Encrypting according to The Grandmother
Přidáno: March 6, 2023
The investigation file Arch. No. V-2016 MV dated 1956 contains one of the prosecutions charged against the Sokol (a gymnastics organisation founded in 1862) officials who “did not agree with the unification of gymnastics in Czechoslovakia” after the 1948…
Zigzag Cap
Přidáno: February 1, 2023
The Security Services Archive regularly prepares data retrievals following researcher inquiries on diverse topic. These can be sometimes quite peculiar. Last month a foreign researcher turned to the Archive who conducts research on how the popular Czech woven cap…
The Black Barons
Přidáno: January 11, 2023
After the so-called normalisation of society started in Czechoslovakia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the cultural life also began to be “normalised”. In the sphere of literature, some previously successful book titles became officially forbidden. Not only…
Regular Yet Unusual Training Course
Přidáno: December 6, 2022
Sometimes a material is found during the cataloguing process that has no direct link to the collection being catalogued, but can still provide interesting information and sometimes also an entertaining piece of reading. An example of this is the…
Summer and Autumn by the Marianska studanka Pilgrimage Site
Přidáno: November 8, 2022
The so-called Council Renewal Work (“Dilo koncilove obnovy”, abbreviated as DKO) was a revival movement that emerged in the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia during the so-called 1968 Prague Spring. It strove to fully revive the church life, which had…
Czechoslovakia Invites American Soldiers for Holiday
Přidáno: October 6, 2022
The Security Services Archive (ABS) keeps in custody also materials that hardly anyone would be looking for here. An example of such materials could be the promotional materials published by the Special Services Department of the High Command of…
Dana Zátopková under the Flag of the ‘Red Star’
Přidáno: September 5, 2022
It was the year 1952, and a pair of Czechoslovak sportsmen was in full control of the 15th Summer Olympics in Helsinki. The Zátopeks won golden medals in one day and in a short interval, something still seen as…
The Klet Mission
Přidáno: August 8, 2022
The collection entitled StB Investigation Headquarters – Investigation Files includes an extensive file, V-3200 CB, for investigation of unidentified culprits who were thought to have committed the crime of subverting the republic. This was based on the fact that…
How to Identify an Anonymous Writer
Přidáno: July 7, 2022
To identify the anonymous “culprits” – writers of anti-state letters or texts, the State Security used criminology methods that were supposed to help limit the group of possible suspects or directly point to a specific person. Here are some…
The Story of a “Real” Agent
Přidáno: June 8, 2022
On 10 November 1965 a brief notice by the Czechoslovak Press Agency emerged in the daily press about the return of a former diplomat, member of the American espionage agency and official of the émigré organisations, Mikuláš Pátek, to…