Otto Fischl
Otto Fischl (born August 17, 1902 in Dobřany ; † December 3, 1952 in Prague ) was a Czechoslovak politician of the Communist Party KSČ ( Komunistická strana Československa ) and diplomat , who was arrested in the course of the Field affair and subsequently after his conviction in Slansky trial was executed.
Life
Fischl, who came from a Jewish family, began studying law at the Charles University after graduating from a grammar school in Pilsen . While still a student he joined the Communist Party KSČ ( Komunistická strana Československa ) in 1928 and after graduating in 1931 took up a position as a lawyer . After the destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic in March 1939, he went into exile in the United Kingdom , from which he returned after the end of the Second World War .
After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1948 , Fischl became Deputy Minister of Finance. After the founding of the German Democratic Republic on October 7, 1949, he became Czechoslovakia's first ambassador to the GDR on December 1, 1949 . He was recalled from this post in March 1951 and arrested in June 1951.
On November 23, 1951, Fischl was arrested in the course of the affair surrounding the US diplomat and Marxist activist Noel Field and charged with high treason . Anti-Semitism, inspired by the Soviet medical conspiracy at that time, played an important role. Like most of his co-defendants, Fischl was of Jewish origin.
In the opening speech of the Slansky trial , Prosecutor General Josef Urválek stated :
- “After the establishment of the State of Israel, the conspirators around Slánsky and Fischl organized the illegal flight of a large number of capitalist and hostile elements from Czechoslovakia and the neighboring people's democratic countries under the pretext of emigration of Jews to Israel by protecting and supporting and protecting capitalist elements thereby allowed the export of assets worth many billions from Czechoslovakia. "
In this show trial before the newly established State Court , Fischl was sentenced to death and hanged on December 3, 1952, along with ten other defendants in Pankrác prison . Their bodies were burned. State Security employees scattered the ashes in a field outside of Prague. A good ten years later he was rehabilitated in 1963.
Defendants in the Slansky Trial (November 20-27, 1952)
- Vladimír Clementis (* 1902) - death penalty
- Otto Fischl (* 1902) - death penalty
- Josef Frank (* 1909) - death penalty
- Ludvík Frejka , alias Ludwig Freund (* 1904) - death penalty
- Bedřich Geminder (* 1901) - death penalty
- Vavro Hajdů (* 1913) - for life
- Evžen Löbl (* 1907) - for life
- Artur London (* 1915) - for life
- Rudolf Margolius (* 1913) - death penalty
- Bedřich Reicin (* 1911) - death penalty
- Otto Katz alias André Simone (* 1895) - death penalty
- Rudolf Slánský (* 1901) - death penalty
- Otto Šling (* 1912) - death penalty
- Karel Šváb (* 1904) - death penalty
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilma Iggers (editor): The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia: A Historical Reader , Wayne State University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-8143-2228-X , p. 379.
- ^ Tony Sharp: Stalin's American Spy: Noel Field, Allen Dulles and the East European Show-Trials . Hurst, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84904-344-1 .
- ↑ Karel Kaplan: Report on the Murder of the General Secretary , Verlag IB Tauris, 1990, ISBN 1-8504-3211-2 , p. 227.
- ↑ "I am a scoundrel, Mr. Prosecutor!" . In: Der Spiegel of December 26, 1956
- ↑ Karel Kaplan: Report on the murder of the general secretary . IBTauris, 1990, ISBN 978-1-85043-211-1 , p. 234.
- ↑ Ulrich Weissgerber: Poisonous Words of the SED Dictatorship: Language as an Instrument for Exercising Power and Exclusion in the Soviet Zone and the GDR , Verlag LIT Verlag Münster, 2010, p. 371, ISBN 3-6431-0429-4
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Fischl, Otto |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Czechoslovak politician and diplomat |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 17th August 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dobřany |
| DATE OF DEATH | 3rd December 1952 |
| Place of death | Prague |