Emanuel Čančík (1916–1949)
Emanuel Čančík was born in Timisoara (Romania) on July 31, 1916. His father worked as a junior post clerk while his mother looked after the household. He attended elementary school at Prague-Dejvice, secondary school, and eventually chemical school which he completed with a GCE. He was also apprenticed to be a car mechanic. From 1934 to 1936 he did his compulsory military service at the 1st Jan Žižka of Trocnov Artillery Regiment where he reached the rank of Second Lieutenant, and after his return began to work as a chemist in the Valter factory in Prague. As of 1942 he worked at the Škoda Plant Experimental Institute in Plzeň, and after the war became a civilian employee of the Military Technology Institute in Prague. During his employment he commenced studies at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Prague, to finish all but the last two semesters. He got married in 1941 and had two daughters, Eva and Věra. In 1945 he joined the Social Democratic Party and was its member until its merger with the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1948.
While evaluating Emanuel Čančík’s post-February activity, it should be taken into account that it is largely covered with a layer of storytelling and purposeful distortions from subsequent years. It is certain that he was critical of the new conditions and discussed them with people of similar opinions. This is perhaps how a group of the regime’s opponents came into being, contemplating various possible solutions to the existing situation, establishing contacts and setting up a kind of resistance network. Many of their activities were uncoordinated, and many of them may have been incited by provocateurs who controlled their course.
In any way, Emanuel Čančík was arrested in Prague on May 17, 1949 together with a number of other people in a huge wave of arrests and accused of serious subversive activity. He was said to have set up an illegal organization, ZVON, at his workplace at the Military Technology Institute in Prague together with Karel Sladký, with the aim to stage a coup d’état on May 17. The coup was allegedly being prepared in cooperation with a number of other resistance groups. According to the judgement, they were getting ready for occupying the Czechoslovak radio premises, the Ministry of National Defence, prisons and post offices. In addition, they were accused of planning to take control of the radio transmitter in Mělník in the night from May 16 to 17. Emanuel Čančík was said to stockpile weapons for this purpose and to set up riot squads composed of scouts and members of the Sokol physical training organization. Imprisoned General Kutlvašr was to become the leader of the uprising, with the weight of his personality intended to unite all resistance organizations.
The trial of Čančík’s group was held on August 15 and 16, 1949 at the State Court in Prague (the defendants in the Action Zvon case were divided into five groups, those tried in the parallel Action Květa trial into three). Emanuel Čančík was the only one in his group to received the death penalty on charges of high treason. He was executed at Pankrác Prison on November 5, 1949, after dismissal of appeal and non-granting of pardon. Vratislav Polesný, Josef Charvát, Jaroslav Borkovec, Vratislav Janda and Květoslav Prokeš were executed on the same day, all of them as instigators of the alleged “May Putsch”. Emanuel Čančík’s daughters were 3 and 7 years old at the time of his execution.