Heliodor Píka

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Heliodor Píka as a French legionnaire in the First World War

General Heliodor Píka (born July 3, 1897 in Štítina , † June 21, 1949 in Plzeň ) was a soldier and legionnaire , representative of the resistance against National Socialism and the first prominent victim of a judicial murder after the Communist Party came to power in Czechoslovakia .

Life

Until the end of the First World War

Heliodor Píka was born in the Moravian village of Štítina near Opava in the family of the wheelwright Ignác Píka. In 1915 he passed the Matura and worked as a pharmacist intern. He could not take up a planned study of pharmacy because he was drafted as a one-year volunteer . In 1916 he came to the front in Halitsch , where he was captured by Russian troops in the same year in order to join the Czechoslovak legions .

In 1917 TG Masaryk withdrew part of the legions from Vladivostok to the Western Front. Píka came to France via England and completed intensive military training in Le Havre . Because of his pharmaceutical practice, he did medical service with the 21st Czechoslovak Rifle Regiment of the French legions. Later he was entrusted with defense functions in the gas war . He took part in fights in the spring of 1918, including in Alsace , Champagne-Ardenne , Aisne and Terron . He has received several awards.

First republic

On January 9, 1919, he returned to the emerging Czechoslovakia as a lieutenant . In May he was deployed in the Polish-Czechoslovak border war , and in the summer he was assigned to the Slovak front . In the autumn he came to the French military school Saint-Cyr as one of 40 officers . He completed his studies in 1920 and on his return became an instructor at the military academy in the small Moravian town of Hranice . In 1921 he married Marie Sehnalová. A year later son Milan was born.

In 1923 Pika was transferred to the General Staff of the Czechoslovak Armed Forces in Prague with the rank of captain . 1926–1928 he graduated from the military college in Paris as one of three Czechoslovak officers . From 1932 he was a military attaché in Bucharest . This position was important because Romania, a member of the Little Entente , was seen as a support against the growing pressure from Germany and Hungary. Pika stayed there until 1937 when he was appointed to the Ministry of Defense.

Second World War

In 1938 he looked for allies in the event of war with Germany and received commitments for material aid from Yugoslavia and Romania. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia, he fled via France to London , where he offered his service to the government in exile . Edvard Beneš sent him to Bucharest as a military envoy for the Balkans. He helped Czechoslovak and Romanian refugees from the Protectorate , concentrating mainly on demobilized soldiers. After the fascist coup in Romania and a short imprisonment, he ended up in Istanbul . There Píka met with Lieutenant Colonel Ludvík Svoboda , who asked him to convey to Edvard Beneš a request for cooperation with the Soviet Union and the establishment of a military embassy in Moscow ; Beneš accepted the request. In 1941 he met Svoboda a second time. At this meeting, Svoboda and the Soviet General Andrei Petrovich Fokin proposed the formation of Czechoslovak troops on the territory of the Soviet Union and further intelligence cooperation with Moscow. The government in exile accepted this proposal.

After the signing of the Soviet-Czech military alliance on July 18, 1941, Píka became attaché and commander of the Czechoslovak military mission in Moscow. As early as August he warned President Beneš that the Soviet Union was not interested in a free Czechoslovakia, but was aiming for a dictatorship of the proletariat . However, this warning did not affect Beneš's policies. As early as 1941 the representatives of the communist party Klement Gottwald and Václav Kopecký protested against Píka's work in Moscow. In 1942, in Buzuluk , Píka began assembling a force of Czechoslovak prisoners in Soviet camps. Together with Ludvík Svoboda, he managed to withstand Gottwald's pressure to politicize the troops. In September 1943 the brigade was assigned to the front in the Kiev region , and in November Píka took part in the ceremonial signing of the Czechoslovak-Soviet treaty of alliance.

In August 1944, the occupied Wehrmacht , the Slovak Republic and Píka called for support of the Red Army to join the insurgents. Joseph Stalin gave the order to deliver arms to Slovakia and to start the Eastern Carpathian operation under Marshal Konev's leadership . With the advance of the Soviet units on Czechoslovak territory, Píka asked for Ludvík Svobodas to be appointed commander in chief of the liberation forces. This request was refused by the Soviet Union. He then protested unsuccessfully against the actions of the Red Army in Carpathian Ukraine ; At that time, the Soviet leadership was already fully relying on Klement Gottwald, and because Beneš did not give him sufficient support, the Soviets were able to ignore Píka.

Trial and Execution

In May 1945 Píka returned to Prague, where he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff of the Czechoslovak Army . During this time he also received two Soviet awards.

After the February coup in 1948, he was arrested and charged with treason . The prosecution alleged that Píka disclosed confidential information to British intelligence in 1940-48 . In contrast to the later show trials , the trial took place in camera. The trial took place on January 26, 27 and 28, 1949, chaired by O. Matoušek. On January 21, 1949, the military committee of the Central Committee of the KSČ, consisting of Klement Gottwald , Rudolf Slánský , Ludvík Svoboda , Bedřich Reicin , Šimon Drgač, Vladimír Drnec and Jaroslav Procházka, decided on the intended sentence: The court was given the sentence “ Death by Hang "specified. The execution took place on June 21, 1949 in the courtyard of the Pilsen prison in Bory .

His son Milan Píka , who had worked for the Royal Air Force during World War II , was held in the same prison where Heliodor Píka was waiting to die . However, under pressure from Svoboda, his trial was closed for lack of evidence.

rehabilitation

Memorial Park of Heliodor Píka in Česká Lípa

In 1968, with the help of President Ludvík Svoboda, the trial against Píka was resumed. The military court in Prague found his innocence and fully rehabilitated him. However, little was known about his life story until 1989. In the 1990s, the television documentary Proč vás zabili, generále? (Why did they kill you, General?) And some books came out.

In 1991, President Václav Havel gave Heliodor Píka in memoriam a medal for special merits in the liberation struggle during the Second World War. Memorial sites were built in Pilsen and his hometown of Štítina. The 53rd Brigade of the Czech Army in Opava and one street in Prague-Dejvice and one in Liberec are named after Píka .

Heliodor Píka, who last had the rank of division general, was raised to the rank of army general in 1990.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Milan Krejčiřík: Proces s Heliodorem Píkou. První poúnorová justiční vražda , portal totalita.cz , online at: totalita.cz / ...
  2. ↑ JB: PÍKA Heliodor . Biography in: Vojenské osobnosti československého odboje 1939–1945 , publication of the Historical Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, AVIS, Prague 2005, p. 228, online (archived) at: vojenskaakademiehranice.ic.cz / ...

literature

Literature and other media by and about Heliodor Píka in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic

  • Karel Jiřík: Poslední dopis generála Heliodora Píky před popravou - jedné z prvních obětí stalinskýchreprí u nás. In: Vlastivědné listy Slezska a severní Moravy. Časopis pro dějiny, umění, přírodu a dnešek. 16, 2, 1990, ISSN  1213-3140 , pp. 4-7.
  • Rastislav Váhala: Smrt generála. Melantrich, Praha 1992, ISBN 80-7023124-6 .

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Píka, Heliodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak general
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Štítina
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1949
Place of death Plzeň