Otakar Šimůnek

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Otakar Šimůnek

Otakar Šimůnek (born October 23, 1908 in Náchod , Bohemia , † June 19, 1972 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak politician of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Komunistická strana Československa ) (KSČ).

Life

The son of a worker studied chemistry and engineering at a technical university after attending school and then worked not only as an engineer but also as an organizer in the workers' consumer cooperative Včela . After the smashing of the rest of the Czech Republic in March 1939, Šimůnek, who became a member of Komunistická strana Československa (KSČ) in 1934 , took part in actions of the underground movement against the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and was also one of the participants in the uprising in Prague in May 1945.

After the Second World War , he took on numerous offices within the government and party leadership in Czechoslovakia. Between December 1951 and June 1954 he was Minister for the Chemical Industry , having previously been Vice Minister for the Chemical Industry for some time.

From June 22, 1954 until his replacement by Alois Indra on July 11, 1962, he was also chairman of the state planning commission with the rank of minister. At the same time he was elected candidate of the Politburo and member of the Central Committee of the KSČ at the X. Party Congress of the KSČ , before he was elected at the XI. KSČ party congress became a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee. In this function he was a guest speaker at the 5th party congress of the SED in July 1958 in the Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle in East Berlin and, in his welcoming address, affirmed the solidarity between the two countries under the leadership of their parties in the common struggle to enforce a nuclear weapons-free zone in Europe , against the danger of nuclear war , which emanates primarily from West Germany .

Most recently, from March 1959 to the Prague Spring in April 1968, he was also Deputy Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in the governments of Viliam Široký and Jozef Lenárt .

On November 25, 1959, he signed a trade and navigation agreement between the ČSSR and the GDR with Heinrich Rau , Minister for Foreign Trade and Internal German Trade of the GDR. In 1962 he was head of the Czechoslovak delegation at the Leipzig trade fair . At the same time he was temporarily chairman of the State Commission for Economic and Scientific-Technical Cooperation and in this function paid a working visit to Austria at the end of 1965. He was also the representative of Czechoslovakia in the Council for Mutual Economic Aid . Nevertheless, in the mid- 1960s, he increasingly lost influence as an economist to younger party officials.

In December 1967, shortly before the beginning of the Prague Spring, Šimůnek belonged Politburo next Bohuslav Laštovička , Michal Chudík and Jozef Lenárt to the supporters of the conservative First Secretary of the KSČ and President Antonín Novotný , while Novotný liberal opponents Alexander Dubcek , Oldřich Černík , Drahomír Kolder , Jiří Hendrych and Jaromír Dolanský were among them, with Kolder later being one of the strongest supporters of the crackdown on the Prague Spring and co-signing the so-called letter of invitation in which leading Czechoslovak politicians asked the Soviet Union for help. A “stalemate” arose in the Politburo.

As part of the changes in the course of the Prague Spring, he finally lost his position as a member of the Politburo on April 5, 1968.

Publications

  • International Economic Relations and Competition of the Two Systems . In: International Affairs . tape 8 , no. 12 , 1962, pp. 17-22 ( online ).
  • Czechoslovakia in the CMEA System . In: International Affairs . tape 14 , no. 2 , 1968, p. 22-26 ( online ).

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ladislav Niznansky, Hanus Hajek: Czechoslovak Government Reshuffle . Document number HU OSA 300-8-3-1682. Munich July 12, 1962 ( online ).
  2. ^ Fifth party congress of the SED 1958 ( Memento from February 22, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ).
  3. ^ Treaty of Trade and Navigation. Signed at Berlin, on November 25, 1959 . In: UN (Ed.): Treaty Series . tape 374 , 1960, pp. 101 ff . ( PDF ).
  4. ↑ The eyewitness 10/1962 ( Memento of 10 September 2012 at the Web archive archive.today ).
  5. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb, Otto M. Maschke, Stefan A. Lütgenau (eds.): Austrian national history after 1945 . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2002, ISBN 978-3-205-99105-2 , p. 621 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  6. ^ Stagnation in the Czechoslovak Economy [Correction] . HU OSA 300-8-3-1778. Munich February 14, 1964 ( online ).
  7. ↑ Jaromír Navrátil (Ed.): The Prague Spring 1968: A National Security Archive Documents Reader . Central European University Press, Budapest 1998, ISBN 978-963-9116-15-3 , pp. 21 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  8. ↑ M. Mark Stolarik (ed.): The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968: Forty Years Later . Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Mundelein, IL 2010, ISBN 978-0-86516-751-3 , pp. 35 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ↑ CIA (ed.): Central Intelligence Bulletin . Document number CIA-RDP79T00975A011000050001-3. April 5, 1968, p. 5-7 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Šimůnek, Otakar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 23, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Náchod , Czech Republic
DATE OF DEATH June 19, 1972
Place of death Prague