Besonders raffinierte ‚Revanchisten‘? Die Ackermann-Gemeinde und ihre ‚Osthilfe‘ in die Tschechoslowakei
Particularly cunning 'revanchists'? The Ackermann community and its 'aid to the East' in Czechoslovakia

Summary/Abstract: The Ackermann-Gemeinde was founded in 1946 as a Catholic community by German expellees from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. In comparison to other Sudeten German organizations, the Ackermann-Gemeinde made very early contacts with specific circles in communist Czechoslovakia. During its ‘Osthilfe’ the Ackermann-Gemeinde sent theological literature, fiction and medicines across the German-Czechoslovak border from the mid-1960s onwards. These activities aroused great interest from the State Security Service (Státní bezpečnost – StB) because the Ackermann-Gemeinde succeeded in establishing close contacts with the Czech Catholic Church, which was viewed as hostile to the Czechoslovak state. With the “Revanche” campaign, the StB used several agents to observe Adolf Kunzmann (1920–1976), the head of the ‘Osthilfe’. Even when the Prague authorities did not stop the cross-border activities of the Ackermann-Gemeinde completely, they fundamentally changed their outlook.

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