Karol Sidor

Karol Sidor in Warsaw in 1938

Karol Sidor (born July 16, 1901 in Ružomberok ( Austria-Hungary ), † October 20, 1953 in Montreal ) was a Slovak publicist , author and politician , great-nephew and close associate of Andrej Hlinkas and a representative of the radical polonophile wing of the Ludaks .

From October 1938 he was Minister for Slovak Affairs and Vice-Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak central government in Prague . In addition, on October 6, 1938, he was appointed first commander-in-chief of the Hlinka Guard for life . In March 1939, after Jozef Tisos was deposed, he was Prime Minister of the autonomous country of Slovakia for a few days .

After Slovak independence, Sidor served briefly as Minister of the Interior, then as envoy of the Slovak state to the Vatican . After the Second World War he became one of the leading political figures of the Slovaks in exile.

Education and career

Sidor attended the elementary school in Ružomberok and then the Piaristic high school. As a boy he became an admirer of the local pastor Andrej Hlinka and was also one of his acolytes. As an 18-year-old student, Sidor organized a student strike in 1919 to protest Hlinka's arrest in Bohemia.

As a punishment, he was expelled from middle school. He began studying at the Charles University in Prague, which he did not finish for the sake of politics and journalism. As early as January 1920, Sidor took up a full-time position as editor of the party newspaper of Ludaken Slovák .

He was involved in the creation of the Orol organization, worked in the student movement, in the Association of Slovak Artists , in the Slovak National Theater community , in the Saint Vojtech community and in the organizational and administrative apparatus of the HSĽS. In 1935 Sidor became a member of the HSĽS in Prague.

Politician of the Slovak Autonomy Movement

In the 1930s, Sidor, who was able to rely mainly on the younger generation of the party, gradually gained majority support in the party. This is mainly due to the fact that Sidor acted more politically than his internal party competitor Jozef Tiso and rejected compromises. For the Ludaks to participate in the government, Sidor required the Pittsburgh Agreement to be fulfilled , in which the Slovaks were guaranteed extensive autonomy within Czechoslovakia. Sidor rejected a "cabinet policy" and relied on a clear and patient political course.

He succeeded in rallying people who saw him as the party's natural leader. In terms of foreign policy, Sidor repeatedly advocated close ties to Poland or, after a possible Slovak independence, for a Polish-Slovak confederation. In these efforts Sidor was supported by leading Polish politicians.

The big conflict with Tiso came in 1935 when, after Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk's resignation as President of Czechoslovakia, the Ludak votes decided on the new president. Sidor favored the agrarian candidate Bohumil Němec because he considered it a strategic advantage for the Slovak autonomy to get rid of the Czechoslovakian Edvard Beneš . Tiso in turn supported Beneš. Tiso's line prevailed in the end and Beneš became president. As a protest against the support of Beneš by his party, Sidor resigned his parliamentary mandate.

At the HSĽS party congress in 1936, Sidor was able to win the majority of the party for himself and his opposition course, since Beneš was not prepared to abandon Czechoslovakism as state doctrine even after his election as president. Sidor pushed through in the party program that no new participation in government of the HSĽS was allowed before Slovakia was granted the autonomy guaranteed in the Pittsburgh Agreement. After this party congress, Andrej Hlinka definitely favored Sidor on the party's successor issue.

In order to secure Sidor's successor, Hlinka made a will in 1937 in which he bequeathed Sidor shares in the company "Andrej", of which he was one hundred percent owner. This company owned the party's printing works and press organs. After Hlinka's death in August 1938, Jozef Tiso was formally party leader, but the real power lay in the hands of Sidor. After the first party meeting after Hlinka's death, a stormy debate arose in which several party members questioned the authenticity of Hlinka's will. The party leadership then accepted Sidor's proposal to leave the position of party chairman vacant for a year out of respect for Hlinka.

In September 1938, President Beneš and the Czechoslovak central government again called on the Ludaks to negotiate intensively in order to defuse the nationality conflict in the country. The Hlinka party then sent a delegation consisting of Jozef Tiso, Martin Sokol and Karol Sidor. But since the Czech parties and President Beneš were still not prepared to grant the Slovaks more than a modest cultural autonomy with only very little authority for the Slovak parliament in Bratislava , the negotiations failed again.

After the Žilina Agreement of October 6, 1938 on the autonomy of Slovakia, Jozef Tiso became Prime Minister. Karol Sidor declined this role as well as participation in the autonomous government and became chairman of the Central National Committee, which directed and coordinated the activities of the local and city national committees. These had the opportunity to end or prevent the execution of the decisions of the district or city authorities. No decision could be adopted without negotiating with the National Committee. Sidor created its own parallel power structure, but it acted legally. In addition, Sidor became vice-chairman of the central government and thus the only representative of the Slovaks in Prague. It was foreseeable that the fight for the successor to Hlinka would soon be decided.

On December 1, 1938, Sidor became Minister without Business Area and Vice-Chairman of the Rudolf Beran I government in Prague and together with Jozef Sivák represented autonomous Slovakia in the House of Representatives. He was also commander in chief of the paramilitary Hlinka Guard he founded . At the beginning of 1939, Sidor proposed that the Czech government employees who remained in Slovakia should be paid by the Prague government, which would save Slovakia 400 million crowns. He also wanted to help consolidate the situation and to defuse the demand “for all Czechs to be removed from Slovak offices” .

Commander in Chief of the Hlinka Guard

Sidor takes his parliamentary oath before Prime Minister Tiso (1939)

Sidor (center) in Guard uniform (1939)

On October 7, 1938, Karol Murgaš and Ján Dafčík officially founded the Hlinka Guard in Bratislava. Sidor, popular with the population, was appointed commander-in-chief for life. Sidor was particularly interested in the Guard as a personal instrument of power against his greatest inner-party rival Jozef Tiso, who formally took over the leadership of the party after Hlinka's death.

This was also recognized by Tiso, who on October 13, 1938, criticized the Hlinka Guard as “Sidor's thug organization” and called for the dissolution of the “subsidiary government of Mr. Sidor”. Under Sidor's leadership, the Hlinka Guard became one of the most important pillars of the Ludaks in the establishment of an authoritarian one-party regime .

After Sidor retired from politics on March 14, 1939, under pressure from the Nazis, his deputy Alexander Mach took over command of the Guard.

Prime Minister of Slovakia during the March crisis in 1939

In March 1939 the situation in Slovakia became more complicated when the central government in Prague decided - without Sidor's knowledge but with the knowledge of the Germans - to occupy Slovakia militarily on March 9 and dissolve Tiso's autonomous government. The Czechs fell into the trap of the Germans, who wanted to use the military occupation of Slovakia by the Czech gendarmerie and soldiers as a pretext for " smashing the rest of the Czech Republic ". On the first anniversary of the Anschluss of Austria on March 12, 1939, the German leadership was ready to force the Slovaks to proclaim independence and subsequently to occupy the Czech Republic.

But Sidor traveled to Bratislava immediately after the military occupation of Slovakia and began to act. After assessing the situation, he presented President Emil Hácha with an ultimatum on March 10, saying that he would immediately resign from the central government if the military units in Slovakia were not placed under his command. He also announced to Hácha that he considered the dissolution of the Slovak Autonomous Government to be unconstitutional. Sidor negotiated in the course of a day with the command of the Czech occupation units in the position of vice-chairman of the central government.

In the evening, Sidor had the situation so under control that Tiso personally proposed Sidor as the new Prime Minister of the autonomous Slovakia. At midnight, Sidor reported on the radio in Bratislava about his demands against President Hácha and announced that the situation in Slovakia was under his control. By noon on March 11, Slovakia was already completely under Sidor's control. Within 24 hours he managed to take the initiative to prevent unrest and consolidate the situation. On the evening of March 11th, President Hácha appointed the new Slovak government headed by Karol Sidor.

The German leadership was shocked by the situation. Your scenario of provoking anarchy in Slovakia did not work out. Throughout March 11th, the Germans tried to convince Sidor to declare Slovakia's independence. In front of Petržalka on the Danube, along which the border with the German Empire ran, two German armored divisions stood ready, which could be seen from Sidor's office.

The representatives of the pro-German radical wing of the Hlinka party put pressure on Sidor to proclaim independence, since "Slovakia cannot defend itself militarily against the German Reich" . Sidor sat on an armchair and quietly smoked cigarettes. He assessed the situation correctly and knew that the Germans needed a request from the Slovak side in order to intervene in the military, and Sidor was not prepared to make this request. To the constant requests of the German ambassadors, Sidor replied:

"I will not take it upon myself that the whole people cursed me, that I imposed the German yoke on them!"

Sidor tried to reassure the others by saying that if the Germans intended to invade Slovakia, they would have done so long ago even without a formal request from the Slovaks. During the night, the German leadership changed tactics and Adolf Hitler sent a delegation to Sidor and Tiso in Bratislava, which consisted of the Reich Governor of the East Markets Arthur Seyss-Inquart , the Gauleiter of Nieder-Donau Josef Bürckel , the State Secretary of the Foreign Office Wilhelm Keppler and consisted of five German generals. After a short time, Bürckel asked Sidor to talk to him face to face and asked him:

“You should now proclaim the independence of Slovakia. If you are afraid of doing it here in Bratislava, come with us to Vienna. We regard you as the leader of Slovakia and what the leader of Slovakia orders, everyone has to accept, the party as well as the state parliament, because this is the will of the leader! "

But Sidor, like Tiso, rejected the declaration of independence. Hitler's emissaries then left the room. During this nocturnal conversation, the radio in Vienna broadcast Slovak songs and continuously drew the audience's attention to the fact that another important message - concerning Slovakia - was to be expected. But the message didn't come.

On March 13, the German agents tried to conjure up a wave of terror in Bratislava. A bomb exploded in the center of the city. German agents who had also placed a bomb in front of Sidor's house were arrested. Sidor managed again to get the situation under control. However, Jozef Tiso had meanwhile flown to Berlin for negotiations at Hitler's invitation. The next day the Czechoslovak President Hácha convened the Slovak state parliament at Tiso's request. It was foreseeable that the only topic of this special session would be the negotiations for Slovak independence.

At the beginning of the session, Sidor appeared as head of government of Slovakia and stated that, given the international situation, he would resign and entrust Jozef Tiso with the formation of the new government. After Tiso's explanation about his meeting with Hitler, the dilemma became clear: either the proclamation of an independent state under German “protection” or a division of Slovakia between Germany, Hungary and Poland. The Slovak state parliament then decided on the lesser evil.

Karol Sidor initially received the Ministry of the Interior in the new state, but resigned the next day, as the German leadership mistrusted him and he did not want to burden the Slovak government with his presence. On March 14, 1939, Sidor said goodbye to big politics. He went now, at the age of 37, at the peak of his power and popularity.

Ambassador of Slovakia to the Vatican

From the beginning of his stay in the Vatican, Sidor established close contacts with the Polish Vatican envoy Kazimierz Papée and the Italian anti-fascist opposition around Alcide De Gasperi and Guido Gonella . From 1943 he searched intensively for ways of gaining access to the Western allies .

In doing so, he wanted to prevent Czechoslovakia from being renewed under Beneš and falling under Soviet influence. Together with his supporters in Slovakia, he planned at the appropriate moment to carry out a political overthrow and to form a new coalition government acceptable to the Western allies.

In terms of foreign policy, Sidor considered various loose confederation and alliance plans defined by Catholics in order to prevent Slovakia from being incorporated into the Soviet bloc and at least indirectly to save national statehood. In his plans for the future, he relied primarily on the Vatican. He wrote to Bishop Cársky:

“Our political position in the Holy See is good and can become a successful starting point for future actions for a secure future of the Slovak nation and its state. The Slovaks can only become world famous through Catholicism and only in connection with the Vatican, how great is everything that is deeper in them than in other peoples: belief in God and devotion to his representative on earth. "

Sidor, who is traditionally friendly to Poland, saw further support in Polish politics. Sidor explained his position in a letter to his friend and like-minded colleague Peter Prídavos, who was also the founder of the Slovak National Council in London:

“The further fate of our Slovakia after the war will depend in many respects on 1. whether it is possible to arouse Poland's interest in this area, and 2. whether the Poles will have enough strength to assert their will. "

Sidor assumed that the numerous and well-organized Slovak emigrants in the USA could effectively enter their country of origin, but by far overestimated the possibilities of the Slovak-American minority.

Political leader of the Slovaks in exile

In October 1948, Sidor united democratic Slovak forces abroad to form the Slovak National Council and became its chairman. At the beginning of 1950 he emigrated to Canada and was one of the leading Slovak personalities in politics on the American continent until his death.

After the war, the Slovaks in exile polarized politically, especially in the two main camps around Karol Sidor and Ferdinand Ďurčanský . Ďurčanský and his supporters in the Slovak Action Committee assumed that the Slovak state would continue to exist legally. Sidor's supporters, organized in the Slovak National Council abroad (Slovak: Slovenská národná rada v zahraničí , SNRvZ for short ) - including mainly former diplomats from Slovakia in neutral states - assessed the situation more realistically.

They did not believe in the continuity of the Slovak state, as most of the allies had already ceased to recognize it from 1941 to 1942. In contrast to Ďurčanský, Sidor was convinced that the post-war order could last for decades and that the Slovak resistance abroad had to make the democratic western world aware of the situation of the Slovaks in the communist regime.

At the beginning of 1952 Sidor fell seriously ill, but did not give up his intense political activity. He maintained written and personal contacts with hundreds of Slovaks in exile worldwide as well as with politicians in exile in other Central European countries. Sidor succumbed to his illness on October 20, 1953. The large-scale funeral followed on October 24, 1953.

evaluation

After the Munich Agreement in September 1938, Sidor had decided on a separation course and could thus be counted among the radical wing of the Ludaks. On October 11, 1938, Sidor stated in an interview that he had already written in 1921 in the Slovák newspaper :

"We boys want a God, a nation, a church, a party in Slovakia and we will achieve that too!"

In February 1939, the National Socialists Bürckel and Seyss-Inquart saw in him the most suitable man for the German goals. However, they missed the fact that Sidor was in favor of a reference to Poland. As a result, he moved away from the Germanophile radicals around Vojtech Tuka and Alexander Mach , but at the same time stood in opposition to Jozef Tiso.

The Slovak historian Martin Lacko rates Sidor's journalistic and literary achievements in the struggle for Slovak autonomy within Czechoslovakia positively. Lacko, however, criticizes Sidor's “naivety in his propolian attitude” as well as the fact that Sidor, as commander-in-chief of the Hlinka Guard, did not take action against guards who carried out pogroms on Czechs and Jews on their own initiative.

The Slovak historian Róbert Letz, on the other hand, credits Sidor with the fact that he crossed religious and confessional boundaries in the struggle for the autonomy of Slovakia and tried to unite Catholics and Protestants in the "autonomist struggle". At the same time, Letz criticizes Sidor's penchant for authoritarian conservative systems derived from Christian moral teaching.

plant

• Kliatba nenarodených (1922), literárny debut, zbierka noviel so sociálnou tematikou
• Kysuca (1925), historická povesť
• Slováci v zahraničnom odboji (1928)
• Andrej Hlinka 1864-1926 (1934)
• Sedem týždňov (1935)
• Masakra v Černovej
• Slovenská politika na pôde pražského snemu 1918–1938
• Ako vznikal Slovenský štát
• Šesť rokov vo Vatikáne (1947)

literature

• Ľubica Kázmerová, Milan Katuninec: Dilemy Karola Sidora. Kalligram, Bratislava 2006.
• Peter Sokolovič: Hlinkova garda 1938–1945. Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2006.
• Miloslav Szabó: Sidor, Karol , in: Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Volume 2/2, 2009, p. 772.

Web links

Commons : Karol Sidor  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Milan Krajniak, Koláž Slávka Stankovičová: Karol Sidor: Muž, ktorý povedal Hitlerovi NIE. on: inzine.sk July 26, 2002, accessed June 4, 2011 (Slovak)
• Newspaper article about Karol Sidor in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Documents on the autonomy policy of the Slovak People's Party Hlinkas - By Gerhard Ames, Jörg Konrad Hoensch, p. 24 (online)
2. ↑ Studia Slovaca: Studies in the History of the Slovaks and Slovakia - By Jörg Konrad Hoensch, S. 211 (online)
3. ^ Igor-Philip Matic: Edmund Veesenmayer. Agent and diplomat of the National Socialist expansion policy. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2002, p. 63 (online)
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} (online) ( Memento from March 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (Slovak)
5. ↑ Studia Slovaca: Studies on the History of the Slovaks and Slovakia - By Jörg Konrad Hoensch, p. 214 (online) ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Studia Slovaca: Studies on the History of the Slovaks and Slovakia - By Jörg Konrad Hoensch, p. 212 (online) ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n} Karol Sidor: Muž, ktorý povedal Hitlerovi NIE - by Milan Krajniak and Koláž Slávka Stankovičová on July 26, 2002 (Slovak) ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Karol Sidor: Denníky 1930-1939 , Ústav pamäti národa, 2010, ISBN 978-80-89335-23-7 , p. 11.
9. ↑ Studia Slovaca: Studies on the history of the Slovaks and Slovakia - By Jörg Konrad Hoensch, p. 148 (online) ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ Home and Exile: Emigration and Return Migration, Displacement and Integration - By Peter Heumos, p. 127 (online)
11. ^ Peter Sokolovič: Hlinkova garda 1938–1945. [The Hlinka Guard 1938–1945.] Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2009, pp. 55–56.
12. ^ Peter Sokolovič: Hlinkova garda 1938–1945. [The Hlinka Guard 1938–1945.] Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2009, p. 58.
13. ^ Peter Sokolovič: Hlinkova garda 1938–1945. [The Hlinka Guard 1938–1945.] Ústav pamäti národa, Bratislava 2009, p. 57.
14. ↑ Edmund Veesenmayer - By Igor-Philip Matić, p. 71 (online)
15. ↑ The Disintegration of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic - By Michal Broska, p. 36 (online)
16. ↑ Studies on the history of the Slovaks and Slovakia - By Jörg Konrad Hoensch, p. 225 (online)
17. ↑ The Disintegration of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic - By Michal Broska, p. 36 (online)
18. ↑ The Collapse of the Czechoslovak Federal Republic - By Michal Broska, p. 37 (online)
19. ↑ ^{a b c d} Nation, nationalities and nationalism in Eastern Europe - By Marija Wakounig, Wolfgang Mueller, Michael Portmann , p. 559 (online)
20. ↑ ^{a b c} Nation, nationalities and nationalism in Eastern Europe - By Marija Wakounig, Wolfgang Mueller, Michael Portmann, p. 560 (online)
21. ↑ (online) ( Memento from September 4, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) (Slovak)
22. ↑ ^{a b} Karol Sidor on www.kultura-fb.sk, by Róbert Schmidt, accessed on July 13, 2011 (in Slovak)
23. ↑ Karol Sidor: Denníky 1930–1939 , Ústav pamäti národa, 2010, ISBN 978-80-89335-23-7 , pp. 17–18.
24. ↑ Home and Exile: Emigration and Return Migration, Displacement and Integration - By Peter Heumos, p. 119 (online)
25. ↑ Edmund Veesenmayer - By Igor-Philip Matić, p. 71 (online)
26. ↑ ^{a b} Nazor: Tri pohľady na Karola Sidora. Retrieved October 31, 2011.