation with secret police.

49. Kieran Williams, “A Scorecard for Czech Lustration”, Central European Review 19/1 (1 XI 1999).

50. Williams (note 49).

51. According to Jan Brabec and Jaroslav Spurný, “Lustrace: pro & proti”, Respekt, 4 November 1991.

52. Lidové noviny, 10 February 1998.

53. Muriel Blaive, “The Czechs and Their Communism. Past and Present” (Vienna : IWM Conferences, 2005).

54. František Koudelka, Státní bezpečnost 1954–1968. Základní údaje. [“The State Secret Police … Basic Facts”] (Prague: USD, 1993), p.68.

55. Zdena Salivarová‐Škvorecká (ed.), Osočení. Pravdivé příběhy lidí z Cibulkova seznamu [The Vilification. True Stories of People from Cibulka’s Proscriptions] (Brno, 1993 and 2000). See also her husband’s novel, Two Murders in my Double Life (Toronto: Publishers 68, 1999). Cibulka’s web site, containing a more or less complete list of STB agents of various categories and service assignments, is available at www.cibulka.com

56. See the weekly Respekt, 24 March 2003 and 7 April 2003.

57. Respekt, 7 July 1999. Author’s consultation with sources inside the Czech Republic who prefer to stay anonymous.

58. I have borrowed this famous sentence from Voltaire, who applied it to the Catholic Church during the affair of Jean Calas, a Protestant citizen from Toulouse, accused of having murdered his son to prevent his conversion to Catholicism. When Calas was broken on the wheel (1762), Voltaire, livid with anger, took up the case and by his vigorous intervention obtained the vindication of the unfortunate Calas and the indemnification of the family.

59. The following is a tape‐recorded conversation by Mr Jan Šinágl, who is known in the Czech media as the most active fighter for lost causes. He maintains an active web site (www.jan.sinagl.cz), from which the reproduced conversation has been taken down and translated by myself.

60. See note 12 above. The protocols of interrogation of General Píka and the proceedings of the rehabilitation trial were copied in 1968. With the agreement of General Píka’s son Milan and the surviving lawyer R. Váhala, one complete set was made available for the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA.

61. Píka Dossier (note 11), pp.288–98, 715–17, 835–8; Váhala (note 11), pp.40–47; Vališ, p.10.

62. Píka Dossier (note 11), pp.815–19; Benčík and Richter (note 5), pp.132–8; F. Hanzlík and J. Pospíšil, Sluha dvou pánů [Servant of Two Masters] (Vizovice: Lípa, 1999), p.221. Even today Vaš’s counsel refers to the fake document below as “the alleged forgery” (cf.Vaš, note 5, pp.4, 29, 34). Under such circumstances trials and counter‐trials can go on and on forever.

63. The Hilsner Affair of 1899 was the Austrian version of the Dreyfus Affair, in which Leopold Hilsner, a Jew, was accused of having performed ritual murder on a Christian virgin. Thomas G. Masaryk, a Czech university professor of philosophy, decided to involve himself in the affair. In response, he was hounded by students and the university put him on compulsory leave. There were several retrials and the affair dragged on until 1916 when Hilsner, whose death sentence had been meanwhile commuted to life imprisonment, was finally pardoned by the Emperor Charles.

64. Colonel Nyč figured as one of the witnesses at the rehabilitation trial in 1968. He supported the testimony of witness Uhlířová regarding the forgery, which according to her, Vaš knowingly accepted and incorporated in the indictment text. See Píka Dossier (note 11), pp.288–92, 792–8; Vališ, pp.10–14; Benčík and Richter (note 5), pp.133–6.