Svaz protifašistických bojovníků
Union of Antifascist Fighters

Summary/Abstract: The Union of Antifascist Fighters (The Czech Union of Antifascist Fighters 1951–1990) was a voluntary social organisation within the National Front, associating the Czechoslovak (after federalisation of the state in 1969, the Czech) participants in the fight for the national liberation against the fascism and the war from the years 1914–1945. During forty years of its existence, the Union went through various periods that influenced its development, whether it was the February 1948 events when the state power was taken over by the Communist Party, or the political trials in 1950s that affected both individuals and whole groups of resistance fighters (airmen, exile army soldiers, interbrigadists). In the 1960s, the Union went through the period of the political détente culminating in the Prague Spring that was trying to correct the past mistakes (commencing rehabilitation of resistance and resistance fighters), and the subsequent period of normalisation – the party cleansing in 1970s and arrival of vetted and selected “normalised” functionaries. The paper focuses on this development in the Union, its basic organisational structure, its activities, position in the society; it contains the concise overview of the predecessors and successors of the Union, the contact with the State Central Archives (the National Archives), the description of the archival documents, the publishing activity of the Union (periodicals, books). The paper is concluded by the illustration materials.

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