Former minister on trial for border deaths in communist era

Vratislav Vajnar was the interior minister of the former communist state of Czechoslovakia from 1983 to 1988. At the time, the border between the communist state and its Western neighbors was heavily guarded and almost impossible to cross.

Czechoslovak border guards were given the order to shoot at anyone attempting to escape to either West Germany or Austria.

Now, over 30 years after communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, the 92-year-old former minister has gone on trial in Prague, accused of complicity in the death and injury of people at the Czechoslovak border.

Death at the border

The trial centers around a number of specific cases involving a citizen of Czechoslovakia (CSSR), several citizens of East Germany (GDR), and one citizen of West Germany, who were all either shot dead or injured in the border zone. Frantisek Faktor from Czechoslovakia, for example, was killed in 1984, while two Germans — Hartmut Tautz and Johann Dick — died in 1986.

Dick was from West Germany. He was not trying to flee Czechoslovakia but was hiking on the West German side of the border when he was shot dead. Tautz was mauled to death by the Czechoslovak border guards' dogs when he tried to escape to Austria.

Former minister denies responsibility

Former minister Vajnar denies he was to blame. "I didn't monitor the border guards' activities in detail; I had a deputy for that," he told Czech media.

Public prosecutor Katarina Kandova accuses the former minister of not having taken any action to revoke the order to shoot at the border.

"He could have taken such steps because he knew that the CSSR was bound by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which not only covered the right to life, but also the right to leave one's country," she said at the start of the trial.

In this context, Kandova also cited the obligations Czechoslovakia entered into when it signed the Helsinki Accords at the end of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1975. However, the communist states of the Eastern Bloc that signed these accords never adhered to the section relating to civil and human rights.

Elderly defendant in ill health

Vajnar's lawyer has called for proceedings to be terminated because of her client's ill health. Given the advanced age of the defendant, the public prosecutor is calling for a two-year suspended sentence and a fine of approximately €4,000 ($4,325).

It is not yet clear whether there will even be a verdict in the case. Vajnar was not present on the first day of proceedings due to poor health. The court ordered a medical assessment of the defendant's health to be made and adjourned the case until August 2023.

Non-governmental organization filed criminal complaint

A criminal complaint was filed against Vajnar in 2017 by the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, an international non-governmental organization that was founded in Prague and raises awareness about totalitarian regimes in 20th-century Europe.

"It will undoubtedly bring some satisfaction that an organ of the state, the state power, states loudly and clearly what went on here and who was responsible for it," Neela Winkelmann of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience told the media before the case began.

No desire to dig up the past

When communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, the state of Czechoslovakia peacefully separated into two states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. According to historian Milan Barta, there was little appetite in the Czech Republic at that time to re-examine the cases of those killed at the border during the communist era.

In this respect, Barta, who works at the state-run Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes in Prague, highlights the influence of the communist KSCM party, which for many years was one of the largest parties in the Czech parliament. Indeed, the minority government of Andrej Babis (2017–2021) governed with the backing of the KSCM.

"Up until 2021, the communists simply played an important role in the Czech political system," Barta told DW. "It was only when they were not elected to parliament in 2021 that criminal prosecution could begin."

Germany pushes for resolution

Barta went on to say that while pressure from Germany to bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of German citizens on the Czechoslovak border helped move things along, the Czech public has shown relatively little interest in the border killings.

"The Czechs are of the opinion that these people crossed the border of their own accord, knowing that it was dangerous," he explained.

However, it is not just a matter of crimes committed by members of the communist regime of Czechoslovakia going unprosecuted for 30 years. During the same period, monuments near the Czech border to the communist border guards who shot at those fleeing the country were restored. Milan Barta believes that such things will disappear with "the generation that spent most of their lives under communist rule."

This article was abridged and adapted from the German by Aingeal Flanagan.