Colonel in memoriam Karel Pavlík
Adapted with permission from the editors of A Report
Citace - A report 5/2004 :
Captain Karel PAVLIK (Colonel in memoriam)
Commander of the machine gun company - the only unit that resisted the occupation of the Czechoslovakia
* 19. 10. 1900 † 26. 1. 1943
Captain Karel Pavlik was a Czechoslovak officer from 1921. Pavlik was a member of the army from 1921. In March 1939 he found himself with his 3rd Battalion of the 8th Infantry Regiment "Silesian" in Czajanek's factory in Místek. Coincidentally, on the evening of March 14, the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Stepina, was recalled to the garrison headquarters. At the moment when the German motorized column arrived at the factory, Captain Pavlik was in command of the unit. After an unsuccessful German attempt to occupy the entrance to the factory, Captain Karel Pavlik gave the order to organize the defense and manned the light machine gun himself in combat.
There were about three hundred soldiers in the factory. Most of them, however, were recruits who had been in the army for only a few weeks. Fortunately, however, the barracks also housed a Polish language course, which was attended by experienced non-commissioned officers. And so the attacking Germans were caught off guard by the tenacious resistance. Captain Pavlik even commissioned Lieutenant Martinek to form a strike group from the volunteers. Its task was to attack the Germans from the flank. However, this breakthrough failed. The soldiers then fortified themselves in the factory.
The resistance of the defenders ceased only after the exhaustion of all ammunition on the order of the regimental commander. There were no dead on the Czech side, only two soldiers were slightly wounded. Figures on German casualties vary. The more sober ones speak of six German soldiers killed. After the disarmament, all the defenders were originally to be taken to Pribor and then transported from there to a prisoner of war camp. However, the commander of the German column decided otherwise. The officers were released to go home and the soldiers were taken back to the barracks. Not counting the fighting in Subcarpathian Rus, the battle of Czajanka Factory in March 1939 represented the only resistance of our army for several hours.
After the occupation of the republic, Karel Pavlik cooperated with Karel Zbytek, who was the liaison between the Protectorate and the Czechoslovak embassy in Poland. He also participated in the founding of the Ostrava underground organization "For the Fatherland". Later, when he was transferred to Prague, he established a connection with resistance fighters from the circle of Skt. Václav Morávka and cooperated with the "Jindra" organization. He took part in expeditions in search of material dropped on our territory by British planes. During a conspiratorial meeting on 4 September 1942, he was arrested despite armed resistance. After torture and repeated interrogations, he was executed at Mauthausen in January 1943. After the war he received the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939 in memoriam.
Prepared by: Vladimír MAREK
Photo: archive
Adapted with permission from the editors of A Report