Major Augustin Schramm (March 2, 1907 in Liberec – May 27, 1948 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

) was an

ethnic German , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

Czechoslovak Czechoslovak may refer to: *A demonym or adjective pertaining to Czechoslovakia (1918–93) **First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–38) **Second Czechoslovak Republic (1938–39) **Third Czechoslovak Republic (1948–60) **Fourth Czechoslovak Repub ...

communist professional and

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

agent. He was a member of the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comint ...

(KSČ) in 1930s. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Schramm was a political commissar (rank of major) at a training school for partisan parachuters in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, and after the war he was Head of the Partisans‘ Affair Department at KSČ HQ, and at Czechoslovakian Ministry of Defence too, and co-ordinator of his own intelligence network. Schramm was often suspected of playing the key role in the assassination of

Jan Masaryk Jan Garrigue Masaryk (14 September 1886 – 10 March 1948) was a Czech diplomat and politician who served as the Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948. American journalist John Gunther described Masaryk as "a brave, honest, turbul ...

, democratic Foreign Minister, after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia on February 25, 1948. However, there isn't enough evidence to support this claim. He was shot dead in his own flat two and half months later. The Communist political police and justice prosecuted, sentenced and executed Miloslav Choc, a young anticommunist. However, there are indications that Schramm was a man who knew too much, and his murder was a cover-up ordered by the NKVD and Communist parties' authorities. Late Major A. Schramm was celebrated as a "

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

of Communism" before the

Velvet Revolution The Velvet Revolution ( cs, Sametová revoluce) or Gentle Revolution ( sk, Nežná revolúcia) was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations agains ...

in 1989.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schramm, Augustin 1907 births 1948 deaths Politicians from Liberec Sudeten German people Communist Party of Czechoslovakia politicians Czechoslovak murder victims People murdered in Czechoslovakia Czechoslovak expatriates in the Soviet Union People granted political asylum in the Soviet Union People of the StB