Marginalia Historica is a peer-reviewed academic journal focused on the history of education, including dissemination of knowledge in general and institutional forms of education and schools in particular. It presents hitherto unpublished scholarly studies, book reviews, and event reports from the Czech lands within a Central European context. The journal was published between 1996 and 2004 by the Department of History and History Didactics of the Faculty of Education at Charles University first as an irregular anthology, with eight issues in total; following 2010, publication was resumed in a regular semi-annual period both in print and online.
MARGINALIA HISTORICA, Vol 14 No 2 (2023), 9–57
ArticleNa československém nebi i ve španělských zákopech – Rudolf John (1912–2000)
[From Czechoslovak Skies to Spanish Trenches – Rudolf John (1912–2000)]
David Majtenyi
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/30298393.2025.12
published online: 23. 01. 2026
abstract
The following study deals with the life of Rudolf John (1912–2000) from Šumperk in northern Moravia. A graduate of the School for Aviation Cadets, he had served as the Czechoslovak Army Air Force’s NCO until he was forced to quit in 1935. In January 1937, the Spanish Civil War saw John volunteering in the Dimitrov infantry battalion, where he got seriously wounded. He returned, newly wed to a Spanish wife, to Czechoslovakia in the autumn of 1938. He spent the following wartime years in Šumperk engaged in the resistance until he was arrested by the Gestapo in March 1944 and subsequently jailed in Troppau, Theresienstadt and Dresden. After the country’s liberation, John resumed his family life in Šumperk, worked as a cinema manager and used his experience in aviation to help establish a local flying club.
keywords: International brigades; Spanish Civil War 1936–1939; Czechoslovak Army Air Force; Šumperk
Na československém nebi i ve španělských zákopech – Rudolf John (1912–2000) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
148 x 210 mm
periodicity: 2 x per year
ISSN: 1804-5367
E-ISSN: 3029-8393
