The name of Zdeněk Mančal is very well known in connection with the Prague Uprising. What is not known is the fact that after the communist coup he was sentenced to three years in prison for offering assistance in an anti-communist coup and failing to report its preparation.
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Zdeněk Mančal was born on October 9, 1913 in Litomyšl. After primary school, he attended a grammar school with a high school diploma and worked odd jobs until he was drafted into the army. During his military service, he achieved the rank of lieutenant in the reserve. He was married, had one daughter, and from 1945 he was a member of the National Socialist Party. In 1939, he became a secretary and pedagogical educator at the Care of Working Youth in Strnady near Zbraslav. From 1940, he worked as an announcer and inspector of the program service of the Czechoslovak Radio and became famous on May 5, 1945. Since the previous day, people had been gathering in Prague and removing German signs. There was also a revolutionary mood on the radio, the employees stopped following the instructions of the German leadership and began broadcasting Czech songs that were previously undesirable. At six in the morning, Mančal mockingly announced on the air: "It is six o'clock". From that moment on, the radio did not broadcast a single word in mandatory German, and it was clear to listeners that the occupation was nearing its end. The result was not only the Prague but also the Czech national uprising.
Photo: VÚA-VHA Archive, public source.
Zdeněk Mančal at the microphone in the premises of the Hus Choir in Vinohrady, from where the radio was broadcasting after the bombing of the building on Vinohradská Street.
Mančal became a well-known and popular figure, and in discussions and lectures around the country he described what happened during the uprising in the capital. However, this differed in many ways from the communist interpretation, according to which the barricades were almost exclusively occupied by communist workers, Bunachenko's 1st ROA Division disappeared completely from it, and the city was finally "liberated" by the famous Red Army at the most difficult moment. Mančal, on the other hand, truthfully explained that the uprising was definitely not led by the communist party, but by the military command and politicians of various parties, citizens of all social classes fought on the barricades, the Czech police were fundamentally involved, and without the help of the ROA, the Germans would have drowned the uprising in blood. The Red Army then arrived in the morning in the city, from where the Germans had left the day before after capitulating to the Czech National Council.
Photo: VÚA-VHA Archive, public source.
Zdeněk Mančal during the uprising
Even before the February communist coup, Mančal was "fired" from the radio; on February 20, 1948, he was banned from entering the building and was fired at the end of March. Mančal found work as a photo colorist at the Václav Suk company and later as a farm worker on a state-owned farm in Nebřenice near Strančice, where a large-scale pig feedlot was located. He soon began to serve as an administrator there. At the time, his wife worked at the Coal Warehouses in Prague, and his minor daughter Dagmar was a pig nurse on the farm where his father worked.
Photo: Unknown author, Wikimedia Commons, open source
Zdeněk Mančal after the war
Mančal was not involved in politics, but then he met Capt. Bohumil Moravec, who gathered a group around him, intending to carry out an anti-communist coup. The group was allegedly part of the so-called Zvon organization, which was supposed to be put together from similar groups with the same goal. Mančal vaguely promised Moravec that when the coup occurred, he would deliver a political statement prepared by Moravec on the radio as a professional. The coup was supposed to break out on May 17, 1949 at three in the morning. By sheer coincidence, however, another coup was supposed to break out at exactly the same moment, prepared by the so-called Prokeš group, which was however uncovered by the StB. The StB began arresting members of Prokeš' group on May 16 and accidentally noticed other suspicious people on the street. During their arrests, it turned out that they were armed members of the Zvon organization, who were also preparing to stage a coup. After brutal interrogations of the detainees, another wave of arrests began.
On May 23, 1949 at 1:00 p.m., Mančal was arrested and taken to Pankrác detention center in cell no. 381. The StB sealed the rooms he temporarily used on the estate, despite the fact that all documents, accounting books, production and purchasing plans, and keys to everything remained in them, and the estate was completely paralyzed. His wife Ludmila was also briefly taken into custody, but she knew nothing about it and was soon released.
Photo: ABS observatory, free source
Prison photo of Zdeněk Mančal
According to the StB, the Zvon organization consisted of five interconnected groups. These – at least in the light of the interrogation protocols, which of course did not necessarily reflect reality at all – seem quite determined in retrospect, but of course they had no real chance of success. In five trials involving the Zvon organization, 98 civilians and 20 soldiers were tried, and Emanuel Čančík, Vratislav Polesný and Josef Charvát were sentenced to death. The executions by rope took place in Pankrác prison on November 5, 1949, the bodies were burned and the ashes apparently buried in the yard of the Pankrác prison.
Photo: ABS observatory, free source
Record of the release of Zdeněk Mančal
Mančal was sentenced by the State Court in Prague on August 11, 1949 to five years in prison, his sentence was reduced to three years on appeal in January 1952. Although Wikipedia still claims that it was ten years, the protocols speak clearly. He served the entire three years in the prison in Ostrov near Karlovy Vary, working in various positions there with a health classification of C. He was released on May 25, 1952. After his release, Mančal began working as a construction worker - a concrete worker at the Acidotechna company. His application for rehabilitation was rejected in 1968, and he was never granted the status of an anti-fascist fighter. Zdeněk Mančal died in Prague of heart failure on August 5, 1975.
Resources:
ABS, Investigation Files of the Ministry of Interior fund, reference V-6381 Ministry of Interior