Jakub Drápal - Defending Nazis in postwar Czechoslovakia : the life of K. Resler, defence counsel ex officio of K.H. Frank

Jakub Drpal

Translated by Anna Barton

Published by Charles University

Karolinum Press

www.karolinum.cz

Edited by Alena Jirsov

Cover by Jan erch

First English edition

Karolinum Press, 2017

Jakub Drpal, 2017

This English edition is a revised version of Posluen zakon sv zem a svho stavu (Auditorium, Prague 2014), translated from the Czech by Anna Barton. Photography Archival fonds of Prague City Archives; National Museum; and Vclav Trojan and Elika Trojanov (heirs)

This book is published with the support of Foundation Hugo Grotius, Law firm VKS Legal and Czech Bar Association. The publication of this book was also supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports - Institutional Support for Longterm Development of Research Organizations - Charles University, Faculty of Law, PROGRES Q05.

ISBN 978-80-246-3730-3 (print)

ISBN 978-80-246-3731-0 (pdf)

ISBN 978-80-246-4230-7 (epub)

ISBN 978-80-246-4229-1 (kindle)

In Spring 2012 I asked Prof. Jan Kuklk, professor of legal history and dean of the Law Faculty at Charles University, to give a short talk about post-war society before a screening of the film Ex offo. He kindly agreed, and was delighted with my interest in Kamill Resler.

The matter didnt end there subsequent discussions with him led me to decide to write this book, and Prof. Kuklk was extremely supportive in helping me to access the archive materials relevant for my research, discussing the book with me, and providing me with some materials he had in his collections that related to the K. H. Frank trial. There is little a student could want more than that his teacher welcome his ideas, support him in them, discuss them with him, and eventually help him to bring them to the wider world. My heartfelt thanks therefore go to Prof. Kuklk. Without him, this book might never have been possible; certainly, it would not have taken shape so soon.

Many thanks are also due to the VK law firm, in particular to Dr. Buzkov and Dr. Tyll, to the Hugo Grotius Foundation and to the Czech Bar Association and its president JUDr. Martin Vychope, whose generosity enabled this book to be translated into English. Annie Barton translated it splendidly and the publisher Karolnum helped me to further improve its structure.

I wish to extend my thanks, too, to my Czech language and literature teacher at secondary school, Eva Podzimkov, for having awoken my interest in literature and history, over the five years that she taught me, together with a desire to interpret literary texts and apply literary characters experiences to real-life situations. If she had studied law, I believe that with her enthusiasm for work, literature and ethics she could well have resembled a modern-day Kamill Resler. Instead, as a teacher she has succeeded in inspiring hundreds and thousands of students to pursue their projects, of which this book is one.

While working for barrister Pavel iinsk for eighteen months I learned what great things a barrister can achieve, and that even today there are barristers who dedicate themselves to pursuing justice even when that means defying public opinion and the national authorities. Interesting though it was to observe iinsk defend a murderer, what really caught my attention were the small, everyday cases at which he defended foreigners, often enabling them to stay in the country and giving them sometimes for the first time in their life an understanding of what justice is. This book is therefore dedicated to Pavel.

I am grateful to the staff of the Literary Archive at the Museum of Czech Literature, The Prague City Archives, the Archives of the National Museum and of the National Museum Library, the Archive of Charles University, the East Bohemian Museum in Pardubice, the Central Military Archive and the Archives of the Czech Bar Association, for their exceptional willingness to assist me. Furthermore, my thanks go to Pavel Muchka, who wrote a bachelors dissertation on Kamill Resler, for his kind help.

Last but not least I am grateful to my parents, who encouraged me to write this book, and in particular my mother, who read and commented on my manuscript at many stages.

Jakub Drpal

It is a great pleasure indeed to contribute this foreword to the English edition of Posluen zkon sv zem a svho stavu: Kamill Resler obhjce K. H. Franka, a book written by one of our facultys promising graduates, Jakub Drpal, that looks at the life and work of the eminent Czech defence lawyer Kamill Resler.

I would like to make use of this foreword to introduce new readers to this book that they have just opened, in a few words. The first thing worth noting is how it came into existence. It is certainly not a common occurrence that a masters student should write such a highly acclaimed book that the university publishing house decides not only to publish it in the Czech original, but subsequently also to publish it in English translation. I am delighted that this has happened to a student of the law faculty and I am pleased to have been able to contribute to the books progress and watch it take shape right from the beginning. I first met Jakub to discuss his academic writing essays and our paths crossed again at a screening of the film Ex Offo, which brought Kamill Reslers story to the screen back in 1998. Jakub impressed me not only with his stylish writing, but in particular with his desire to see K. H. Franks defence counsel in a broader context and on several levels. Reslers life interested him sufficiently that he was willing to give up most of his free time to undertake detailed research using the relevant literature and archival materials. The results of this research were turned first into his dissertation and subsequently into a stand-alone book the first complete book-length biography of Resler, which was not only favourably reviewed in the legal press, but was also praised by the Rector of Charles University as one of the best academic monographs written by researchers from Charles University in year 2014.

The second thing to note concerns the chosen topic and the character of Kamill Resler in particular. He is not particularly well known in Czech circles, and very little known in the wider world. When he is mentioned, it is usually as defence counsel to K. H. Frank in his trial before the Extraordinary Peoples Court in spring 1946: part of the so-called post-war retributional trials, which took place at a time when overblown nationalist passions were still rife. Resler was a well-respected Prague barrister with high moral credit, who had been involved in the home resistance movement during the Second World War. He became an enemy to the Czech State literally overnight when he became (not through his own decision but as an ex officio allocated defence counsel) the legal representative to K. H. Frank, executioner of the Czech nation, the man responsible for the Lidice extermination and a symbol of the break-up of the Czechoslovak state in 1938 and its occupation during the Second World War. Jakub Drpal also takes this powerful motif as the starting point for his book, but he is not only interested in the historical context of the war crime trials, but also in the right of any defendant to a fair trial, and the principle of a thorough defence even in cases when the public is convinced of the defendants guilt and extends its negative attitude to the defendants legal representative. Similarly, Jakub Drpal looks at barristers professional ethics, examining how Resler carried out the defence as his professional honour dictated, even in the case of a war criminal, and how this paradoxically led to him being hated by his fellow citizens, damaged his reputation forever, lost him several friends and even caused problems within his own family. Resler himself put it thus: A barrister must forget his own feelings and attitudes, give up his own character and, however hard it might be, carry out his duty thoroughly. All this is, moreover, intensified by the fact that K. H. Frank and Kamill Resler stood on opposite sides during the war, and, had his anti-German activities been revealed, Resler could well have been arrested and tried for them and thus the two mens roles would have been reversed. What is more, Reslers engagement in the post-war retribution was by no means over with K. H. Frank; as a barrister he was involved in several other no less sensitive cases involving political collaboration that were heard before the National Court.