Category:Rudolf Drbohlav

English: Major Rudolf Drbohlav, nicknamed "Ralph", (* June 27, 1914 in Löbau, Saxony - November 6, 1952 at the age of 38) was an officer of the First Republic Czechoslovak Army. After the proclamation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (15 March 1939), he briefly joined the domestic anti-German resistance, but left the Protectorate secretly on 30 May 1939 to become a member of the Czechoslovak army in France in the autumn of 1939 and to join the foreign resistance. He took part in the fighting in France and served as a military correspondent in Great Britain. After the end of World War II, he returned to Czechoslovakia and began his studies at the War College in Prague. Shortly after the Communist takeover in February 1948, Major Rudolf Drbohlav was expelled from his studies (he was not loyal to the incoming totalitarian regime), reassigned to a junior post and dismissed from service in the Czechoslovak Army on 1 June 1948. In June 1948, he secretly left Czechoslovakia again for exile across the border. From the end of the summer of 1948, he directed his own intelligence group "Iron" from Regensburg, Germany. For almost four years he worked in the anti-communist resistance by sending couriers illegally into Czechoslovakia to build up networks of intelligence sources and connections, bringing news and documents. Drbohlav's group "Iron" was disbanded after a series of failures by the state security and on 28 April 1952 its activities were stopped. On 28 April 1952, Rudolf Drbohlav left for London to visit his family, where he died of a malignant tumour (melanoma) on 6 November 1952.