Alexander Mach

Alexander Mach

Alexander Mach , nickname Šaňo (German also Schanjo Mach , born October 11, 1902 in Tótmegyer , † October 15, 1980 in Bratislava ) was a Slovak journalist and politician of the Ludaken . During the existence of the Slovak state he was Commander-in-Chief of the Hlinka Guard (1939–40, 1940–44) and Minister of the Interior and Vice Prime Minister (1940–45).

Along with Vojtech Tuka, Mach was considered to be the most important representative of the radical fascistophile party wing of the Ludaks and was largely responsible for the persecution of Jews in Slovakia during the Second World War .

Youth, career and politics until 1938

Mach was born on October 1, 1902 as the son of a farmer in Slovak-Meder. His father died as an Austrian soldier on the Italian front during the First World War . He attended high school in Nové Zámky . He then attended seminaries in Esztergom and Trnava from 1916 to 1922 , but finally decided not to become a priest. From 1922 he was a functionary of the Slovak People's Party; In 1925 he became their central secretary. From 1926 to 1939 Mach was editor and chief editor of the party newspaper " Slovák ".

At the age of twenty he founded youth organizations of the Slovak People's Party and gave speeches at party meetings. The then editor-in-chief of the party newspaper “Slovák”, Vojtech Tuka , who became his political mentor, introduced him to journalism . As a student, Mach read everything that Tuka published in “Slovák”. Even 30 to 40 years later, Mach recited passages from Tuka's articles to his fellow prisoners.

Despite the great age difference, the friendship between the two began in 1926 when Tuka chose Mach as his companion for the reorganization of the Rodobrana . The members of the Rodobrana openly professed the ideas of Italian fascism and revered Benito Mussolini .

“Mach was devoted to the idea of ​​Rodobrana with mind and soul. Even the two months in jail couldn't put his fire out, ”Tuka wrote.

From the beginning, Mach was considered one of the main speakers for the People's Party. Even at that time his speeches were radical, full of anti-Czech and anti-Jewish remarks. He always gave his lectures with pathos and sentimentality. Mach stated in one of his speeches:

“Also in Slovakia rule ... socialist, Jewish and legionary circles ... We will start the fight, and whoever stands against us, we will eliminate, everything and everyone. We will not look at the merits, at democracy, humanity, the president, at the interests of the synagogues and the Masonic lodges [...] we will sweep everything away so that we can march. "

The Slovak historian František Vnuk explains in his book Môj štát the principle by which Mach was guided: "Tell the people what hurts them and prescribe strong medicine for the disease."

In 1929 Mach and Vojtech Tuka were charged with high treason, but only sentenced to two months in prison for lack of evidence. He then worked as an editor and later editor-in-chief of the party newspaper "Slovák" and the newspaper "Slovenská Pravda". Mach had close contacts with literary circles, especially Milo Urban and Ladislav Novomeský .

In a short time, Mach managed to rise to the highest levels of the party. Under Tuka's supervision, he became a radical opponent of Czechoslovakia and a staunch fascist . His journalistic activities, but also his talent for speaking, helped him to become head of the propaganda department of autonomous Slovakia in 1938. Mach also became Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Hlinka Guard founded by Karol Sidor together with Karol Murgaš .

ideology

Mach was a great adversary of the Czechoslovak state; Mach called the parliamentary system of that time a dictatorship and called for its overthrow. His ideology was based on German National Socialism. Mach wrote in 1941 in the Gardista :

"Nobody is in favor of independence, for this existential condition of the nation and this fulfillment of all Slovak wishes, who is not an active and devoted supporter of German-Slovak friendship."

Mach looked for various, often coincidental, similarities between Slovak and German history, and derived his National Socialist understanding from them. According to Mach, all the great personalities in Slovak history - from Anton Bernolák to Ľudovít Štúr , Milan Rastislav Štefánik to Martin Rázus and Andrej Hlinka - were actually National Socialists. Mach even saw a Slovak Hitler in Ľudovít Štúr and explained to Štefánik:

“20 years ago Štefánik knew that we can only preserve the Slovak people if we reject Bolshevism and democracy. If Štefánik were still alive, he would have found his way to Mussolini and Hitler long ago. "

Politics 1939 to 1945

Commander in Chief of the Hlinka Guard and Minister of the Interior

Alexander Mach in Guard uniform

Alexander Mach (1941)

After the proclamation of Slovak autonomy within Czechoslovakia, Mach campaigned for a quick and complete independence of Slovakia. After Karol Sidor had to largely withdraw from Slovak politics under German pressure, Mach took over command of the paramilitary Hlinka Guard, which was led by the radical wing of the Slovak People's Party. The efforts of the radicals to take power in the new state culminated in a political crisis as early as February 1940.

In order to provoke a German intervention in Slovak domestic politics in favor of the radical party wing, Alexander Mach submitted to President Jozef Tiso on February 21, 1940 his resignation as Commander in Chief of the Hlinka Guard and Head of the Propaganda Office. Tiso initially postponed an open government crisis by rejecting Mach's resignation. Only 3 months later, when the German Reich was at war with France, did Tiso accept Mach's resignation on May 21, 1940. The new commander-in-chief of the Hlinka Guard was František Galan, a representative of Tiso's party wing. Galan immediately ordered the Hlinka Guard to be subordinate to the party organs of the HSĽS-SSNJ. In addition, all possible interference by the Hlinka Guard in the state apparatus was prohibited.

The German Reich resolved the conflict in the Salzburg dictate by directly intervening in Slovak sovereignty. The radicals, headed by Mach and Tuka, forced the recall of the previous Slovak Foreign and Interior Minister Ferdinand Ďurčanský . Mach became the new Minister of the Interior while Vojtech Tuka took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in addition to his role as Prime Minister. Mach also got his post as Commander in Chief of the Hlinka Guard back. After the Salzburg dictation, German advisors were sent to Slovakia to monitor political developments in the country in favor of the radicals.

As Minister of the Interior, Mach took action against various groups that were engaged in “subversive activity”, especially the communists. However, Mach also intervened in favor of the release of several communists. In January 1940 Mach announced to members of the Hlinka Guard:

"Every guardsman reports two to three people around him, all enemies of the state, so that we can eliminate them."

On September 10, 1941, Mach and Tuka proclaimed the so-called Jewish code through an enabling law . These 270-paragraph anti-Semitic laws were based on the German Nuremberg Laws and provided the basis for the expropriation, ostracism, internment and ultimately the extermination of over 56,000 Slovak Jews .

In 1942, after secret negotiations with the Germans, Mach and Tuka agreed - initially without the knowledge of President Jozef Tiso and the other members of the government - the deportation of Slovak Jews from Slovak territory to German "labor camps" in Poland . In the explanatory memorandum to the draft law of the deportation law signed by Mach it is stated:

“The Slovak government (has) the possibility to get rid of the Jews. The government does not want to miss this opportunity and is therefore trying to create a legal basis for the deportation of Jews. "

Mach founded his own anti-Semitic department in the Ministry of the Interior under the direction of Anton Vašek , which was supposed to organize the deportations. The first transport left Slovakia on March 25, 1942.

It was also Mach who asked Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler to send SS leaders to advise on the establishment of concentration camps in Slovakia. Along with Vojtech Tuka and Karol Murgaš, Mach was one of the leading figures of the Slovak National Socialism .

Anti-Semitism and Participation in the Holocaust

Do during a speech

Do in front of the Slovak military

Mach was anti-Jewish. Even in the autonomous Slovakia , Mach spoke out against the way in which the Tiso government tried to solve the “Jewish question” using a numerus clausus and called for more radical measures. Speaking to members of the Hlinka Guard in Rišňovce in February 1939, Mach shouted:

“The Jews, who have gold, jewels and riches, have been cleaned up everywhere. We will do that too. Anyone who has stolen something here will have it taken away. "

As head of the propaganda department he tried to create an anti-Jewish mood in the country and as interior minister he was responsible for the majority of anti-Jewish measures. After secret negotiations with the German leadership, Mach and Tuka organized the deportation of Slovak Jews to German concentration camps . Mach and Tuka organized the first transport on March 25, 1942, even before the Slovak parliament had legally passed the deportations. In response to the protests that followed soon, Mach declared that "he would continue with the deportations and take full responsibility for them".

By the end of October 1942, almost 58,000 Jews had been deported. When reports spread in public that the deported Jews were being murdered, Mach stated that "the talk about murdered Jews is a shameful invention of the Jews themselves and the enemies of the Slovak state". In 1943 he propagated further transports.

In 1944, however, he changed his mind and, contrary to the German demands to “evacuate” all Jews, he declared that “if the Jews do not blame themselves with their behavior and force it, we will not evacuate them”. Mach later claimed during his interrogation that he did not know what was happening to the Jews until 1943 and that he only found out after the Bishop of Spiš Ján Vojtaššák had written to him about it:

“Up until 1943 I saw the evacuation of all Jews and their settlement in the area around Lublina as in the Slovak interest, as a historical opportunity to get rid of the Magyarizing disgrace ... I did my thing, it is true, based on them Germans ... at the court I did not admit guilt, but what happened to the Jews is a pain. I felt all conscience as I found out what was happening to them. We have our hands and our conscience ... even in this painful tragedy. "

Relationship to the National Socialists

Although the first German envoy in Bratislava, Manfred von Killinger , was of the opinion that Mach was "loyal to Germany", his successor Hanns Ludin was already more critical of Mach:

“Do wants to become something, but he is not sure how he can achieve it better: on the solid basis of positive ministerial work or as a revolutionary hero. I am convinced that he vacillates between Tiso and Tuka. "

The Security Service of the SS finally realized in 1943 Mach German friendliness by pointing to its publications clearly in question. In 1937 Mach had put the following view on paper:

“Teutonic nationalisms are chauvinism. [...] Such nationalism is actually a disease [...] that is ruthless egoism, that is the fruit of pathological pride. [...] Yes, Bolshevism and Hitlerism are two evils which, by the power of God, are supposed to warn humanity materialized by mindless, tyrannical liberalism. "

Escape, trial and imprisonment

The Slovak National Uprising marked the political end of Mach. When the Red Army approached the capital Bratislava, Mach first had his family brought to Austria and emigrated there after the liberation of Bratislava on April 4, 1945. Mach was later taken to a detention center in Germany, from where he was extradited to the Czechoslovak authorities.

His family was moved to Budweis . Mach was transferred to Prague and imprisoned there. After two days, Mach and Jozef Tiso were put on an airplane and flown to Slovakia. Both were handcuffed by representatives of the Slovak government at the Bratislava airport.

The great trial with Tiso, Ďurčanský and Mach began at the end of 1946. The defendants were mainly accused of breaking up Czechoslovakia , then collaborating with Adolf Hitler , suppressing the Slovak national uprising and inhumane treatment of the rebels, Jews, Czechs and political opponents .

Nobody doubted that, should a death sentence be passed, it would be pronounced against the radical Mach rather than Tiso. But the opposite was the case. Tiso was hanged and Mach was sentenced to thirty years in prison. This was later reduced to 25 years (due to an amnesty in 1968 Mach ultimately only had to spend 21 years in prison). Mach also expressed surprise:

“Before the establishment of the Slovak Republic and also during its existence, Tiso's actions and views stood in a better light than mine, he was popular. Even if they had sentenced him to death, it was assumed that he would be pardoned. "

The Procurator of the competent court, Anton Rašla, explains this in his book Proces s Tisom (German The Trial with Tiso ) with the fact that Mach's closing speech was clearer and a kind of pity was felt in it, in contrast to the not very good speaker Tiso. Mach stated in court:

"Yes, I plead guilty of what you are accusing me of, but you cannot ask me to distance myself from it or to consider it sinful or shameful."

Mach, who was a gifted populist speaker, even moved some in the courtroom to tears. So cried z. B. the prosecutor Dr. J. Šujan, but also the wife of Senate Chairman Igor Daxner . After the closing speeches were held, Senate Chairman Daxner postponed the announcement of the judgments by two weeks.

In the meantime, Daxner met secretly with the court procurator Anton Rašla. Both agreed that Mach should not be punished with the death penalty, in which case they could not convict Tiso, which Daxner would not allow. And so they both came up with a perfidious solution: Rašla got Mach a doctor's certificate on which it was erroneously noted that Mach had bilateral pneumonia.

They had the surprised Mach admitted to the hospital and announced to the court that Mach could not take part in the trial until his health improved. Tiso and Ďurčanský in their absence were sentenced to death. Mach "recovered" two weeks later and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

One day later Mach was transferred to Leopoldov prison. There he met many former high officials of the Slovak People's Party, including the head of the propaganda department Tido Gašpar , General Jozef Turanec , Senate Chairman Pavol Opluštil , Minister of Economics Gejza Medrický and Minister of Finance Mikuláš Pružinký . A total of around 500 former high-ranking members of the People's Party were interned in the Leopoldov prison at the time.

After the communists came to power in 1948, Mach was one of the main witnesses in the staged trials against " bourgeois nationalists" (Husák, Novomeský, Clementis). Mach was interrogated several times but refused to make an incriminating testimony each time. For example, in the trial against Novomeský, in which Mach confirmed that he had met with Novomeský, but denied that Novomeský had made derogatory comments on the Soviet Union .

After the release

Mach was released on May 9, 1968 after 23 years in prison during the amnesty of Czechoslovak President Ludvík Svoboda . Anton Rašla in particular helped him to get his release. He suggested it to Mach as a reward for preventing rioting in the prison.

Mach was 66 years old when he was released from prison. He only observed politics from a great distance. He only met with his family and his closest circle of friends, which included Milo Urban , Pavol Čarnogurský , Janko Silan , Jozef Hoffman , Vilo Kovár and former inmates . Mach spent most of his time at his son's chata not far from Bratislava, where he wrote down his memories.

When Mach had almost completed his autobiography, the Czechoslovak secret service staged a break-in into the hut and confiscated the handwritten documents.

Death and self-judgment

Alexander Mach died on October 15, 1980. In 2003, his son Roman managed to get his father's memories back from the Archives of the Interior Ministry. After Mach's release, the well-known journalist Juraj Špitzer had long-term conversations with Mach, some of which he published in the book Svitá, až keď je celkom tma .

Mach is said to have said to Špitzer once:

“I was shocked when I found out that the Jews in Poland were being liquidated en masse. No, that's not supposed to be an excuse, I really didn't find out until the summer of 1942. I wanted Slovakia without Jews, but not at the cost of murder. "

This is how Mach assessed the anti-Jewish measures of Aryanization and compulsory deportation after years :

“... it is difficult to argue that we were not the only state in history that used such a - I admit - inhumane method of a certain social or national group. I do not evade the answer, it was the height of inhumanity. "

Relationship with the communists

Mach made no secret of his sympathies for the young Slovak communists, whom he describes in his defense speech as those who work without advantage, self-sacrificing and enthusiastically and do not think about their careers or financial gains. He met regularly with the so-called parlor communists such as Novomeský , Clementis or Husák in a wine bar, where they drank together, played cards and discussed politics.

After Mach's conviction, claims persisted that his friendship with some Communists had saved him from the death penalty. It was supposedly thanks that Mach held his "protective hands" over some communists during the time of the First Slovak Republic. This is how František Vnuk writes:

"A close friendship developed between Novomeský and Mach, which not only benefited Novomeský, but also many communists who were caught in preparation for 'illegal activities'."

literature

• Alexander Mach: Z ďalekých ciest ; [From a long distance]; Matica slovenská, Martin 2009, ISBN 978-80-7090-915-7 .
• Israel Gutman (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Holocaust - The persecution and murder of European Jews , Piper Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1998, 3 volumes, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 . (Entry: Mach, Alexander).
• František Vnuk : Mať svoj štát znamená život. Politická biografia Alexandra Macha [ Having your own state means life. Political biography of Alexander Mach.] Odkaz, Bratislava 1991, ISBN 80-85193-11-6 .

swell

• Šaňo Mach - Židom strach! www.zena.sme.sk (online) (Slovak)
• www.referaty.aktuality.sk (online) (Slovak)

Web links

• Newspaper article about Alexander Mach in the press kit of the 20th century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sano Mach in the Munzinger archive , accessed on July 23, 2011 ( beginning of article freely accessible)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j} Šaňo Mach - Židom strach! www.zena.sme.sk, accessed on May 29, 2011 (online) (Slovak)
3. ^ Jörg Konrad Hoensch: Studia Slovaca: Studies on the history of the Slovaks and Slovakia . Page 212 (online)
4. ↑ Ludwig Richter, Alfrun Kliems : Slovak culture and literature in the self and external understanding . Page 37 (online)
5. ↑ Hannes Stekl, Elena Mannová: Heroes, Myths, Identities: Slovakia and Austria in Comparison. P. 213 (online)
6. ↑ Attempts by the Reich Foreign Minister to recall Karol Sidor as a result of the negotiations in Salzburg, by Beáta Katrebobá-Blehová, p. 435 u. 436 (online) (Slovak; PDF; 247 kB)
7. ^ Jörg Konrad Hoensch: Studia Slovaca: Studies on the history of the Slovaks and Slovakia , p. 242 u. 243 (online)
8. ↑ My Two Lives: Memories of a Holocaust Survivor By Lotte Weiss, p. 184 (online)
9. ↑ Christoph Dieckmann: Cooperation and crime: forms of "collaboration" in Eastern Europe . P. 44 (online)
10. ↑ Lotte Weiss: My Two Lives: Memories of a Holocaust Survivor . P. 195 (online)
11. ↑ ^{a b} Christoph Dieckmann : Cooperation and Crime: Forms of "Collaboration" in Eastern Europe ... , page 33 (online)
12. ↑ Quotes by and about Jozef Tiso 1913–1947 (online) (Slovak)