Some of them said they considered the Masin brothers heroes of the anti-communist resistance and that they had welcomed Topolanek's decision to award a prime minister's medal to them, while others voiced doubts over whether their armed actions against the communist regime brought more harm than profit. The historians only agree on one thing Czech Senate to propose Masin brothers for state decoration ...
Czech Masin brothers are murderers - KSCM leader ...
German Order not to get back Czech Bouzov castle - court ... - that they acted with good intentions and that their journey through Germany to Americans stationed in West Berlin deserves admiration. The brothers Josef and Ctirad Masin who led the anti-communist resistance group managed to fight their way out from communist Czechoslovakia to West Germany with a weapon in hand in the autumn of 1953. The Masins and Milan Paumer, a member of their resistance group, killed two policemen and a cashier in their homeland and later three East German policemen during their flight from Czechoslovakia. "I absolutely agree with awarding them the medals and I believe that they should receive state decorations as well.
They are heroes in our modern history," Jiri Pernes from the Czech Academy of Science Institute of Modern History said. However, he said that the first step to the rehabilitation of the third (anti-communist) resistance should be its historical research. Pernes said he firmly believed that unlike the national resistance against the Habsburg empire and German Nazis the anti-communist resistance had been most infiltrated by enemies. The communists banned many organisations that passed themselves for resistance groups but actually acted under the former communist secret police (StB) command. However, the communists failed to infiltrate the Masin group. "This makes the Masin brothers exceptional," Pernes said. Another expert on Czech modern history who requested anonymity said that the case of the Masin brothers and their group should be viewed in the context of the Cold War and the foreign resistance movement. "I can express my view as a historian but only on condition of anonymity because the case has been politicised," he told CTK. He said an expert discussion should be conducted on the entire Czechoslovak resistance movement. At that time, there was no longer belief among Czechoslovak exile officials that there would be a war between the East and the West. The exile officials sent recommendations to Czechoslovakia not to launch any operations that would lead to the loss of human lives or would provoke repressions. They expected that Russians would be pushed away from central Europe and that free elections would be held under the United Nations supervision, the historian said. Intelligence services supported another line. They still believed that an armed clash would take place and that violent actions were necessary. The Masin brothers' activities were along with this line, but they contradicted the position of most Czechoslovak leaders in exile who were represented by the Council of Free Czechoslovakia, the historian said. "I have nothing against what they did. The question is to what extent their activities helped the Communist regime or harmed it," the historian said. He pointed to the case of Babice, south Moravia, from the 1950s in which three local communist functionaries were murdered. The Communist regime used the case for extensive propaganda and the StB launched a wide-scale raid in which a large number of farmers who opposed the process of agricultural collectivisation were arrested and their families expelled from South Moravia. "They [the perpetrators] certainly did not want to help the regime but it is clear that the regime managed to skillfully use the case to its purpose," the historian said. In a trial of a 14-year group of alleged terrorists that started ten days after the Babice murders the court passed seven death penalties and two life sentences and another five people were sentenced to a total of 110 years in prison. Further trials related to the Babice case continued until February 1953 and another four people were executed. The unidentified historian said that the Masin brothers believed that they would provoke most of the people to armed opposition against the communist regime, but they, on the contrary, found themselves in isolation. People also resented and resent until now that they killed a cashier and "an ordinary policeman at a rural police station," he said. However, their Berlin operation was remarkable from the military standpoint, the historian added.
(Ceske Noviny)
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