Zenáhlík

(To the main trial, which took place from 28 to 30 November 1953 in Prague and was publicly broadcast by Czechoslovak Radio)

The trial of Dr. Josef Zenáhlík’s espionage group before the Chamber of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in Prague took place from 28 to 30 November 1953. It was broadcast live on Czechoslovak Radio, with contemporary radio commentary. In this trial, a total of 10 persons were charged, who were allegedly controlled and recruited to carry out criminal activity by the main accused, Josef Zenáhlík, who was blamed and tried for that (speaking contemporary jargon) “in the service of the French intelligence service, he carried out plans for American intelligence aimed at preparing for and starting a new world war.” On the basis of interrogations, confessions of the accused and previous evidentiary proceeding, the Chamber of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in Prague, in the wording by the then judicature (especially according to Sections 86 /espionage/ and 78 /high treason/ of the Criminal Code No. 86/1950 Coll.), passed a total of ten unconditional sentences on all defendants: two of them to life imprisonment (Jiří and Josef Zenáhlík) and eight in the extent of ten to twenty-five years of prison sentence.

Although this trial was in many respects politicized and unfair to the defendants, even in the light of the then judicature, the sentences passed were not as dramatic in the end as they could – given the legal classification of the case by the Military Prosecutor –, as was initially expected with regard to other, older judgments in similarly conceived court cases. At a time of extremely heightened international tension and a new threat of global military conflict in Europe in the 1950s, the trial took place not before a civil court, as would be expected, but before the Chamber of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court (also with regard to the persons of Jiří Zenáhlík, an officer of the Czechoslovak People’s Army, and Jiří Lorenc, performing full-time military service). As a result, it was not possible to appeal against the pronounced verdicts. As the absolute sentences proposed by the Military Prosecutor were changed by the Chamber to custodial sentences (the alleged mitigating circumstances were taken into account), the executions of the defendants, which would otherwise probably take place before another chamber and at another stage of the founding period of the people’s democratic regime, were prevented.

In the context of the whole case, it is problematic to assess the extent to which the charges brought and the interrogation of the accused and summoned witnesses are credible, and to what extent the trial was again politicized, manipulated and enforced by the security authorities. The content of the audio recordings suggests that, as in many other politically motivated trials of that time, the testimonies of the accused and witnesses before the meeting of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in Prague were systematically adjusted. In particular, those accused by the security authorities were forced to give such statements during interrogations in detention and made to remember the learned testimonies during the trial (it was again a proven procedure with a learned answer to the questions in the question protocols). However, the then finding that some of the defendants actually were indeed connected to the French secret services in order to disrupt or reverse the people’s democratic regime in the Czechoslovak Republic was confirmed over time by research, although the accusations at the time were based on highly problematic evidentiary proceedings and forced confessions.

The course and result of this trial in the 1950s cannot be considered a closed matter even after several decades, especially from the point of view of its credible assessment, which should, however, be the result of a historiographical processing. In recent years, some researches by historians suggest a discrepancy in the testimonies of one of the accused – Jiří Zenáhlík, who by the way was awarded the Order of the White Lion (Class I) in 2008 from the hands of the President of the Republic “for merits for state defence and security and excellent combat activity” and for his contribution to the liberation of Czechoslovakia in the ranks of the US Army. While the cited decoration speech states that the awarding of high honours is linked to merit in combat and military participation in the fight against fascism, audio recordings of Jiří Zenáhlík’s interrogation before the Chamber of the Supreme Collegium in 1953 suggest that Jiří Zenáhlík was “totally deployed” in Germany during the war, and therefore he could not take part in any combat operations. Historians also point out that if he really fought in the British or American army during the liberation of Germany and Czechoslovakia, there would be a record on this fact. Certainly, the security authorities would be willing to use this circumstance before the trial, of course to the detriment of the defendant. However, nothing about Zenáhlík’s participation in the foreign army was heard in the trial. Historians or historians of law should solve this possible discrepancy and ambiguity in Jiří Zenáhlík’s testimony, taking into account the available archival records, which certainly include the audio recordings of the defendants’ testimonies before the Chamber of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court in Prague in 1953 presented here.