Gestapo proti katolické církvi Zásah vůči opatství augustiniánů na Starém Brně a následné soudní spory
Gestapo versus the Catholic Church. Action against Augustinian Abbey in Staré Brno and the subsequent litigation

Summary/Abstract: The study deals with persecution of the Catholic Church in the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia using the example the Nazi secret state police (Gestapo) action against the Augustinian monastery in Staré Brno in 1943. In the introduction the author briefly describes the position of Catholics in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries. Next he introduces the Augustinian order and their activities in Brno from the Middle Ages to WWII. The core of the study is dedicated to the circumstances of the Gestapo action, it introduces the individual people involved, including their role in the whole case. The author drew primarily on sources from the collections of the Moravian Land Archive in Brno and the history department of the Moravian Museum in Brno. The reason why the Nazi security organs were interested in the monastery was a series of denunciatory letters which had been sent to the Gestapo in the course of 1943. The letters accused the friars and the layman employees of the monastery of hiding armaments and of forbidden listening to foreign radio stations. After the content of the letters had been assessed, a total of 16 persons were arrested who were consequently interrogated for many months. The arrested persons were tried by the Extraordinary Court at the German Land Court in Brno and the author studies the genesis of this Nazi judicial institution which operated in the years 1939-1945. The case was concluded by two death sentences and their execution, the persons in question being the janitor of the monastery Martin Lukáš and friar Otakar Zadražil (Father Alfons). Another 10 persons were sentenced to imprisonment of a total of 19 years and 1 month. The sentence was unusual in that apart from hiding of armaments and listening to foreign radio stations, homosexual orientation of some of the persons was part of its argumentation. The conclusion of the study deals with post-war court trials before the Extraordinary People’s Court in Brno in the years 1945-1948 with informers and Gestapo members who were involved in the investigation of the case.

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