Acta Oeconomica Pragensia 2007, 15(7):247-256 | DOI: 10.18267/j.aop.199

Prague Police Headquarters, State (political) Police and Its Informers during the Great War in Eyes of the Committee to Study the Police Archive in 1918-1920

Zdeněk Kárník

Prof. PhDr. Zdeněk Kárník, DrSc.; Historický ústav Fakulty humanitních studií Univerzity Hradec Králové a Ústav hospodářských a sociálních dějin Filozofické fakulty Univerzity Karlovy v Praze (zdenekkarnik@post.cz).

During the political crisis of the Austrian-Hungarian empire in 1893 the land mayor of Bohemia - Der Statthalter - in Prague established the State (political) police to watch the activities of "hostile" persons and movements. It was entrusted to recruit and control informers. State Police recruited and promoted to the position of its Chief Officer (Oberkommissar) even two Czechs patriotic families, well educated lawyers. During the Great War there was a widely accepted idea in public that there were a number of Czech top-politicians serving as informers of the State Police. This idea was reinforced by the police effort to move the State Police archive to Vienna or to destroy it during the revolution of October 1918. By the end of 1918 the Committee for the Study of Police Archive was established by the Czechoslovak parliament with the task to study the preserved archive. It has interrogated both above-mentioned Chief Officers of Czech origin. In the end it was found that no really important Czech politician collaborated with State Police (with the exception of Karel Šviha, the informer of the successor to the throne, Ferdinand d'Este - his case became known even before the war). The list of informers produced by the Committee contained only the politically unimportant persons. Both Chief Officers (Klíma and Slavíček) were rehabilitated and recruited to serve in Czechoslovak police.

Keywords: State police, informers, rehabilitation

Published: December 1, 2007  Show citation