Abstract
The life story of Augustin Preučil, a native of Central Bohemian Třebsín, is a classic story of a realized treason. After the occupation of the Czech lands and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Preučil attempted to obtain a visa to Brazil but he was arrested by Gestapo in Prague and he volunteered to their service as an informer.
In July 1939 he was sent across the border to Poland to the forming Czechoslovak unit in Małe Bronowice near Cracow. He left Poland with the Czechoslovak military transport to France, where he joined the French Air Force and worked together with other Czechoslovaks at the military base Chartres.
He supplied information to Prague Gestapo intelligence, from both Poland and France. After the defeat of France, in summer 1940, he left with the rest of the Czechoslovak military units for the British Isles where he joined the British air force - the Royal Air Force Volunteers Reserve.
In summer 1941 in Sunderland, where he was flying on the 55th OTU, he got married to Muriel Kirby. Two months later he flew off with the British fighter Hurricane Mk.I across the North Sea to Belgium, where he crash-landed near to the village of Ortho.
He handed his plane over and he reported the Belgian family, which provided him with assistance during his landing, to the Germans. In the Protectorate, Preučil continued in his career of an active informer of Gestapo and he caused arrests and even deaths of many people with his activities.
After the liberation of Czechoslovakia, he was arrested and brought to justice in the Extraordinary People's Court in Prague; he was sentenced to death and executed. To compare the degree of Preučil's treason, the life stories of another three people are presented.
These people were also in the ranks of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance but eventually they betrayed and cooperated, more or less, with Gestapo.