The Czech Bestiary

The book entitled The Czech Bestiary brings the stories of several men who utterly failed and succumbed to totalitarian ideologies during the 20th century. In the name of the ideologies,, they wrote poems, taught children, denounced other people to the Gestapo and the communist secret police, attended meetings of the Flag (Czech fascist, antisemitic and nationalist movement) and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and expelled and murdered Germans. Some did so for personal gain, others believed in happy tomorrows, whether National Socialist or Socialist. The dramatic, sometimes even bizarre stories of Jaroslav Nachtmann, Miroslav Hnát/Hanuš, Jindřich Cink, Ludvík Špirk, Vladimír Smrčina, Josef Rejthar, Jaroslav Čermák, and Miloš Cettl will hopefully be a sufficient warning for readers not to succumb to false prophets.