English Translation

1089 2 Essential result of the investigation. B1.1R,21/22 The accused M a c h n ik joined the Czech agricultural party in 1908 in which he held various posts in the Hille 50 following. Since 1925 he was a member of this party and in 1935 he was appointed Minister of National Defence in the Czechoslovak Republic. He retained this position until the fall of the Hodža cabinet in 1938. A member of the Agrarian Party remained a member until its dissolution. From the year l9l2 to the dissolution, Machnik was a member of the Sokol, in which he held the position of technical head of the riding department in Klattau. Furthermore, the accused central executive was the so-called peasant riding, a formation of the agricultural party. B1.4,5,38 In the autumn of 1942, the accused happened to meet the former Brigadier General of the Czecho-Slovak army Josef Dostal, who had been well known to him since 1930, on 454494 on the road in Klattau. During the discussion, the accused expressed to Dostal that he was completely convinced that Germany and its allies would lose the present war. He justified this view with factual assertions, e.g. with the high production figures of the war production of the United States and the distribution of the American troops in the various war scenes. In the course of this discussion, the accused stated that it was now time to set up in the Protectorate an organization to prepare for a overthrow and thus for the restoration of an independent Czechoslovak Republic. When Dostal expressed concerns as to whether there would be enough reliable people available for such a purpose, the accused replied that he had at least 60 people from the agricultural cooperative, including several former officials.