In August 1945, three months after Germany surrendered, Czechoslovak airmen and women left the RAFVR and returned to Czechoslovakia. Mansfeld initially worked for the Ministry of Defence in Prague and then was posted to Plzeň in Bohemia as commander of the 24th Bomber Regiment. But in February 1948 the Czechoslovak Communist Party seized power and on 12 April Mansfeld was placed on enforced leave as part of a purge that removed non-Communists from the Czechoslovak Army and air force.