Martin Dzúr
Martin Dzur (* 12. July 1919 in Ploštín in Liptovsky Mikulas , Slovakia , † 15. January 1985 in Prague ) was an army general of the Czechoslovak People's Army (Československá lidová armáda) and Czechoslovak politicians of the Communist Party KSČ ( Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ) , who among other things between 1968 and 1985 Minister for National Defense (Ministr národní obrany) was.
Life
World War II and officer in the post-war period
Dzúr, who came from a Slovak working-class family, attended a woodworking college between 1937 and 1939 and was drafted into the army of the Slovak state for military service in 1941. In January 1943 he became a member of the then banned Communist Party KSČ ( Komunistická strana Československa ) and shortly afterwards deserted to the Soviet Union , where he volunteered in the 119th Throwing Brigade of the Red Army . In 1944 he became a soldier of the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps established in the USSR, with whom he participated in the Slovak national uprising from August 29 to October 28, 1944 against the occupation of the Slovak state by the German armed forces, which began on August 29, 1944, and against the Slovak collaboration regime the Ludaken under Jozef Tiso . Most recently he was promoted to lieutenant .
After the end of World War II and the restoration of Czechoslovakia, Dzúr joined the Czechoslovak Army as a captain in early 1946 and graduated from a grammar school in 1947 . He then graduated from a military college and between 1948 and 1952 worked as an officer in various posts in the Ministry of Defense. In 1952 a course at the Military Academy for Logistics and Transport followed and in 1956 another higher academic course in the Soviet Union. After his return he was promoted to major general (Generálmajor) on October 23, 1958 and to head of the logistics department in the Ministry of National Defense. In 1961 he was appointed Deputy Minister for National Defense and in 1966 he studied at the Higher Military Academy of the Red Workers and Peasant Army " Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov " in Moscow .
Defense Minister and Prague Spring
At the beginning of the Prague Spring , Dzúr was appointed Minister of National Defense (Ministr národní obrany) on April 8, 1968 as the successor to Bohumír Lomský and held this post in the governments of Černík I , Černík II , Černík III , Štrougal I , Štrougal II , Štrougal III and Štrougal IV until January 11, 1985. On May 1, 1968 he was promoted to Colonel General (Generálplukovník) .
Before the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops to suppress the Prague Spring on August 21, 1968, Dzúr was the first member of the government to be informed of the military intervention. Immediately after the invasion, he was arrested by Soviet soldiers. After declaring that he would only take orders from the First Secretary of the Central Committee of KSČ Alexander Dubček regarding the military intervention , he held a telephone conversation with the Defense Minister of the Soviet Union Marshal of the Soviet Union Andrei Antonovich Grechko . The latter informed him that he (Grechko) would personally hang him (Dzúr) on the nearest tree if even one Czechoslovak soldier offered resistance. Thereupon he was allowed by Grechko to inform Dubček only about the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. The Czechoslovak People's Army did not offer any resistance to the invasion. He was co-opted on August 31, 1968 as a member of the Central Committee of the KSČ and gave the order on September 28, 1968 to open the further military areas for the Warsaw Pact troops . Dzúr himself was also Deputy Commander in Chief of the Warsaw Pact armed forces.
In April 1969, Dzúr and other representatives of Czechoslovakia took part in a meeting with Marshal Grechko, in which he shared the view of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) that, after the crackdown on the reform movement of the Prague Spring, Dubček replaced the leadership of the KSČ should be. On April 17, 1969 Dubček finally resigned and was replaced as First Secretary of the Central Committee of KSČ by Gustáv Husák . In the subsequent period of so-called " normalization " he was against the continuation of Dubček's reform policy, but stood up against "hardliners" within the army leadership such as Lieutenant General František Bedřich , who was in charge from July 1968 until his replacement by Lieutenant General Václav Horáček in February 1970 the Department of Defense's main political administration.
At the XIV Party Congress of the KSČ (May 25-29, 1971) he was elected a member of the Central Committee and belonged to this body until his death on January 15, 1985. At the same time he became a member of the Federation Assembly (Federální shromáždění) , the parliament of Czechoslovakia , for the first time on November 27, 1971 . Within parliament he was a member of the People's Chamber (Sněmovna lidu) , which was composed of 200 members elected in electoral districts, until his death .
Dzúr, who was promoted to Army General (Armádní generál) on May 1, 1972 , resigned as Minister of National Defense on January 11, 1985 - four days before his death - for health reasons and was then replaced by Colonel General Milán Václavík , who had previously been Was First Deputy Minister for National Defense.
honors and awards
Dzúr has received several awards for his many years of service, including the Order of Labor (Řád práce) in 1969 , the Order of Victory February 1974 (Řád Vítězného února) , the Order of the Republic (Řád republiky) in 1979 and the Klement-Gottwald in 1984 Order (Řád Klementa Gottwalda) . He was also awarded the Order of the Red Banner (Řádu rudé zástavy) , the Order of the Red Star (Řád rudé hvězdy) and the Czechoslovak War Cross 1939 (Československý válečný kříž 1939) at domestic awards .
In addition, Dzúr received several foreign awards and was honored with the Order of the October Revolution (USSR) in 1978 and the Order of Lenin (USSR) in 1983 . He was also awarded the Soviet Order of the Red Banner , the Order of the Flag of the People's Republic of Hungary , the Order Tudor Vladimirescu of the Socialist Republic of Romania , the Scharnhorst Order of the GDR and the Cross of Bravery of the People's Republic of Poland .
Web links
- Entry on Parliament's homepage
- Entry (functionary of the KSČ)
- Governments of the Checkoslovak Republic 1945-1992
- Entry in the Munzinger archive (top of the online version)
Individual evidence
- ↑ CZECHOSLOVAKIA ARMY: More into the desert . In: Der Spiegel from November 18, 1968
- ↑ "WE SHOT BETTER THAN COWBOYS" . In: Der Spiegel from July 20, 1970
- ↑ Prague Fall . In: Der Spiegel from February 9, 1970
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dzúr, Martin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Czechoslovak politician and general |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 12, 1919 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ploštín , Liptovský Mikuláš , Slovakia |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 15, 1985 |
| Place of death | Prague |