Auction 88
Historical Militaria, Autographs, and Ephemera Auction, Feb. 8 & 9, 2021
By Alexander Historical Auctions LLC
Contact auction house
Feb 8, 2021
98 Bohemia Ave., St. 2, Chesapeake City, MD 21915, United States
Terms of sale
View demo
1,400 lots of historical militaria from all conflicts; historical autographs and ephemera from all fields of collecting.
The auction has ended
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LOT 296:
WANTED POSTER FOR CZECH RESISTANCE FIGHTER, JAN SMUDEK
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Sold for: $380
Start price:
$
100
Estimated price :
$200 - $300
Buyer's Premium: 30%
More details
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WANTED POSTER FOR CZECH RESISTANCE FIGHTER, JAN SMUDEK
Rare reward poster, 25.75 in. x 18.5 in., issued in Prague on March 29, 1940, offering a 100,000 Czech Crown reward for the arrest of JAN SMUDEK (1915 - 1999) for assassinating a German police officer. The poster is printed in both Czech and German. Shows folds, pin holes at lower margin, else very good to fine. Soon after the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia, Smudek decided to join the resistance movement and was tasked with stockpiling weapons. On 7 June 1939, Smudek, along with his friend Frantisek Petr, shot and killed Wilhelm Kniest, a German police officer. The subsequent Nazi response led to arrest of 111 people, of whom two died in prison and the others were transported to Buchenwald concentration camp. Smudek and his friend fled to Prague, then fled the country, eventually passing through Algeria and Morocco and countless other countries. Smudek's life inspired the classical American film 'Casablanca' in 1942.
