Josef Hodic

Josef Hodic (* 1925 ) is a Czech military historian . He was one of the first to sign Charter 77 and was subsequently granted political asylum in Austria . He lived in Vienna for four years and was very active in the emigrant circles there . In 1981 he suddenly returned to the ČSSR , which made it clear that he had been a spy disguised as a dissident for the Czechoslovakian secret service StB .

Life

Hodic attended a convent school and studied after the Second World War Jura . During this time he joined the Communist Party (KSČ). After they came to power in 1948 , Hodic began a career in the army . At the military academy, he was recruited into the military defense service . Later, after completing his studies in contemporary history , he was entrusted with the processing of litigation files in the course of de-Stalinization . From 1960 he was a professor at the Military Academy of Politics in Prague. During the Prague Spring he rose to Division 8 of the KSČ Central Committee, the head of which was Vaclav Prchlik, who was critical of the Soviet Union. After the invasion of the Soviet troops in 1968, he lost all his functions, was expelled from the Communist Party in 1970 and had to work temporarily as an exterminator . In 1974, however, he managed to rise again in the favor of those in power and he became a civil servant in the Prague city council.

Charter 77

When a number of dissidents publicly criticized the communist system in Czechoslovakia in January 1977, Hodic belonged to the group of 142 first signatories of the so-called Charter 77, together with Václav Havel , Jiří Hájek and Jiří Dienstbier . Since the communist rulers did not want to accept this criticism and began to lock the signatories of the petition in prison, the Austrian government at the time under Bruno Kreisky agreed to accept all Czechoslovak dissidents willing to leave. Numerous people, including Josef Hodic, made use of it. In November 1977 he came to Vienna, where he was not only granted political asylum, but also naturalized in an accelerated process. Two months later his wife Naděžda was able to follow. He got a post at the Institute for International Politics in Laxenburg . He also tried unsuccessfully to teach at the Theresian Military Academy .

At that time there were many Czechoslovak emigrants in Vienna and Hodic was very active in these circles. He maintained contacts and published reports on the Eastern Bloc. He designed contributions for Svobodná Evropa , the Czech program of Radio Free Europe , a station financed by the American CIA . He was even able to take part in meetings of the secret exile group Listy , which was led in Rome by Zdeněk Mlynář and Jiří Pelikán, who lived in Vienna . Hodic was also in contact with conservative emigrant groups such as the Council of Free Czechoslovakia and the Catholic Opus Bonum .

Return to the ČSSR

At the end of June 1981 the Vienna police were informed by an anonymous caller that Josef Hodic had suddenly disappeared. Investigations did not reveal anything suspicious at first. The couple had left the key with the caretaker of their apartment and asked him to water the flowers while they were on vacation. It was only when Radio Prague announced that a deserving agent had come back home that they found out that the Hodics had closed their account at the bank on June 17th. It was now clear that he had been that agent. The Czechoslovak emigrant scene was shocked, as were Austrian politicians and fellow scientists. It was an embarrassment for the police and the Austrian secret services not to have recognized this agent disguised as a dissident. In addition, it was feared that Hodic had collected extensive information that could be dangerous to Czechoslovak dissidents both in exile and in the Czechoslovakia. The daily Kurier said in an editorial that the credibility of Austria's neutrality had been shaken and the country could not guarantee the safety of refugees.

In fact, in a new trial , the imprisoned Rudolf Battěk was charged with material collected by Hodic and sentenced for attempted coup. Jiří Hájek was also encumbered with letters that were allegedly obtained by Hodic, but which later turned out to be a forgery from the Tax Office.

Reasons to return

The exact reasons for the return were not known at the time. It was assumed that Hodic's move to Austria was an action planned from the beginning by the Czechoslovak secret service. This is supported by his lively activity in the emigre scene from 1977 to 1981. The media presumed that the arrest of two French people at the Czechoslovakian border on April 28, 1981 was the direct reason for going underground. These had been caught with a large sum of money and a secret address file from dissidents living in the ČSSR. The success of the search by the Czechoslovak authorities against these obvious Western agents was subsequently attributed to a leak that could have been Josef Hodic, who then had to go into hiding himself in order not to be arrested.

It is also conceivable, however, that he was blackmailed by the StB and came to Austria in 1977 as a real dissident. His two grown daughters and five grandchildren were still living in Prague at that time. When he arrived in Austria, he had smuggled out of the ČSSR and published extracts of an explosive document that incriminated the then Czechoslovakian President Gustáv Husák . This paper contained details of his behavior during the Second World War and would have been too explosive as a “ticket” to Western intelligence services.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Antoon de Baets: Censorship of historical thought: a world guide, 1945-2000 , Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, ISBN 9780313311932
2. ↑ ^{a b} Der Spiegel: As exterminator , (Issue 29/1981)
3. ^ Paul Ullmann: A Difficult Neighborhood: The History of Diplomatic Relations between Austria and Czechoslovakia from 1945-1968 , LIT Verlag Münster, 2006, ISBN 9783825877569
4. ↑ CSSR smuggled in spies as "dissidents" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna July 4th 1981, p. 01 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
5. ^ The Daily Chronical: Spy poses as dissident , American newspaper from Arizona, July 3, 1981
6. ↑ Der Spiegel: Kommando Kranzschleife , (Issue 34/1981)
7. ↑ Der Spiegel: Letter to Jirko , (Issue 27/1982)