Activity of the Czechoslovak underground Embassy in Beograd within the premisses of the French one was nearing to its termination. Constraint of Germany to Yugoslav authorities was escalating in conjunction with a mounting number of the Cz volunteers leaving Beograd in combatant style groups towards the Cz Foreign Army in the spring of 1940. But on the Yugoslavian soil the Germans were not allowed to interfere with activity of each Czechoslovak involved in the Route of the Balkans. Because the Cz Military Attaché in Yugoslavia, former Serbian volunteer Inf Maj Frantisek Hieke, was provided with his Yugoslavian passport under the name of Petar Stoj he was safe. Another kingpin - Chairman of the Czechoslovak Association in Yugoslavia Frantisek Slamecka M.D. As a senior lecturer at the Zagreb Medical Faculty he was granted the nationality of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The members of the Intelligence Group ´Marie´ had the British passports.
In August clerks of the Yugoslavian Ministry of Interior lanched their co-operation with the Gestapo German Secret Police. On Aug 6 Yugoslavian policemen lured Mr Erich Soeldner from his flat in Beograd. He was passed by them to the plain-clothes Gestapo men. Godo Jirasek and Stanislav Vesely were seized in this fashion at Maribor and Zagreb respectively on the same day. The former was in charge of the Czechoslovaks crossing the Austrian border and their journey to Zagreb. The latter sent those who had crossed the border on Slovenia or Croatia from Zagreb to Beograd. All three were the Czechoslovak nationals. The German authorities had beene neither asked for the Protectorate papers nor staying permit in Yugoslavia by them.
In several days following Aug 6 Soeldner, Jirasek and Vesely were taken from the German Embassy in Beograd to the Third Reich. They were sentenced to death there and beheaded. Jirasek and Vesely during so called Second Era of Heydrich Terror ie from May 27 – July 3, 1942. Soeldner on July 30, 1942. In addition the families of Mr Godo Jirasek, Stanislav Vesely and Erich Soeldner had to pay the amounts as follow to the Public Prosecutor. Three hundred Reichs Mark/RM/ for an execution, one RM fifty Pfennig per each day behind bars of the Ploetzensee Berlin prison and even twelve Pfennig as a postage for sending this bill.
The British reacted to these three Czechs´ arrest by evacuation as the Intelligence Group Marie as the organizers of the ´Let us set Europe aflame´ campaign. The latter smuggled arms and sabotage explosives into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The British Embassy also took over arranging transport of the Cz refugees till occupation of Beograd by the German troops on April 13, 1941.
We express our grattitude to those who gave their hands to keep the Route of the Balkans going.
R&R :
Vaclav Sramek – The Route of the Balkans towards the Cz Foreign ArmyBalkánská 1939 – 1941
Vaclav Sramek – Erich Soeldner
Tri kontra gestapo by Petr Kettner and I. M Jedlicka – The Albatros Publ. 2003
http:// www. gedenkstaette-ploetzensee.de/02.dt. html