In February 1940, French veterans of the World War I gave Czechoslovak soldiers a small flag representing the Czechoslovak national flag. It became a symbol of the First Infantry Regiment. In the chaos of running fights in summer 1940, the small flag got lost and captured by the enemy. Then it was exhibited in the Military Museum in Berlin, being next to other war trophies from Polish, French and British armies. In 1943, the museum was visited by a group of Czech young men who had been forced labour in the Third Reich. One of them stole the small flag symbolising a defeat of the Czechoslovak troop from the exposition and took it to the Protectorate, where he gave it to his schoolmate for safekeeping. That young man, Adolf Gabler, died during the bombing of Pardubice. The carefully hidden small flag was presented to the Ministry of the National Defence after the war.