Karel Čurda

OUT DISTANCE parachutist · later Gestapo informer

10 October 1911–29 April 1947

Karel Čurda reached the Protectorate with Opálka’s OUT DISTANCE team. After the attack on Heydrich he separated from the Prague parachutists and presented himself to the Gestapo on 16 June 1942. He denounced people he knew in the support network. Their arrests and violent interrogations led to the Resslova Street refuge. He was convicted and executed after the war.

His own team and cooperation with others

OUT DISTANCE comprised Adolf Opálka, Karel Čurda and Ivan Kolařík. The team separated after a mistaken landing in March 1942. Čurda later reached Prague and worked with other parachutists. His later denunciation should not be projected backwards as an established plan during training.

Leaving Prague and informing

After the attack he went to his mother. He sent a denunciation letter on 13 June. On 16 June he visited the Svatoš home in Prague before reporting at Petschek Palace, giving the Gestapo names and addresses of supporters he knew.

Čurda did not know the seven men’s shared hiding place. Information about supporting households nevertheless enabled swift arrests. By torturing those detained, the Gestapo obtained the lead to the church.

Motives and postwar trial

Sources describe repressive pressure, fear and the offer of immunity and reward, but do not establish a simple explanation for his personal decision. The consequences of his testimony are documented without needing to invent his inner motives.

He later served as a Gestapo informer. After the war he was tried and executed in 1947.

Explore further

• Adolf Opálka

  commander of his original team

• The Svatoš apartment

  visit before the denunciation

• Petschek Palace

  where he gave testimony to the Gestapo

• The Moravec apartment

  one of the households struck by the investigation

• The church in Resslova Street

  the refuge exposed through subsequent interrogations