Pozapomenutá legenda českého odboje. Případ Jana Smudka a nacistická okupační politika
A Nearly-forgotten Legend of the Czech Resistance: Jan Smudek and German Occupation Policy

Summary/Abstract: In this biographical article the author discusses Jan Smudek, a now somewhat obscure figure of the Czechoslovak resistance to German occupation. Smudek was born in west Bohemia on 8 September 1915, attended school in the towns of Domazlice and Pilsen, and, in 1938, began to attend a technical college in the town of Kladno. He had been active in the Junak and Sokol youth organizations, which influenced his patriotism. After the Germans occupied the rump Czecho-Slovakia, Smudek joined the resistance. First he stole a German soldier's pistol in Prague, and used it to kill a German sergeant, Wilhelm Kniest, during a scuffle in Kladno on 8 June 1939. On the basis of archive records the author demonstrates the extraordinary importance of this affair in the early days of the Occupation. The Germans had ...

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