Ferdinand Čatloš

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Ferdinand Čatloš (1941)

Ferdinand Čatloš (born October 7, 1895 in Szentpéter , Austria-Hungary , † December 16, 1972 in Martin , Czechoslovakia ) was a Czechoslovak officer and Slovak general . From 1939 to 1944 he was Minister of Defense of the Slovak State .

Life

Čatloš attended the citizens' school in Liptovský Mikuláš and later the commercial academy in Kežmarok and Kubín . Later he studied at the school for reserve officers in Lučenec . In September 1915, as an officer candidate in the Austro-Hungarian army on the Eastern Front , he was taken prisoner by Russia. In June 1917, Čatloš joined the Czechoslovak legions in Russia. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, he completed officer courses in Prague , Milovice and Košice .

From 1925 to 1926 he worked for the intelligence service of the Czechoslovak Defense Ministry and from 1926 to 1927 he was a representative of the Czechoslovak military attaché in Budapest . He then did an internship at the Military College in Prague from 1927 to 1930. From October 1938 Čatloš was head of the military chancellery of the autonomous Slovak government and deputy commander in chief of the Czechoslovak armed forces operating in Slovakia .

Slovak Defense Minister

In 1939, Čatloš was appointed General and Defense Minister of the First Slovak Republic, making him the only Evangelical Minister in the government. Čatloš immediately began with the basic organization of the new Slovak army , which had to prove itself in the Slovak-Hungarian War in the first days after the Slovak declaration of independence . In September 1939 and June 1941, as Slovak Defense Minister, he led Slovak troops into the fight against Poland and the Soviet Union .

In Slovakia, Čatloš rose to a great and respected authority in military circles and the public between 1940 and 1944. Domestically, he was initially close to the pro-Nazi party wing, but from spring 1941 to summer 1944 at the latest he was considered one of the closest confidants of President Jozef Tiso . When the Hlinka Guard, controlled by the Slovak National Socialists , wanted to attempt a coup on January 8, 1941 in Bratislava against the state president and his Catholic-conservative (moderate) wing of the party, Čatloš immediately had the presidential guard strengthened, checked the police chief's loyalty and prepared the military for the worst case scenario.

The clear transition from Čatloš to Jozef Tisos and his Catholic-conservative (moderate) party wing was one of the main reasons why the radical Prime Minister Vojtech Tuka failed to fill his ministerial post . Čatloš later commented on the situation as follows:

"At that time, with the weight of the military, I prevented an overthrow in the state and Tiso trusted me out of gratitude for it and, even against Tukas and Hitler's request, did not want to do without me until the uprising in 1944."

Uprising plans in 1944

In 1944 he worked out an independent plan, the so-called Čatloš Memorandum , according to which a military dictatorship was to be proclaimed in Slovakia after the approach of the Red Army on the Slovak borders . Another part of the plan was to facilitate the entry of the Red Army into Slovakia. He sent this memorandum to the leadership of the illegal Communist Party of Slovakia .

To hand over the plan to the communists, Čatloš provided an airplane, which flew to Moscow on August 4, 1944, together with a delegation from the Slovak National Council under the leadership of Karol Šmidke . The leadership of the Communist Party and the Slovak National Council took a negative view of the memorandum. They considered the military part to be "interesting" but the political aspects to be unacceptable.

After the outbreak of the Slovak national uprising on August 29, 1944, Čatloš condemned the uprising in a radio address under German pressure and proclaimed among other things:

“The partisans are the greatest enemies of free and calm Slovakia. Whoever would do with them is a traitor to his tribe and his country. With the help of the German army, every brave Slovak may heroically march against them. "

Čatloš still had units mobilized in Bratislava to fight the rebels, but traveled to the uprising area on September 2, 1944 and was the only minister of the Slovak government to serve the leaders of the uprising. But Čatloš was rejected by them and he was not given a radio address in which he wanted to call on the Slovak soldiers to join the uprising. He was arrested on September 13, 1944 and deported to the Soviet Union , where he was interned.

After the war he was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment by the Czechoslovak People's Court in 1947, but released early in 1948 and hired as a clerk in Martin .

Grave in the National Cemetery in Martin, Slovakia

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Peter Sokolovič: Hlinkova Garda 1938–1945 In: Ústav pamäti národa , 2009, pp. 304–307 ISBN 978-80-89335-10-7 .
  2. ↑ Peter Sokolovič: Hlinkova Garda 1938–1945 In: Ústav pamäti národa , 2009, p. 307 ISBN 978-80-89335-10-7
  3. ↑ Richard Georg Plaschka: Avantgarde of Resistance , ISBN 3-205-98390-4 , Volume 1, p. 530
personal data
SURNAME Čatloš, Ferdinand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak officer and Slovak general
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Szentpéter , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1972
Place of death Martin , Czechoslovakia