Parsifal (resistance group)

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Parsifal was the name of a Czech resistance group in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia against the occupation of parts of Czechoslovakia by the National Socialist German Reich before and during the Second World War .

History and activity

The Parsifal resistance group (initially called ZAMINI v odboji ) was one of the smaller resistance groups in the Protectorate. The beginnings of its emergence date back to the time shortly after the occupation of the "rest of Czech Republic " in 1938. Before the resigned President Edvard Beneš went into exile in October 1938, he asked some of his employees about the need to improve the flow of information to those abroad working politicians. This initiative led to the emergence of the Politické ústředí resistance group and the Parsifal group.

The impetus for the founding of the group Parsifal was the employee of the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry Arnost Heidrich , who along with other employees of the Foreign Ministry and diplomats, including Prokop Drtina (was the ústředí also in the group Politické active) and the former Foreign Minister Kamil Krofta , a group founded , which was later joined by numerous other employees, some from older discussion forums such as Táflrunda or Klub Přítomnost .

The main focus of activity was the intelligence service and the exchange of information between the resistance that was forming and the politicians staying abroad who finally established the Czechoslovak government in exile in London in 1940/1941 . The Parsifal members worked mainly with the resistance group ÚVOD and also Přípravný národní revoluční výbor (PRNV). Contacts also existed with the Rada tří group . The spectacular intelligence successes of Parsifal also include the reports leaked to London about the German Army Research Institute in Peenemünde , which contributed significantly to the bombing of the institute in Operation Hydra in August 1943.

Although there was also fluctuation among other resistance groups, the core of the Parsifal group was arrested late by the Gestapo : Arnošt Heidrich around January 1945, Zdeněk Němeček on February 22, 1945, Rudolf Jílovský on February 22, 1945, Václav Černý on May 11 , 1945 . January 1945, Leopold Chmela was arrested in June 1944 and sentenced to death, which however did not take place. Zdeněk Bořek-Dohalský was arrested in 1941 and executed on February 7, 1945 in the Gestapo prison of the Small Fortress Theresienstadt . Karel Bondy was arrested on October 20, 1941 and presumably executed in Berlin on January 22, 1945 .

literature

  • Klára Černá, Činnost odbojové skupiny Parsifal se zaměřením na osobu Leopolda Chmely a zejména jeho poválečný osud , Univerzita Pardubice 2010, online at: dspace.upce.cz / ... (PDF; 2.2 MB)
  • Jindřich Pokorný, Parsifal. Osudy jedné Demokratické skupiny v letech 1938-1945 s poválečným dovětkem , Academia, Prague 2009, ISBN 978-80-200-1606-5