Major Augustin Schramm (March 2, 1907, Liberec

Liberec

Liberec is a city in the Czech Republic. Located on the Lusatian Neisse and surrounded by the Jizera Mountains and Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge, it is the fifth-largest city in the Czech Republic....

 – May 27, 1948, Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

) was a ethnic German

Ethnic German

Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...

 Czechoslovak

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 communist professional and NKVD

NKVD

The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....

 agent. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia

The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....

 (KSČ) in 1930s. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 Schramm was a political commissar

Political commissar

The political commissar is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military...

 (rank of major

Major

Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...

) at a training school for partisan parachuters in the USSR, and after the war he was Head of the Partisans‘ Affair Department at KSČ HQ, and at Czechoslovakian Ministry of Defence too, and co-ordinator of his own intelligence network.

Schramm was often suspected of playing the key role in the assassination of Jan Masaryk

Jan Masaryk

Jan Garrigue Masaryk was a Czech diplomat and politician and Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia from 1940 to 1948.- Early life :...

, democratic Foreign Minister, after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia on February 25, 1948. However, there isn’t enough evidence to support this claim. He was shot dead in his own flat two and half months later. The Communist political police and justice prosecuted, sentenced and executed Miloslav Choc, a young anticommunist. However, there are indications that Schramm was a man who knew too much, and his murder was a cover-up ordered by the NKVD and Communist parties' authorities. Late Major A. Schramm was celebrated as a „martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

 of Communism“ before the Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution

The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that took place from November 17 – December 29, 1989...

in 1989.