Bedřich Pokorný

Bedřich Pokorný (6 March 1904 Brno – 25 March 1968 Brno) was a Czechoslovak secret service officer.
Pokorný joined the army in 1924 and since 1926 attended the Military Academy in Hranice. After finishing the intelligence course in 1934 he was appointed an intelligence officer of the 12th division in Košice and later in Prešov with the intelligence work aiming against Hungary.
After the occupation of Czech lands and creation of the Slovak state he returned home. Like many other officers of the former Czechoslovak army he got a job in the protectorate administration and became a financial clerk of the Moravian land office in Brno. During the occupation he reportedly cooperated with several resistance groups, including the communists. His active resistance was later, during the show trials in the '50s, called into question. Instead he was accused of collaboration with the Germans.
In April 1945, after the liberation of Brno by the Red Army, he took the control over the newly organized Czech police and in May he became a police commander in Moravia. During the summer of 1945 he and many others organized persecution and expulsion of Sudeten Germans. This included the so-called Brno death march. In July 1945 Pokorný joined the Communist Party and was appointed commander of one of the intelligence service sections of the Ministry of Interior in Prague. During the retribution Pokorný led the investigation against many of the German war criminals, but was accused of forging some testimonies and evidences to harm the communist opponents.
In January 1951 Pokorný was arrested and in December 1953 sentenced in a show trial to 16 years imprisonment for sabotage, conspiracy, protection of former Gestapo agents and collaborators, and other activities, which supposedly hindered the work of the police. The sentence was quashed in November 1956 and Pokorný was released, rehabilitated and had his party membership restored.
In March 1968, during the Prague Spring, Pokorný hanged himself in a forest near Brno.

Resources

• (German) Karel Kaplan & František Svátek: Die politischen Säuberungen in der KPC. In Weber/Mählert: Terror – Stalinistische Parteisäuberungen 1936–1953. Schöning Verlag 1998, p. 546 ff.
• (Czech) Jiřina Dvořáková: Bedřich Pokorný – vzestup a pád (PDF)