English Translation

- 4 - 29 Chairman of the Association is the former deputy commander of the 1st Army Corps and general chief of the Czechadeatete ad fe dener capacity as a non-legionary with intention to have been placed at the head of the Federation. The actual leader in the association was, however, the former Secretary General Major Cölestin Hanzl, who was placed in protective custody in the context of the action of 1.9.1939. Characteristic of the persons leading the association is also the fact that the present Minister of the Interior of the London Emigrant Government Dr.Juraj Slavik was for a time chairman of the association before 1938. This association, too, clearly lies in the line of the old Systen, according to its political attitude and ideology. On March 7, 1940, the death of Masaryk, the central organ of the Association dedicated the "News of the Support Association of Offices of the former Czechoslovak Army" (Zprávy Podpümé- ho Svazu bývalých českých düstojniků) to Masaryc's very heartfelt obituary, also on literary social afternoons organized by the Association in the summer of last year, the predominance of the democratic-liberal world of thought could be clearly recognized. On these social embassies, typical Czech intellectual writers of the System period presented poems and sketches of anti-German content. Cultural-Bolshevist elements were also expressed in many cases. The same attitude prevailed in a lecture cycle organised by the Stefanik House, in which, for example, the left-intellectual Czech dramaturge and theatre director Burian gave a lecture on the development of modern Czech theatre. It is significant that in this association, as in the aforementioned "Catholic Union of Former Soldiers", the Czech frontmen who were non-legionaries and who were defamed and defaminate as so-called "Rakušá-ci" during the Republic were never able to survive. The Federation therefore stands in a clear contrast to the Front Fighters' Association of General Blaha's. However, through the Protectorate government, it receives willing support as a counterweight against the Federation of Blaha. -5-