Ludvík Svoboda

Ludvík Svoboda in 1968
(Photo: Stanislav Tereba )

Ludvík Svoboda (born November 25, 1895 in Hroznatín , Moravia , † September 20, 1979 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak general, Hero of the Soviet Union and President of the Czechoslovak Republic from 1968 to 1975 .

Life

In Austria-Hungary and in the First Czechoslovakia

Svoboda grew up in Moravia and attended secondary school in Rudíkov . He was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War . He deserted on the Eastern Front in 1916 and joined the Czechoslovak legions in Russia . From 1922 career officer in the army of the first Czechoslovak Republic , he was a Hungarian teacher at a military academy from 1931 to 1934 and then a lieutenant colonel and commander of the 3rd infantry regiment in Kroměříž .

Officer in World War II

Svoboda in 1943 in the USSR

After the Munich Agreement in the autumn of 1938, the occupation of the Czech parts of the ČSR by Hitler's Germany and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia on March 15, 1939, Svoboda joined the Czech resistance movement Obrana národa (People's Defense), which included several former Czechoslovak officers Army. He then fled to Poland in early June 1939, before the start of the Second World War . After the German invasion of this country, as the highest-ranking Czechoslovak officer, he formed an unarmed unit of around 700 Czechoslovak soldiers with the approval of the still-incumbent Polish President and ordered their transfer to the Soviet Union . A transfer to Romania was impossible because of the risk of extradition to Nazi Germany.

In 1941, as a colonel , Svoboda was appointed commander of the first Czechoslovak battalion , which was formed in Buzuluk on the Urals and then fought on the Soviet side. In 1943 he became a Brigadier General in command of the 1st Czechoslovak Brigade with 60,000 men. The formation intervened as the first foreign troop formation in March 1943 at Sokolowo in the fight against the Germans and took part in the liberation of Kiev on November 6, 1943 . During the Battle of the Dukla Pass in autumn 1944, it was the first unit to cross the Czechoslovak state border. The "Svoboda Army" then acted together with Czechoslovak partisans in 1944/45 during the liberation of the country and the expulsion of the Germans from Czechoslovakia .

Svoboda's family stayed in their occupied homeland. Five family members, including his 17-year-old only son Miroslav (1924–1942), were murdered by the National Socialists. His wife Irena Svobodová (daughter of a wealthy miller, 1901–1980) and daughter Zoe (* 1925) survived the entire time until 1945 in changing hiding places with the help of resistance fighters. Fifteen other relatives of the Svoboda couple were held in an internment camp for three years.

Defense Minister of post-war Czechoslovakia

Svoboda was promoted to division general in 1945 and army general in the same year. From 1945 to 1952 he was Minister of Defense in the Gottwald I and Gottwald II governments and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense in the Antonín Zápotocký government .

After his dismissal as Minister of Defense, Svoboda only acted briefly as Deputy Prime Minister and then lost all offices. In 1952 he was imprisoned for several months but was released. Then he worked in the countryside in an agricultural unity cooperative ( collective farm). It was only thanks to the intervention of the Soviet head of government Nikita Khrushchev that Svoboda was able to return to the army, first as commander of the Klement Gottwald Military Academy , later as head of the Military History Institute. On November 24, 1965, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union .

President of the ČSSR

Bust of the President of Czechoslovakia Ludvík Svoboda

During the Prague Spring he was elected President on March 30, 1968. In that year he led a commemoration of a military uprising by Czech troops on May 21, 1918 in Rumburk against the Danube monarchy . He and his wife Irena enjoyed great popularity.

After the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops on 20/21 August 1968, Svoboda refused to work with a group of high, anti-reform communist functionaries supported by the Soviet occupation forces. On August 23, 1968, he flew to Moscow with a Czechoslovak delegation to negotiate the withdrawal of the occupation troops. He was able to ensure that the members of the state and party leadership interned there, with Alexander Dubček at the helm, were included in the negotiations. He signed the Moscow Protocol , which came about under the dictates of the CPSU leadership led by Brezhnev , and urged the other delegation members to sign. From 1969 onwards, Svoboda's resistance to the policy of “normalization” waned , and he clearly took a back seat to party leader Gustáv Husák . After he could in fact no longer exercise his office due to serious illness, Svoboda was deposed by parliament on May 29, 1975. He was succeeded by Gustáv Husák. After that, Svoboda lived as a private person with his family until 1979.

Ludvík Svoboda died at the age of 83 and was buried in the Městský hřbitov ( German  city ​​cemetery ) by Kroměříž ( German  Kremsier ). His wife Irena Svobodová, who died in 1980, was buried next to him.

Web links

Commons : Ludvík Svoboda  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ KOSATÍK, Pavel. Devět žen z Hradu (Nine Women from the Castle). Mladá frontal, Prague 1999, pp. 256–290 (in Czech).
2. ↑ Libor Budinský: Trinásť prezidentov. Ikar, Bratislava 2004, ISBN 80-551-0751-3 .
3. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Ludvík Svoboda