Radomír Luža

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Radomír Vaclav Luža (born October 17, 1922 in Prague , † November 26, 2009 in Philadelphia ) was a Czech historian and resistance fighter against National Socialism in Czechoslovakia .

Youth and education

Radomír Luža was born as the son of the future Czech army general Vojtěch Luža in the Štefánik barracks in Prague (today the seat of the Czech Ministry of Justice). Later the family moved to Brno , where Radomír attended high school. After Czechoslovakia was broken up in 1939 by Hitler's Germany, his father worked in the underground movement , including in the Obrana národa resistance group . In 1941, after his father had to go into hiding, the then 19-year-old Radomír was arrested by the Gestapo . After his release, he also joined the Czechoslovak resistance .

After the war, he began to study law at Masaryk University in Brno and to get involved in politics. Due to the February coup , he and his wife Libuše had to flee the country. Via Vienna he first went to France , where he studied at the Sorbonne . In 1953 he moved to the USA , where he studied European history at New York University and was involved in the International Union of Socialist Youth .

Academic career and political commitment

In 1960 the Lužas returned to Europe and Radomír Luža dealt with German-Czech relations in Vienna during and after the Nazi era. These studies formed the basis for his book, published in 1964. In 1966 the Lužas moved to the USA again.

In 1967 Luža was appointed professor at Tulane University in New Orleans , where he taught European and German history until 1993. In many of his publications he deals with the resistance against National Socialism , which is why he also worked closely with the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (DÖW).

After the Velvet Revolution , Radomír Luža became involved in the re-establishment of the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party in 1990 . At the invitation of Václav Havel , he also taught at Masaryk University.

After Radomír Luža's death in 2009, Günter Bischof initiated the Radomír Luža Prize for Central European History , which was awarded for the first time in 2012.

Awards

Works (selection)

  • The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans: A Study of the Czech-German Relations, 1933–1962 . New York University Press, 1964, ISBN 978-0-8147-0269-7 (English).
  • Austria and the Greater German Idea in the Nazi Era . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1977, ISBN 978-3-205-07115-0 .
  • together with Victor S. Mamatey: History of the Czechoslovak Republic, 1918–1948 . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1980.
  • The resistance in Austria 1938–1945 . Österreichischer Bundesverlag, Vienna 1983, ISBN 3-215-05477-9 .
  • together with Christina Vella: The Hitler Kiss. A Memoir of the Czech Resistance . Louisiana State University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8071-2781-0 (English).

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b Radomír Luža (1922 - 2009). DÖW, 2013, accessed on October 6, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b Overview of the Radomír Luža papers. In: www.oac.cdlib.org. Retrieved October 6, 2017 .
  3. ↑ a b Radomír Luža. In: www.austrianresistance.org. Retrieved October 6, 2017 .
  4. ^ Radomír Luža Prize. DÖW, 2013, accessed on October 6, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Luža, Radomír
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Luža, Radomír Vaclav (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czechoslovak historian and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Prague
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 2009
Place of death Philadelphia , United States