The way a communist state handles border control is key to handling internal dissidents. It’s always about tracking who goes out, as well as who goes in. Operation Border Stone in Czechoslovakia took this policy to another level.

Czechoslovak border control

By 1948 people had started emigrating to the “capitalist” West since 1948. This was not long after the war finished so conditions were still grim in the West. It’s telling that communist Czechoslovakia was worse than bombed-out Austria or Germany.

In 1951, Czechoslovakis established an armed border guard. Known as PS “Pohraniční Stráž”, the bulk of its attention went to the border with Austria and West Germany¹.

They installed electric barbed-wire fencing carrying to 6 000 volts¹. This physical manifestation of the Iron Curtain became a symbol of communism. Twenty metres of land behind the fence was ploughed to make it easier to spot footprints¹. Towers sprung up along this border – 314 along the western border alone¹. The authorities also kept a buffer zone between the fence and the exit from the country. This “forbidden zone” was not uniform and ranged from 2 – 20 kilometres in width¹.

In total, the border occupied 1% of Czechoslovakia’s land mass¹.

Operation Border Stone

In Feb 1948², Czechoslovak intelligence services thought up an ingenious and diabolical plan to capture dissidents trying to escape. In those days no one had access to precise maps or location-based services. Once you got to the border, you knew where you were because you saw the border.

Banking on this ignorance, Operation Border Stone (Operační Kámen) showed how easy it is to deceive people³.

This wasn’t the only way the authorities deceived people – Operation Neptune was another Czechoslovak deception campaign.

They built a fake border 50 kilometres inland around key crossings into West Germany and Austria⁴. The fake West German border crossing had offices decorated with American flags and pictures of US President Truman^{2 3 4}. Anyone crossing the fake border wouldn’t think twice about talking to “American” agents.

The “Americans” greeted the would-be escapees, with foreign branded cigarettes like Lucky Strikes^{2 4}. They would ask for information of the anti-communist opposition in the country⁴. They would ask for information of the anti-communist opposition in the country. Many people gave up vital information including names and places, hoping for help. From this point onwards, the “Americans” would do one of two things⁴:

• Ask the escapee to take a signed copy of the interview notes to another American office. In the dark, the escapees would be “captured” by Czechoslovak guards. They couldn’t deny their guilt because they carried a signed copy of their own confession. Many victims believed they strayed over the border back into Czechoslovakia.
• The second ploy was to “reject” asylum requests and to turn them over to the Czechoslovak Border Force. Dissidents thought the US was collaborating with the Czechoslovak authorities. Such a demoralising story spread like wildfire at first.

In this way the StB learned the identities of other opponents of communist rule. They arrested all these dissidents along with the would-be refugees^{3 4}. Everyone ended up in prison or sentenced to hard labour. Whether they got life sentences, death sentences or 20 years of prison, few survived. The Czechoslovak security services confiscated their property and possessions. It wasn’t unheard of for the officers involved kept the property and items themselves.

Historians believe the rouse resulted in almost 300 prison sentences. Sixteen refugees received a death sentence⁴. 

Ending it all

On 15 June 1948, the US government protested about how Czechoslovak guards were patrolling their border using American uniforms and insignia, a claim the Czechoslovaks rejected².

In 1951, Radio Free Europe broadcast a warning about it. Word spread but the operation lasted a few more years while it still worked.

References

1. Exhibition at the Museum of Communism; As witnessed by author; 2022[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
2. KAMEN: A Cold War Dangle Operation with an American Dimension, 1948–52; Igor Lukes; Studies in Intelligence Vol. 55, No. 1 (Extracts, March 2011) [↩][↩][↩][↩]
3. Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations; Richard Trahair; 2012-01-10[↩][↩][↩]
4. Flüchtlingsfalle an der falschen Grenze; Der Spiegel; 2013-11-01[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]

Remember: links were correct at time of publication.