František Hieke

František Hieke (born July 3, 1893 in Roudnice nad Labem ; † February 17, 1984 in Mladá Boleslav ) was a Czechoslovak soldier, legionnaire , colonel in Czechoslovakia and, as a member of the Obrana národa resistance group, a personality of the Czechoslovak resistance against National Socialism , later even in exile. He used the code name Petar Stoj .

Life

After Hieke passed his Abitur in 1913, he attended an officers' school and came to the Russian front with the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1915 , where he went into Russian captivity after about six weeks. He immediately enlisted in the Czechoslovak legions , but because there were unexpected delays, he then joined the Serbian army. After attending other military schools and promotions, he commanded some units up to a battalion, but was seriously injured in October 1916 and spent a time in the hospital in Odessa . After working in intelligence departments, he returned to Czechoslovakia in mid-November. Hieke first served in various departments and attended other political, military and intelligence courses at Charles University and in academies of the Ministry of Defense. In December 1936 he was assigned to the General Staff, from January 1939 he served in the Military Intelligence Service in Czechoslovakia (in the so-called 2nd Department of the General Staff).

After the occupation of Czechoslovakia , Hieke was called up to the government presidency. At this point, however, Hieke already joined the resistance against the National Socialists and worked closely with the leadership structure of the Obrana národa resistance group . Already at the end of the 1930s, Hieke led an intelligence group with which he infiltrated the Czech pro-fascist and ultra-right circles, especially in politics (according to Gajda's party Národní obec fašistická and others) and received important information. He was entrusted with the continuation of this activity by Obrana národa and activated his former agents. With these he succeeded in penetrating the circles of the Czech fascists and above all in the Czech police apparatus, which had contacts with the Gestapo. This enabled him to obtain valuable information about planned arrests and other actions by the protectorate regime.

Because his arrest by the Gestapo was imminent, Hieke decided to flee abroad, first to Yugoslavia . From January 1940 he worked there as a military attaché with intelligence duties in Belgrade (under the code name Petar Stoj, for whom he was even issued ID cards by the Yugoslav government), and looked after refugees from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , among others ; intelligence work against Germany was also one of his tasks. From the end of 1940, Hieke worked briefly in Istanbul , where he worked with the Soviet intelligence service and led the establishment of intelligence connections and networks in the territory of Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia. In April 1940 Hieke worked in the Czechoslovak military mission in Moscow . From January 1942 to early 1944 he was a military attaché in Tehran . He then went back to Yugoslavia, where he headed the Czechoslovak military mission until October 1945 and was a member of Marshal Tito's staff .

After returning to Czechoslovakia, Hieke worked from November 20, 1945 in several departments of the Ministry of Defense in Prague and was temporarily deputy commander of the 12th Division in Litoměřice . After the Communists came to power in February 1948, he was given special leave on October 1, 1948 as an "unreliable person" and retired three months later. In 1950 he was demoted, interrogated and imprisoned in Leopoldov , among others . Hieke was not fully rehabilitated until 1989.

Awards

Selection:

• Czechoslovak War Cross 1914–1918
• Czechoslovak Revolution Medal
• Czechoslovak War Cross 1939
• Order of the White Eagle (Serbia)
• Order of Saint Stanislaus
• Russian Order of Saint George

swell

• IT: HIEKE František. Biography in: Vojenské osobnosti československého odboje 1939–1945. Publication of the Historical Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic. AVIS, Prague 2005, p. 94 f., Online (archived) at: vojenskaakademiehranice.ic.cz / ...

Individual evidence

1. ↑ History vojenského zpravodajství. V podmínkách domácího protektorátního odboje, an abstract of the history of the Vojenské zpravodajství military intelligence service , p. 9 ff., Online (archived) at: web.archive.org / ...