Jaroslav Sustar Papers, 1914-1992

Jaroslav Sustar (1908-1988) was born in Pardubice, Czech Republic. In 1935, he graduated from the Military Academy in Hranice. Then he studied at the University of War Studies in Prague. In 1938, Sustar joined the staff of the 1st Czechoslovak Division. After the German invasion, he fled to France via Yugoslavia to avoid Gestapo persecution. In 1941, Captain Sustar was evacuated to Britain and began recruiting men from the Czechoslovak Division in England to participate in secret operations. Called Special Group "D", the recruits went to Special Training Centers located in remote parts of England and Scotland and formed a special group trained to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich. The top Nazi leader was the Chief of Reich Security Office, the "Protector of Bohemia and Moravia", and the chief planner of the Final Solution, the Nazi term for the genocide of the Jews. On May 27, 1942, two members of the group assassinated Heydrich who later died in the hospital.

In June 1944, Jaroslav Sustar was appointed Czechoslovak military attaché in China. He returned to his homeland after the war and worked for the Ministry of Defense. From November 1946, he was Ministry of Defence representative with the Military Mission of the Allied Control Commission in Berlin. He went into exile in 1948, after the Communist takeover.

In the U.S. Jaroslav Sustar was a radio and television journalist in the Pittsburgh area and a lecturer at universities before becoming director of Allegheny Academy in Gibsonia, Pa., where he worked in the 1960s and early 1970s. During the celebration of the U.S. Bicentennial, he was executive vice president of the National Conference of American Ethnic Groups. He had also been deputy director behind the International Studies Institute at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa. He worked with the FBI as an intelligence research specialist for 10 years. Jaroslav Sustar was an active member of anti-Communist organizations in the U.S. He died in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1988.