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5: CASE STUDY 2: THE CZECH/AUSTRIAN BORDER
Archival research was carried out both at the Military Archives, Brno, Czech
Republic and at the National Archives, Kew, UK. As with my research in Italy
and Slovenia these studies were not meant to be a full archival and documentary
study but rather the documents obtained were a way to help understand
the material. Language was a problem with the archives in the Czech Republic
as I do not speak Czech but this was mitigated to some extent with archival
staff translating and explaining some of the material. These studies, however,
made it possible to understand the type of material produced about the
former militarised borders. I was offered help and information by Czech
historian Prokov Tomek at the Military History Institute in Prague and by
Pavel Vanek, curator at the Military Archives in Brno.
Another source for this study has been the Army Forum Website. Here
former soldiers can discuss and remember their time in the army and as
border guards, they can upload photos and images both recent and from their
time of service and arrange reunions with soldiers that served at the same
time as themselves. This was a useful source as it provided photos taken at the
border guard stations that are not available elsewhere as photography was
officially not allowed in the border zone. Through this website I was able to
get in contact with three former border guards previously stationed at
different border brigades along the Czechoslovakian border.
Apart from interviewing people during my fieldwork in the area I have
also conducted interviews via email correspondence with three former
Czechoslovakian border guards and one Austrian man who had travelled
extensively along the border since the early 1990s. The interviewees in this
study area were almost exclusively male, ranging in age from their 30s to
their 60s, and this is a reflection of the fact that most of the people that were
willing to talk to me were those that had a connection with the former militarised
border here. Getting in contact with people here I was mostly relying
on responses from the Army Forum and through my guide whilst visiting
the area, a person who also turned out to himself be a great source of
personal stories and knowledge about the area.
My main methods of recording were primarily photography and taking
notes occasionally supported by drawings where I felt I needed to make
things more clear or put some features in relations to others, for example
over the buildings at the border guards stations. Remains in the landscape
were recorded on maps in order to document their location and get an
understanding of their distribution throughout the area.
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