Selner, Jaroslav

Lieutenant General Jaroslav Selner



* 05.05.1906, Kladno
+ 11.01.1973




Lieutenant General Jaroslav Selner was born on 5.5.1906 in Štěpánov No. 41 near Kladno. He was supposedly a descendant of one of the leaders of the famous Chod uprising, Jan Selner, a constable from Újezda in Domažlice. He started attending the municipal school in Kročehlave on 16 September 1912. He was an active trainee of Sokol. After graduating from the Real Gymnasium and the Infantry School in Hranice (1926), he held a number of command and staff positions in the First Republican Army. He graduated from the military war school in 1939. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, he became a member of the resistance organisation Defence of the Nation and only by coincidence did the Gestapo fail to capture him. Afterwards, Staff Captain J. Selner fled to the Middle East via Slovakia and Yugoslavia and in 1940 joined a Czechoslovak battalion commanded by Colonel Karel Klapálek. He fought in 1941 in besieged Tobruk where he was wounded by a mine and miraculously escaped. After the transfer of the Czechoslovak Anti-Aircraft Regiment to England, he worked in the intelligence department of the Ministry of Defence, headed by one of the most famous intelligence officers mentioned in the history of World War II, Colonel František Moravec.


In late 1944, at his own request, he followed his former commander Karel Klapalek to Czechoslovak troops in the Soviet Union. He became Chief of Staff of the 3rd Czechoslovak Independent Brigade, which Klapálek commanded and later, after the fighting at Dukla, took command of. Its assault, the breaking of the defences and the subsequent successful threat to the elite German SS units led to the final capture of the town, whose liberation after many weeks of fierce fighting claimed hundreds of casualties on the part of our and Soviet troops. The commanding general Bohumil Bocek, in congratulating the brigade commander on the successful attack and capture of Liptovský Mikuláš, said: "Colonel, what you personally and the members of your brigade have done today, your country will never forget". He had no idea, nor could he have known, how deeply mistaken he was.


A few days after the war, the country was welcoming its heroes, and on 17 May Colonel Selner rode his horse into Old Town Square, filled with enthusiastic Prague citizens. A few days later, he met his wife in Prague. In an adventurous way, of course: on the main street in Dejvice, the actress Věra Skálová almost ran under the wheels of a trophy Bavarian. The wedding took place in January 1946. After the liberation of our country, Colonel J. Selner became the commander of the 3rd Division stationed in Kroměříž. As a division commander he was sent to study at the Higher Military Academy of the General Staff in Moscow, where he graduated in May 1947 and became head of the Department of Tactics at the War College in Prague. On 6.1.1949, he was appointed Colonel General of the General Staff. J. Selner was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. The recipient of four 1939 Czechoslovak War Crosses, the Order of the British Empire, the Order of the White Lion, the SNP Order of the First Class, the Soviet Order of the Red Star and many other Czech and Allied decorations, he had no idea what a landmark the victory of the working people would become for him and many of his fellow soldiers.


"As an inveterate enemy of the People's Democratic Establishment, you are dismissed from the Czechoslovak People's Army with immediate effect, without any right to a retirement allowance and..." More terse wording leading to the order to report to the personnel department of the Ostrava mines. He spent several years in Ostrava, then worked in the Kladno steelworks, a job as a shunter on the railway, "promotion" to teacher and later even deputy director of the apprenticeship school, and finally partial rehabilitation in 1968. It consisted in granting the right to wear a uniform and the allocation of a 2+1 flat in Prague-Hloubětín. On his request for at least a formal return to army service for a few months and thus moral rehabilitation, the colonel at the Ministry of National Defence responded by saying: "But, comrade general, service for the Fatherland does not pay." With bitterness and a sense of disappointment, he replied, "You are right, Colonel. Service for the Fatherland does not pay, but it should not be punished."


Lieutenant General Jaroslav Selner died on 11 January 1973. In 1991, President of the Republic Václav Havel promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant General in memoriam. Together with Army General Alois Liška and Major General Karel Strankmüller, he became a member of the Hall of Knights of the XXth Century, which was opened at the castle in Brandýs nad Labem on 11 November 2006.


The decoration :
Order of the White Lion
Order of the British Empire
Romanian Order of the Royal Crown
Order of the Slovak National Uprising 1st Class
Soviet Order of the Red Star
4 x Czechoslovak War Cross
Czechoslovakia. Order of the Red Star
For Merit 1st Class
For bravery before the enemy
British Africa Star Medal
Soviet For Victory over Germany
For the Liberation of Prague





Source :
Selner, Jaroslav ; Cinger, František: Generál z rodu rebelů, BVD Publishing, ISBN: 80-87090-04-7
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