'secret service' - tagged features

A German film entitled “Die Fälscher” premiered at the 2007 Berlin Film festival – “The Counterfeiter” examines a little-known but rather fascinating episode in the Second World War. The Nazis thought they could cause the collapse of the American and British economies by flooding them with counterfeit banknotes. The Jewish printers making the fake money survived the Holocaust. Adolf Burger was one of them. Radio Prague’s Ian Willoughby brought us his incredible story. 

The constitutional court in Poland last week shot down a vetting law aimed at purging ex-communist agents out of public life. The 11-judge panel declared unconstitutional numerous clauses equiring members of certain professions, including journalists, to declare whether they had collaborated with the communist-era secret police. The ruling was a rebuke to President Lech Kaczynski and his twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who campaigned on rooting out communists. Michal Kubicki of Polish Radio’s External Service reports that in reaction to this decision, some in Poland are now looking to open communist police archives to the public. 

A new German film examines a little-known but fascinating episode in the Second World War. The Nazis had the amazing idea of causing the collapse of the American and British economies – by flooding them with counterfeit banknotes. The Jewish printers who made the fake money survived the Holocaust. Adolf Burger was one of them. Radio Prague’s Ian Willoughby has his incredible story. 

Polish military intelligence disbanded last year was involved in illegal activities and exerted illegitimate influence on Polish public life after the fall of communism, according to a just published government report. Polish Radio's Joanna Najfeld reports. 

The Czech daily Lidove Noviny recently published details of a little-known footnote in Cold War history; browsing through the archives of Czechoslovakia's communist-era secret police or StB, the paper discovered that among the foreign journalists regularly followed on his trips to Prague was one Frederick Forsyth. Today known as the best-selling author of such classics as the Day of the Jackal and the Odessa File, back in the early 1960s Frederick Forsyth was a young journalist based in Berlin. Rob Cameron called the novelist at his home in Hertfordshire, England, and asked him to reflect on his trips to communist Prague at the height of the Cold War. 

After a meeting late last week, the Polish Roman Catholic Episcopate has announced the intention to purge the Church of communist ties, disclosing documents concerning the cooperation of a minority of priests and bishops with Poland's communist regime. The meeting followed the resignation of archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who was about to be installed as the metropolitan of Warsaw, but admitted to having had links with the communist security police. 

The resignation of the newly appointed archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, two days after he admitted that he'd collaborated with the communist secret services and only hours before his formal investiture ceremony, is surely one of the most important events in the history of the Polish Church. How serious is the crisis in the Church and what are the chances for healing the wounds? Michal Kubicki reports.