Rudolf Pernický

Rudolf Pernický (born July 1, 1915 in Krhová ; † December 21, 2005 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak Foreign Legionnaire , resistance fighter against the German occupation forces and the communists' seizure of power, victim of a show trial and major general i. R.

Life

The son of a teacher attended the secondary school in Valašské Meziříčí from 1926 to 1934 . He then began his voluntary military service on July 15, 1934 with Artillery Regiment 107 in Olomouc and in 1938 was transferred to Artillery Regiment 108 in Hranice na Moravě , where he attended the military academy.

After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, the lieutenant went on June 23, 1939 via Großkunzendorf to the then Polish-occupied Szumbark (Šumbark) and to Krakow , where he contacted the Sokol organization and undertook a five-year service in the Foreign Legion . From the Czechoslovak military camp Bronowice Małe near Kraków, Pernický was sent to Boulogne-sur-Mer on the English Channel via Gdynia on August 1, 1939, together with 800 other Czechoslovak legionnaires . Via Marseille and Oran , Pernický came to the Legion's training base in Sidi bel Abbès , Algeria , where he was appointed Sergeant of the 1st Regiment of the Foreign Legion. A little later he was transferred to the 4th Zouave Infantry Regiment in Tunis .

After the outbreak of the Second World War, the Czechoslovaks were detached from the Legion in October 1939 with the aim of establishing an independent Czechoslovak army . In Agde Pernický served as a lieutenant of the 1st and later the 2nd infantry regiment and was transferred to the newly formed artillery regiment in La Nouvelle near Marseille in 1940 . From May 1940 Pernický was transferred to the front as an intelligence officer of the 1st division of the artillery regiment. After the successful western campaign of the German Wehrmacht , Pernický fled with the remnants of his unit from Sète with the coal ship Northmoor via Gibraltar to England. Via Cholmondeley he came to Moreton Hall , where he assembled Czechoslovak artillery units and prepared them for a counter-invasion.

Pernický volunteered for a mission in his occupied homeland in January 1942 and then completed basic training at a Special Training School in Scotland and in Manchester from February to March, and on May 5, 1942 was transferred to the Second Department of the Ministry of Defense of the government-in-exile in London appointed, where he prepared and trained underground fighters for a mission in occupied Czechoslovakia , who were to be equipped from Bari and Brindisi as part of the Tungsten campaign and brought into land as parachutists. In September 1944, Pernický was seconded to Italy to work in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The first attempt to take off on October 4, 1944 failed because the plane did not reach the intended take-off point and another took place on December 21, 1944, whereby the Polish pilot of the Halifax aircraft incorrectly calculated the intended take-off point and Pernický and his companion Leopold Musil instead of Hlinsko v Čechách in Libenice northwest of Kutná Hora . As a result, Pernický and Musil were forced to cover an additional dangerous walk of 80 kilometers to reach their contact Cyril Musil in Studnice and to get to the underground group Calcium in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands . On December 29, 1944 both reached their destination with frostbite, where they joined the calcium group as subdivision R-3 a. Their task was to establish contact with the Platinum landing operation, including the procurement of replacement materials that were lost when this group jumped, and also to contact Captain Pavel Hromka's Operation Bauxite. A planned removal of a British contact group did not materialize because the aircraft did not reach the jump height. At the end of the war, the group organized actions in the Nové Město na Moravě district against individual German troops in their retreat and defended farms near Polička against looting by German deserters. Pernický was also responsible for coordinating the actions with the advance of the Red Army.

Pernický, who had received his promotion to staff captain in June 1945 , was appointed to the 2nd department of the main staff , where he was responsible for educational matters. On August 1, 1945, he was promoted to major. In the same year he began studying at the military college and after its completion in 1948 was appointed head of the operational department of the 14th Infantry Division in Mladá Boleslav . In 1947 Pernický married and on May 15, 1949 his son was born.

After the Communists came to power, Pernický, who made no secret of his anti-communist attitude, was arrested on November 1, 1948 and in a show trial in Prague to a prison sentence of 20 years, as well as the deprivation of his military ranks and titles, loss of all awards and one Convicted of 10 years of disqualification. On May 11, 1960, he was released from prison as part of an amnesty after he had previously worked for eight years as a cutter in the uranium mines of Horní Slavkov , Jáchymov and Příbram . After his release, Pernický, who was only allowed to work as a manual worker , worked in the brick factory in Libčice nad Vltavou , after which he was a warehouse clerk in a Prague drugstore.

After Pernický had applied to the Central Rehabilitation Center of the ČSPB for his rehabilitation in October 1968, he only received his retirement until this position was terminated in 1970. In 1975 Pernický was retired from the army as a soldier . Only after the Velvet Revolution in 1990 was Pernický legally and militarily rehabilitated. On January 1, 1991, he was promoted to major general i because of his extraordinary services in the liberation of Czechoslovakia. R. promoted and awarded him the title of engineer for his degree from military college . Pernický co-founded the Association of Political Prisoners in Czechoslovakia in 1990 and was its chairman until 1992. In 1991 he was awarded the Milan Rastislav Štefánik Order and since 1995 he has been an honorary citizen of Nové Město na Moravě . On October 28, 2005, Pernický was honored with the Order of the White Lion by Václav Havel .

Web links

• http://www.radio.cz/de/artikel/74338
• http://protikomunisticke.misto.cz/kamencti/pernicky.htm
• http://www.rozhlas.cz/wwii/lide_csr/_zprava/162367