Historica Olomucensia

"Small Retribution" 1945-1948. Penalty Finding Committee in Benešov

This work, which deals with a retributive process in Czechoslovakia, is focused on so called "small retribution", or "National Cleansing". This part of retribution was codified by the Decree of the President of the Czechoslovak Republic, No. 138/1945 about some offences against national honour, and by a number of coherent legal enactments issued mostly by the communist-led Ministry of the Interior. The "small retribution" was executed by Penalty Finding Committees established by People's Committees in all regions of Czech and Moravian lands.
Offenders were accused of contacts with Germans both economical and social including love and sexual contacts, change of their nationality to become Germans and waiting for German citizenship, attacks on Czechs, waiting for privileges, cooperation with occupants, propagation of nacism and fascism, membership in Czech fascist organizations, etc. They could be convinced to maximum of one year in prison, to a fine up to 1 000 000 CZK and to the public rebuke or with any combination of these kinds of punishments. The expectancy of high numbers of convicts was not saturated finally. The ratio of convicts in the "small retribution" was about 25 % of all accused within the country and only 15,6 % in Benešov. The reason for this low outcome was a high number of irresponsible, denouncements, which were made mostly from hatred and selfish reasons of neighbours and "friends".
This work deals with the practice of the "small retribution". The national question, on which the process was based, is described in detail. The work characterizes activities of Penalty Finding Committees in the Benešov district in both periods of the retribution: in the first period, since the origin of the Decree in October 1945 until May 4, 1947 as well as in the second period evoked by communists just after their putsch, since April 2, 1948 until December 31, 1948.
The work includes the specification of all initiated cases, the accused, the convicts and acquitted cases, rates and ways of punishment in synoptic charts. The work belongs with its topic and character to few books that have ever been written about the "small retribution". A brief list of them is a part of the work.
The primary source of this work was the archive fund of The Penalty Finding Committee in Benešov, which is stored in the State District Archive in Prague.