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Here you can find information about how to search in the evidences of the Communist security services which were active especially on the territory of former Czechoslovakia. This is a one-stop overview of available online search engines, databases and other resources, with brief information about their creation and administrators. The information is updated regularly.
In November 1999 Petr Cibulka published an amendment to his original lists from 1992. On the website www.cibulka.com you can find the list of the staff members of the State security as of 17 November 1989. What is missing in the database are the staff members of the Passports and visas Directorate, the Statistics and evidence Section and some other entities of the State security. However it contains several thousand names of State security staff members who left the Ministry of Interior
before 1989. The site also contains a list of collaborators of the State security created by the transcription of the file register of the State security – see the section “persons in the State security evidence”.
On the website of the Security Services Archive (www.abscr.cz/cs/pruvodce-po-fondech-a-sbirkach-l) you can find a list and a search engine for all employees of the Ministry of Interior for whom a personnel file has been preserved (both staff members of the State security and the Public security, as well as civilian employees). The archival records are kept in the depository of the Security Services Archive in Kanice near Brno. The files of all employees of the Ministry of Interior born before 1910 were shredded in the past.
On the website of the web project of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes www.ustrcr.cz/cs/ministerstvo-vnitra-personalie from the year 2009 you can find the list of the staff members of some Directorates of the State security – the state of personnel as of 17 November 1989 (e.g. the foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, military counterintelligence, the Directorate for the fight against the internal enemy and some others). For some staff members, there are also scans of their personal evidence cards containing their course of service, awarded distinctions or attained ranks.
The website of the Nation’s Memory Institute in Slovakia www.upn.gov.sk/obdobie-1945-1989/utvary-a-prislusnici-stb-a-ps contains the lists of staff members of the State security and Border guards in Slovakia with their course of service. The alphabetical list of the staff members is here.
The website of Stanislav Penc www.svazky.cz/sekce/Zamestnanaci_StB offers links to scanned orders of Minister of Interior Richard Sacher by means of which he “abolished” the State security in February 1990. Originally they were published on the website www.celovsky.cz and were published in print in Bořivoj Čelovský’s book "Slova do větru" (Words in the wind).
The search engine www.cibulka.com contains a partial transcript of the registration protocols of the Czechoslovak State security. The lists of collaborators were first published in print on 4 June 1992 in Necenzurované noviny (Uncensored newspaper) published by Petr Cibulka. Despite later amendments, the transcript is not complete. What is missing for example is the entire protocol of secret collaborators of the Regional Directorate in Ostrava in the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s. During the transcript also an error was made and the category KI (informer candidate) was transcribed as D (confidant). However the large advantage of the website is that it also contains the Slovak regions and that no deletions were undertaken in the data based on court decisions. Several tens of collaborators of the State security had to be deleted from the official website of the Security Services Archive based on court decisions.
During the conversion of the table an error was made and some registration numbers were distorted. For instance number 12345 of the Regional Directorate Prague which has the code 01 can be found on the web twice: once as 12345 and in the distorted form as 234501, where the denotation of the region is at the end and the first digit is missing.
The search engine of the Security Services Archive (ABS) contains the registers of the counterintelligence entities of the State security, the registration and archival protocols of the foreign intelligence, the registration protocols of the military counterintelligence and the archival protocols of the Intelligence service of the Chief of staff (ZSGŠ). The website also contains the reigstation and archival protocols prior to 1954, when the file register was created. It further contains the personnel orders of the chief of the foreign intelligence. It should therefore contain the names of all staff members of the Communist intelligence service including the so-called non-legals, i.e. persons active abroad for long periods of time under assumed identities (see Václav Jelínek alias Erwin van Haarlem). The ZSGŠ evidences have the peculiarity that persons having only a number listed in the column “code name” are in reality staff members of the ZSGŠ. On this website, you can download the respective registration and archival protocols and store them on your computer, which we warmly recommend. One never knows....
The search engine of the Nation’s Memory Institute (ÚPN) in Slovakia www.upn.gov.sk/regpro contains the registration protocols of the State security of the Slovak regional Directorates and the protocols of the central office of the State security. Although the central office can also be found in the search engine of the Czech Security Services Archive, it is always good to check the search engine of the ÚPN as well. It may be that the person you are looking for was deleted by court decision from the site of the Security Services Archive.
The website of Stanislav Penc www.svazky.cz. The search engine accesible here contains the Slovak version of the former main counterintelligence database: Record of Persons of Interest (EZO). The database contains all persons registered as “live“ in the operative evidence as of 17 November 1989 as well as persons for which a file is deposited in the archives of the ÚPN or Security Services Archive (ABS). In contrast to the ABS search engine the EZO also contains persons for which an investigation file of the Investigation Directorate of the State security exists. In its original form the database also contained names of persons designated for contact with state secret (so-called OST). Currently some of the data have been removed from the database and Stanislav Penc manipulates the data whereby it is not clear on he base of which criteria he interfered with the evidence.
Persons in the evidences of the ZSGŠ: The second search tool of the Security Services Archive (https://www.abscr.cz/jmenne-evidence/) contains archival protocols delimited from the Ministry of Defence (MO) to the SSA. They are ten archival protocols (arch. No. 00001 through 43130 books 1 through 9 and 50001 through 51710 book 10). 42,734 entries of these were handed over. The remainder were made illegible and the archival records were not delimited to the ABS. That means that for 2,106 files the archiving data were made illegible and they were not handed over to the SSA. Archival protocols 39501 through 43130 and 50001 through 51710 were handed over only in black and white xerox copies. Later on, the MO requested that another several hundred entries be made illegible. The books can be downloaded on the abovementioned websites. Collaborators of the ZSGŠ were evidenced in different categories than those of the State security. If a number appears as the code name, it is a staff member of the ZSGŠ.
The list of State security units: The website of the Security Services Archive www.abscr.cz/cs/seznam-utvaru-snb contains the list of all units of the National Security Corps which belonged to the State security. All staff members of these units were members of the State security. The website also presents the organisational orders and the timeframe during which the unit belonged to the State security, when the unit was established or abolished.
The ABS funds: The list of funds and collections of the Security Services Archive (ABS) is available on www.abscr.cz/cs/pruvodce-po-fondech-sbirkach. There are scanned individual archival aids in which you an find concrete archival signatures.
Lists of the Polish State security : On the website of Stanislav Penc about the town of Jičín and surroundings www.odboj.jicinsko.cz/pl.htm you can download the unofficial lists of the Polish IPN.
The Russian NGO Memorial disclosed staff members of the Soviet repressive body NKVD from the period 1935 - 1939 The database contains more than 40,000 entries.from the period 1935 - 1939
(Poland) Staff members of the Ministry of Interior (Poland) : The Catalogue of the officers of the security apparatus si published on the website of the Polish IPN. The database contains more than 62,700 entries about persons.
Staff members of the Ministry of Interior (Hungary) : The website of the Historical archives of the state security services of Hungary publishes lists – personnel evidence cards of staff members of the State security and the Ministry of Interior.
Desehistory.com (Bulgaria): The Bulgarian website about the State security committee „Drzhavna sigornost“ publishes lists of staff members, orders and further intersting materials of Bulgarian provenience.
The Central Intelligence Agency Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room
Russian language web project shieldandsword.mozohin.ru publishes large amount of documents and information about the history of former NKVD, KGB, GRU and its satellites (East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria)
Wilson Center Digital Archive (USA): The US website International History Declassified presents a number of interesting historical documents from the areas of diplomacy, intelligence services (USSR, ČSSR, Hungary, GDR, Poland,…) etc.