page_title: Milan Paumer
section_title: After the escape
hierarchical_section_title: Milan Paumer / After the escape
caption_attribution_description: Milan Paumer
context_page_description: Milan Paumer was a member of a militant Czechoslovak anticommunist resistance group that attracted worldwide fame – and notoriety – for killing seven men in the early 1952s in robberies of money and arms and for evading the biggest manhunt in the history of the Eastern Bloc. His five-man group, the Mašín Gang, carried out raids against state institutions in Czechoslovakia before being forced to flee to the West in October 1953. The group crossed the Czech border to East Germany, making their way to West Berlin while an estimated 25,000 East German policemen, soldiers and secret agents were searching for them. Two of their members were wounded in shootouts in which a total of four East German policemen were killed, but Paumer and the remaining two members of the Mašín Gang successfully made it to the West and ultimately to the United States.
  After returning to the Czech Republic following the fall of Communism, Paumer retired to his old home town. He remained a controversial figure who was reviled by some as a murderer but hailed by others as a heroic resistance figure.
context_section_description: Paumer and the Mašíns claimed political asylum in the West after their escape and eventually managed to reach the United States. Paumer himself became a sergeant in the United States Army and served in South Korea. He worked in the aeronautical industry in Florida after leaving the Army and later ran a café. Following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, which ended Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, the outstanding warrants against Paumer and the Mašíns were quashed by the new government. Paumer returned to his native country and settled again at Poděbrady, where he retired in 2001. He remained active in politics and was a frequent attendant at anticommunist gatherings.
  His story was documented in the 2006 book Gauntlet: five friends, 20,000 enemy troops, and the secret that could have changed the course of the Cold War by Barbara Mašín (ISBN 9781591145158).
caption: Milan Paumer
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