German Forces

Death in Prague (7)

H.M. Government (IWM).

Notwithstanding the disorder into which the late Heydrich's measures had reduced the Czech underground, the Gestapo were getting nowhere, and needed a break. They got it when a member of another parachutist group - "Operation Out Distance, an operation originally aimed at sabotage of military production in the Skoda works - either surrendered or was captured (accounts are somewhat contradictory) and, motivated perhaps by fear of reprisals against his family; or perhaps by the promised reward of 500,000 Crowns for information (which he was paid), betrayed the identities of a number of Czech resistants with whom he had contact while in Prague. The informer was Sgt. Major Karol Curda. On the basis of his information, the Gestapo rounded up and (where possible) "questioned" several Czech underground operatives. Not surprisingly, this yielded information pointing to the presence of the assasins and their colleagues in the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius. JR.