Národní soud, Praha

The “national cleansing”, the prosecution of collaborators, Nazi war criminals and national traitors was one of the most important goals of the Czechoslovak government after the liberation. It was based on three presidential decrees – the Decree n. 16 (the Major Decree) which established the Extraordinary People´s Courts on the level of regional courts, the Decree n. 138 (the Minor Decree) which established the District Criminal Inquiring Commissions by the district offices and which should investigate even small crimes and offences against the “national honour”, and the Decree n. 17 which established the National Tribunal for the prominent war criminals on the national level such as the members of the Protectorate government, members of economic leadership, heads of national Nazi or Fascist organizations or journalists which participated on the propaganda.

After 1947, the documents and court files of the National Tribunal were stored at the Ministry of Justice and were often used in restored cases and for other purposes. The documents were transferred to the National Archives in 1988 and after 1989, thanks to many requests for research, the fonds was processed and inventoried. There are several files discovered as missing during the processing, they can be mostly find in the fonds of the Extraordinary People´s Court of Praha.