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Vladimír Palko: Antonín Brázdil - ‘Big-timer’ of the Intelligence Group Malacky within 11th Brigade of the Border Guard

Antonín Brázdil was active as an intelligence officer in the Intelligence Group Malacky within 11th Brigade of the Border Guard and since 1979 as its chief for 32 years. Along the river Morava, which is the natural border with Austria, he developed a spy network of secret collaborators as part of his counter-intelligence tasks, which controlled persons who were suspicious from their attempts to leave the country illegally, or helped to reveal potential perpetrators preparing escapes to foreign countries, persons called state frontier violators. Brázdil represented an archetype of a non-talented, under-average student with no knowledge of foreign languages, who got opportunities to balance his negatives through intensive intelligence work in security units of the Communist regime and to reach relatively high rank and position thanks to his loyalty towards the regime. The reader, reading about high number of agents who were under his control, or persons he examined in both signal and screening files, may gain a balanced view on the activities of a counter-intelligence officer working in Slovak-Austrian border area.

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