Vila „Okopanina“ Výcvikové centrum kurýrů v Bruchsalu v letech 1949-1950
Villa “Okopanina”. Training center for couriers in Bruchsal in the years 1949-1950

Author(s): Petr Blažek
Subject(s): Political history, Security and defense, WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), History of Communism
Published by: Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů
Keywords: 20th century; 50s; Bruchsal; couriers; training center; “Okopanina”; communism; resistance; security;
Summary/Abstract: A few years after 1948, the most common type of intelligence operations used by the anti-communist resistance in exile was dispatching couriers (“agent-walkers”, in contemporary terminology) who secretly crossed the state border to the Czechoslovak territory in order to perform different tasks. This text deals with training of couriers carried out by an intelligence group which had been created by former Czechoslovak army general František Moravec with the support of the American secret service. It operated at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s in Bruchsal, West Germany. The training was led by former Czechoslovak soldiers and policemen with combat experience who had fled the country after February 1948. The leading figure among the intelligence officers acting in Bruchsal was former Czechoslovak army major Antonín Bartoš, who went into exile in February 1948 and was then involved in the anti-communist resistance.

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