The Phantom of the Notice Board

A large number of investigation files that have been preserved in the ABS deal with a specific event, for instance, an air crash, a war crime during the Nazi occupation, or a border disturbance on the Iron Curtain.

Some of these files are related to the military environment of the time. The relevant events are, for instance, the theft or loss of weapons, unauthorised possession and operation of a radio station, or suspected leak of classified information. They also include cases where the criminal aspect was solely qualified according to political reasons, for instance, the political crimes of “defamation of the republic or its representative” (Sect. 102 and 103 of the 1961 Criminal Code), or “defamation of a socialist system state or its representative” (Sect. 104 of the Criminal Code). File no. V-13091 MV relates to the case of photographs of members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, Vasil Bilak, Alois Indra, Gustav Husak and Lubomir Strougal, which had been part of the notice board in the Army Unit 7690 Pribram-Brod. It needs to be mentioned that for the totalitarian regime, notice boards were a highly revered means of propaganda, almost a worshipped object.

An unknown culprit was supposed to have pierced the official portraits with a sharp-pointed tool. Small dots remained, some near the eyes. A deed which may have easily escaped any attention was reported by the company officer who spotted these minor differences when politically lecturing the unit. The investigation was conducted by the investigation unit of the Military Counterintelligence Department (VKR).

The attention of the VKR officers apparently did not make the company commander happy. This can be seen from the highly reluctant answers he gave during his interrogation. He stated that he had dealt with the relevant photographs only after the officer repeatedly insisted on him doing so and had brought them unexpectedly to his office, that he had to look for them on his desk between various newspapers, and that no other damage was found on the notice board.

The preserved archival materials also unveil a degree of uncertainty of part of the VKR officers during the investigation, as there was no agreement as to whether the substance of Sect. 103 of the Criminal Code had been met. Witnesses – ordinary soldiers actually stated that the notice board was placed in the corner of a clubroom where no-one would normally go. Eventually the culprit was not identified, and it was even impossible to determine when the damage had been done. In May 1972, the case was finally dropped.

ABS, Department of StB Investigation, Investigation Files, no. V-13091 MV