Ludmila Brožová-Polednová

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Ludmila Brožová-Polednová , née Ludmila Biedermannová (born December 20, 1921 in Prague , Czechoslovakia ; † January 15, 2015 in Pilsen , Czech Republic ), was a Czechoslovak public prosecutor . For her involvement in the Stalinist show trials in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s, she was sentenced in 2008 to several years' imprisonment.

Life

Ludmila Biedermannová was born into a working-class family (according to other sources: the daughter of a middle-class civil servant) and worked as a typist for the Communist Party (KSČ) after the Second World War . With a lot of commitment, she completed a one-year training course at the "Law School for Workers" (Právnická škola pracujících) , which was based on the Soviet model, and was then appointed public prosecutor by the KSČ. In the planned trial against the priest Josef Toufar , she was to participate on behalf of the public prosecutor's office. However, the trial did not take place because the accused was tortured during interrogation by the State Security and died.

In the early 1950s, Ludmila Biedermannová changed her surname at the suggestion of the KSČ and chose her mother's maiden name, Brožová, which sounded less German. Polednová is derived from her husband's name. During this time she gained notoriety as a public prosecutor in the show trial of Milada Horáková and others, in which the resistance fighter Horáková and Jan Buchal , Záviš Kalandra and Oldřich Pecl were sentenced to death . The day after the verdict was pronounced, she spoke about the success of the trial at a rally on Prokop Holý Square in Žižkov . She and her colleague Toníček Havelka were present at the execution .

Two years later, Brožová withdrew from the capital Prague and spent the rest of her life in Pilsen, West Bohemia . From the beginning of 1953 to April 1964 (with the exception of three months) she worked there on all charges of “subversive” offenses.

On November 1, 2007, on the recommendation of the Office for Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism, the criminal trial began against Brožová, who had retired in the 1970s. She was the only member of the Czechoslovak judiciary to face trial after the Velvet Revolution . She was sentenced to six years imprisonment by the Supreme Court in Prague on September 9, 2008, for direct complicity in four judicial murders , and in March 2009 she was taken to a geriatric ward in Pilsen prison. President Václav Klaus , who had initially rejected a pardon from the Public Prosecutor Renata Vesecká , pardoned Brožová in December 2010 for reasons of age and health, after she had filed an unsuccessful complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in February 2010 . At the time of her imprisonment, she was the oldest prison inmate in the Czech Republic. She died in Pilsen at the age of 93.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Josette Baer: Seven Czech Women: Portraits of Courage, Humanism, and Enlightenment . Columbia University Press, 2015. p. 129. Partial online view
  2. ^ Josette Baer: Seven Czech Women: Portraits of Courage, Humanism, and Enlightenment . P. 130.
  3. ↑ Interview in Pravo on September 10, 2008.
  4. ↑ Pavlína Formánková: Vypořádali jsme se s Horákovou, vypořádáme se is americkým broukem! In: paměť a dějiny 2007/01
  5. ↑ Petr Koura, Pavlína Formánková: Dostala jsem úkol . In: Respekt 32/2007, August 5, 2007.
  6. ↑ Ludmila Brožová žalovala stovky osob. In: Lidové noviny May 12, 2010.
  7. ↑ Prokurátorka procesu s Horákovou dostala 6 let podle práva z roku 1852 , news magazine iDNES-cz, September 9, 2008, online at: idnes.cz/
  8. ↑ Christian Falvey: former show-trial prosecutor freed by presidential pardon. In: Radio Prague, December 22, 2010 (English).
  9. ^ Obituary Radio Prague, January 24, 2015 (English).

literature

  • Petr Zídek: Příběh herečky: dělnická prokurátorka Ludmila Brožová a její svět. Dokořán, 2010.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Brožová-Polednová, Ludmila
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Biedermannová, Ludmila (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak Public Prosecutor
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH January 15, 2015
Place of death Pilsen , Czech Republic