Karel Čurda

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Karel Čurda

Karel Čurda (born October 10, 1911 in Nová Hlína , district of Třeboň (South Bohemia); † April 29, 1947 in Prague ) was first a Czech soldier in the Czechoslovak army in exile and resistance fighter in World War II , later a Gestapo confidante . After the war, he was charged with treason sentenced to death and hanged .

Life

Čurda was born in the village of Stará Hlína (German Alt Lahm ). Trained as a bricklayer after primary school. In the 1930s he joined the army and served as a non-commissioned officer . After the Munich Agreement and the subsequent restriction of the Czechoslovak army, he joined the customs administration . After the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the German Reich, Čurda emigrated in June 1939, first to Poland and later to France . After the defeat of France in June 1940, Čurda was evacuated to England with other soldiers .

Operation Out Distance

Čurda belonged to the third group of Czechoslovak soldiers who completed special training with the British SOE . He jumped on March 28, 1942 as a member of the sabotage group Out Distance in support of the Czechoslovak resistance in the area of ​​the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia with the parachute. After the group Out Distance split up (the leader of the Opálka group injured himself badly while jumping; Kolařík committed suicide; sabotage material was lost) Čurda found protection in the households of resistance members Moravec, Svatoš and Bautz in Prague. After the successful assassination attempt in Prague on May 27, 1942 ( Operation Anthropoid ) on the high NS leader and Deputy Reich Protector in Bohemia and Moravia , Reinhard Heydrich , Čurda left Prague and hid in his home village.

Treason

Under pressure from retaliatory measures after the assassination (including the destruction of the Lidice village ), Čurda left his hiding place and volunteered with the Gestapo to protect his own family. During the interrogation, he revealed the addresses of several so-called “safe houses” of the Czech parachutists to the German security organs - including the Prague families who used to protect and support him: Moravec, Svatoš and Bautz. The tortured minor son of the Moravec family, Vlastimil, revealed the whereabouts of the assassins, the crypt of the Church of St. Cyril and Methodius . The entire families of resistance workers were then murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp (294 people in total).

Čurda received half of the promised million reward (500,000 RM ). Equipped with a new identity, "Karl Jerhot", he married a German woman and spent the rest of the war as a Gestapo spy. Among other things, he helped the Gestapo to track down and arrest the parachute groups Antimony and Bivouac . Found after the war, Čurda attempted suicide . He was convicted of treason sentenced to death and prison Pankrác on April 29, 1947 hanged .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d PLACHÝ, Jiří: Karel Čurda aneb Osudné selhání československé zpravodajské služby? History a vojenství 4/2013. Praha, Vojenský historický ústav Praha, 2013.
  2. ^ Callum Macdonald: The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich: The SS "Butcher of Prague". 1998.
  3. ↑ Poprava 262 spolupracovníků parašutistů v Mauthausenu, October 24, 1942 Fronta.cz
  4. ↑ see web link Czech Traitors Hanged Today. In: Lance Star.
  5. ↑ see web link Trial and terror in a by-gone Prague. In: The Telegraph.
personal data
SURNAME Čurda, Karel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech resistance fighter in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Nová Hlína near Třeboň
DATE OF DEATH April 29, 1947
Place of death Prague