France

Jan Vajskebr, Jan Zumr, Petr Kaňák - Heinrich Reiser – War Criminal in the Whirl of the Cold War
Abstract

After the Nazis seized power in Germany, Heinrich Reiser (1899–1978) became an official of the secret police (Gestapo), and participated in the occupation of the Czech hinterland in March 1939. In the summer of 1940 he was ordered to France, where he specialised in the suppression of the left-wing resistance and the Soviet espionage network that came to be known as the Red Orchestra (Rote Kapelle). At the end of the war, he took part in the repressions against the foreign workers under forced labour in Germany. When the war ended, he spent some time in hiding and was briefly imprisoned by the French army. After the war alliance between the victorious powers broke up, Reiser’s knowledge and abilities were used by the Gehlen Organisation, on the foundations of which the West German security service (BND) was later established. As part of the denazification process in the security services in the late 1950s, agents with a Nazi past were fired, or sent into retirement, which was also the case with Reiser. The justice of the Federal Republic of Germany was only ever interested in him as a witness in investigating other members of the Nazi repressive apparatus, and he was never punished for his crimes.

Vít Smetana - Czechoslovakia and the Western Powers on the Path to Munich: A Problem of Mutual (Mis)Understanding
Abstract

The two major victorious powers of the Great War, France and Great Britain, still under the impression of their extraordinarily dearly paid victory and even more frightening scenarios of the future war, were forced in 1938 to respond to Hitler’s growing expansionist ambitions, which were also trickily concealed behind noble slogans on peoples’ right to self-determination. They pragmatically opted for pressure on Czechoslovakia, which in the second half of September meant support for large-scale territorial concessions in favour of Germany. However, when it seemed that they would not be sufficient for Hitler, on 26 September Great Britain proclaimed readiness to intervene militarily in the event of a German attack. On the contrary, Czechoslovakia had turned into a ductile object of the great powers’ game on 21 September, when its leadership decided not to defend the territorial integrity of the state. It happened un- der pressure, but following the previous announcements by top state representatives that the Czechoslovak Republic was ready for territorial concessions. Finally, Czechoslovakia saw such a solution, because after the fundamental principle of inviolability of state borders had been abandoned, everything else was only a question of quantity and a search for “compromise” for the British and French “appeasers”.

Karel Straka - The Covert Connections of an Asymmetrical Alliance: Czechoslovak-French Cooperation in Military Intelligence in the Years 1932–1938
Abstract

The foundation of Czechoslovakia’s security architecture was formed by an alliance with France from the beginning of its existence. This alliance predetermined the direction, nature and objectives of the construction of the Czechoslovak armed forces. The purpose of the alliance was to preserve the Versailles system. The presented study explores the intelligence cooperation between the armies of both countries. It reconstructs its course, dealing with the main features, trends and significant influences that shaped or constrained it. From 1919, the French military intelligence had a major influence on the formation of the intelligence apparatus of the Czechoslovak armed forces in organizational and methodical terms. Before the beginning of the 1930s, however, a distinct and conceptually independent Czechoslovak intelligence developed. In the critical years of 1932–1938, it was a valuable and beneficial partner of the French military intelligence. However, the remarkably productive cooperation was dependent on the overall nature of the Czechoslovak-French relations. Their crisis first severely limited it in the course of 1938 and, subsequently, completely destroyed it as a result of the Munich Agreement.