The author of the published study deals with the fate of the officer engaged in the Three Aldermen (or just Aldermen) group within the anti-Nazi resistance. However, his life was much more colourful and gradually affected perhaps by all the breakthrough moments of our new history. As an 18-year-old young man, he got to the Eastern front as the private of the Austrian-Hungarian Army, where he later fell into captivity and enrolled into the forming Czechoslovak Legions. After fighting in the units of the 8th Rifle Regiment and return to the Free State, he remained in the Army. He completed the military education at the Military Academy in Hranice na Moravě and towards the end of the 1930’s was involved in the search group of the considerably exposed 2nd (intelligence) department of the Headquarters in Prague. Here, he met his future colleagues and friends from the anti-Nazi resistance, in particular the Staff Captains Alois Čáslavka and František Fárek. They were the men he was working with in the Three Aldermen resistance group, specialised mainly in the intelligence activity and significantly cooperating with the exile reporters around the Col. of the Gen. Staff František Moravec. After the group was revealed by the Gestapo, Longa spent the rest of the war in German prisons. In April 1945, he lived to see the liberation, nevertheless, never returned home to his family. Since his liberation practically, he became missing and his fate remain shrouded in mystery until this day.
The work is a biography of the Czechoslovak intelligence officer, František Fárek. Since all the break through moments of the CS Republic were reflected in his life, along with description of the broader historical context, he becomes our notional guide through the CS military history of the 1st half of the 20th century. In addition to the archival materials of CS origin, documents about his activity are also fund in the German Freiburg. Also Fárek’s inheritance, held by his descendants until this day, was used as significant material. Following a close-up on his activity during the 1st CS republic, the published material focuses mainly on the period of World War 2. Immediately following the Nazi occupation, Fárek took part in the resistance (the so called Three Aldermen Group), providing intelligence information to the emerging foreign military resistance (the intelligence exhibition around the Colonel of the General Staff, František Moravec in Great Britain), together with his colleagues from the intelligence department, captain Antonín Longa and Alois Čáslavka. For his intelligence activities, he was arrested by Gestapo in the fall of 1939 along with Antonín Longa and after being convicted for 10 years of prison, he spent the rest of the war as the political prisoner of the Nazi Germany. In April 1945, he lived to see the liberation by the American Army. Following the Communist revolution, as the former intelligence officer, he remained under control of the Communist secret service.
This article examines Intelligence Centre I Prague in the context of its operations in the late 1930s. It presents previously unknown details concerning this key intelligence base operating against Nazi Germany. The article is based on the analysis of archival sources from VÚA – VHA, ABS and NA in Prague, and information from specialised literature.
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