Augustín Morávek

Augustín Morávek (born July 15, 1901 in Trnava ; † unknown) was a Slovak economic functionary and politician . As chairman of the Central Economic Office from 1940 to 1942 he was primarily responsible for the liquidation and Aryanization of Jewish businesses and properties in the First Slovak Republic .

Life

After dropping out of his law degree, Morávek worked as a secretary in commercial associations. Morávek was never a member of the Slovak People's Party until 1938 , but was an ardent supporter of the centralized merchant party of the middle class .

It was only during the changed political situation in Slovakia in 1938 that he changed his political direction, as he promised himself a longer political career within the Slovak People's Party with the prospect of great personal enrichment. Between 1940 and 1942, Morávek made a career in solving the Jewish question in Slovakia. After a study trip through Germany and Hungary, in autumn 1939 he worked out an elaborate script with suggestions for a Slovakia under the supervision of National Socialists . However, this draft, which he sent to all the highest officials and ministers in the country, received little political support.

The only positive thing about Morávek's writing was Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka . Tuka saw the Jewish question as an opportunity to consolidate his position with the Nazis and in Slovak domestic politics. In Augustín Morávek, Tuka found a devoted and determined employee. Tuka founded the economic office of the government board for Morávek ( Slovakian Hospodárska úradovňa predsedníctva vlády ) which was supposed to supervise the aryanization process that was now initiated.

After the adoption of the so-called Jewish code , the Central Economic Office ( Ústredný hospodársky úrad in Slovak , ÚHÚ for short ) was created on September 14, 1940, Morávek's initiative , of which Morávek became chairman. The new institution, which was directly subordinate to the Prime Minister, was given almost unlimited powers and became the most important organ in the aryanization and segregation of Jews from public life. The German adviser to Jews, Dieter Wisliceny , became a close associate and instructor of Moravek . Wisliceny assumed that he would find willing people in Slovakia to whom a racial solution to the Jewish question would bring personal advantages. One of the most committed of these was Augustín Morávek. Morávek soon became “the greatest expert in solving the Jewish question in Slovakia”.

Morávek the developer and advocate of the so-called "revolutionary Aryanization of companies", that is, a radical taking over of company property without considering the economic consequences and the protection of the transferred assets. According to the Central Economic Office ÚHÚ, there were more than 12,000 Jewish businesses and companies in Slovakia before the Aryanization began. More than 10,000 of them were liquidated, the 2,000 “most attractive” Aryanized. Morávek himself distributed 41 aryanized companies to his own relatives. Due to disorganization and corruption, the Aryanization process in Slovakia soon derailed into the uncontrolled theft of Jewish property.

A wave of protests soon arose against Morávek, which not only showed Morávek's incompetence and the "economic mess", but also accused him, as a former member of the autonomous Slovak state government, of deliberately damaging the reputation of the Unity Party. High party officials furiously drew attention to Morávek's personal enrichment during the Aryanization processes. But since Moravek knew the powerful Prime Minister Tuka was behind him, he rejected all allegations, described them as “the work of the Jews and their supporters” and declared that he would “carry out his mission to the end”.

In January 1941, Morávek was already negotiating with the German advisors about a possible future evacuation of the Jews from Slovakia. He tried to assure the Slovak government representatives and officials of the judiciary that the deportations could be carried out because the Jewish property had already completely passed into state property without any loss. The German adviser to Jews, Dieter Wisliceny, also stood behind this position and declared:

“If the Jews' businesses and property are taken away, a solution must be found for the Jews who are now possessed. One such solution for the state is large-scale resettlement. "

After a Slovak delegation headed by Izidor Koso visited German concentration camps in Poland in the summer of 1941 and condemned them as "inhuman and unchristian", the idea of ​​establishing similar concentration camps in Slovakia had become unrealistic. Morávek remained one of the initiators of the deportations all the more intensely.

In 1941, a larger group of functionaries of the Slovak People's Party rebelled against Moravek and asked President Jozef Tiso in a letter to investigate whether Moravek's family might benefit from the Aryanized assets acquired by Moravek. Due to the steadily growing internal party pressure and a rapid weakening of his patron Vojtech Tuka, Morávek had to resign from his position as chairman of the ÚHÚ in July 1942. After Tuka had barely succeeded in preventing an indictment against Morávek, Morávek immediately fled with a huge sum of Aryanized funds via Hungary to an unknown location, probably in South America. After 1945 he was sentenced in absentia to a 30-year prison term by the Czechoslovak People's Court.

literature

• Stanislav Mičev: Augustín Morávek od arizácií k deportáciám. [Augustín Morávek from the Aryanization to the deportations.] Múzeum Slovenského národného povstania, Banská Bystrica 2010, ISBN 978-80-970238-8-1

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} The fallacy of race and the Shoah - By Naomi Kramer, Ronald Headland, page 198, accessed on May 29, 2011 (online )
2. ↑ ^{a b} www.upn.gov.sk, Arizácie podnikov Židov, accessed on May 29, 2011 (online) (Slovak)
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} www.plus7dni.sk, Tukovi židobijci, on July 6, 2007, accessed on May 29, 2011 (online) (Slovak)
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Veridicus Mercurius: Augustín Morávek a Vysoká škola zlodejov, on May 12, 2007, accessed on May 29, 2011 (online) (Slovak)
5. ↑ Slovenský Norimberg, on January 12, 2007 ( memento of October 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (Slovak)
6. ^ Stanislav Mičev: Augustín Morávek od arizácií k deportáciám. Múzeum Slovenského Národného Povstania, 2010, p. 114