Sergej Vojcechovský

Sergej Vojcechovský (1938)

Sergei Nikolajevic Vojcechovský , Russian Сергей Николаевич Войцеховский (* October 16 ^{. Jul} / 28. October  1883 ^greg. In Vitebsk , Russian Empire , now Belarus, † 7. April 1951 in the labor camp Oserlag at Taishet , RSFSR ) was a Czechoslovakian soldier Russian Origin, legionnaire , army general in Czechoslovakia and, as the leading initiator of the Obrana národa resistance group, a personality of the Czechoslovak resistance against National Socialism . He died in a Soviet gulag labor camp.

Life

Vojcechovský came from a Russian noble family . After secondary school, he devoted himself to studying at various military training centers, served in Moscow and Kharkiv and took part in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 . He then attended other military academies for officers.

In 1909 he married Margarita Viktorovna Vojcechovská (maiden name Temnikova).

Military career

With the beginning of the First World War he came to the front. He received several awards for his bravery. He was assigned to the Czechoslovak Legions , who wanted to maintain strict neutrality and withdraw, and in September 1917 he became Chief of Staff of the Czechoslovak Rifle Division. He showed particular merit in the battles for Chelyabinsk after the so-called "Chelyabinsk incident" on May 14, 1918. After a Czechoslovak soldier was killed and this led to protests, the new Soviet Russian War Commissioner Leon Trotsky ordered the legion to be disarmed and the march off from Russia. Thereupon there was an uprising and the Legion, under Vojcechovský's command, captured Chelyabinsk twice and continued their march on the Trans-Siberian Mainline ; neutrality was abandoned in favor of supporting the White Movement , which Vojcechovský later practiced.

In 1921 he entered Czechoslovakia after spending a short time in Istanbul , where he and his troops had been evacuated in late 1920. He entered the army on May 1, 1921 with the rank group of a general and received Czechoslovak citizenship. In 1936 he was promoted to army general.

During the crisis that occurred after the signing of the Munich Agreement , Vojcechovský commanded the First Army (from September 1938) and firmly believed that the army should not follow the decision of the politicians to surrender, but should oppose it. In 2014, a broadcast on the Czech radio took over one of his statements from 1939 on the title of a broadcast: "One does not discuss state borders, state borders are defended". On April 1, 1939, shortly after the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , Vojcechovský retired and initiated talks with other generals such as Josef Bílý or Sergěj Ingr , which led to the establishment of the resistance organization Obrana národa . However, he himself did not take an active part in the activity because he was under the supervision of the Gestapo .

After the liberation of Czechoslovakia on May 9, 1945, Sergej Vojcechovský was arrested on May 12, 1945 by a command of the NKVD and deported to the Soviet Union , although he was a Czechoslovak citizen. The action was carried out by a command of the military intelligence service SMERSch belonging to the NKVD . As the Office for Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism ÚDV, which is affiliated to the Czech Ministry of the Interior, proves in a publication after evaluating many internal documents, many people were deported to Soviet camps at the same time: between May 11, 1945 and May 31, 1945 alone at least 100 People abducted by SMERSch, including many Russian emigrants, but most of them - like Vojcechovský - were Czech citizens. Together with Sergej Vojcechovský, his son Jiří Vojcechovský, a lieutenant in the Czechoslovak army, was arrested and first brought to Moscow , where he was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp in September 1945. After brief stops in Lefortowo Prison and Butyrka Prison in Moscow, Vojcechovský was transferred to the UnschLag corrective labor camp (ITL) near Gorky , where he spent three years, and then to the OserLag special camp near Tayshet in Siberia , where he was on 25 May Arrived in 1949. Sergej Vojcechovský died here on May 4th or 7th, 1951. The Soviet authorities stated that the cause of death was tuberculosis and old age, although these were diagnosed in most cases, so that the exact cause of death is not necessarily known. Vojcechovský's grave is said to be near the camp hospital.

It was later criticized that the then bourgeois government under President Beneš had not taken any diplomatic initiatives against the imprisonment of General Vojcechovský or the imprisonment of other Czechoslovak citizens who - before they emigrated from the USSR - took a stand against the Bolsheviks . In this context, the ÚDV study talks about the growing opportunism of the then Czechoslovak government towards the Soviet Union, encouraged by the efforts not to jeopardize the friendship treaties with the Soviet Union and by the fact that some, including very important government departments (such as the Ministry of the Interior, etc.) were led by representatives of the CPC . Despite appeals from family members of the abducted people, no serious steps were taken, and isolated inquiries in Moscow were not answered.

On October 28, 1997, Sergej Vojcechovský was posthumously awarded the Order of the White Lion 1st Class by the then President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel .

Awards

Sergej Vojcechovský received the following awards (excerpt):

• 1912 Order of Saint Stanislaus III. class
• 1914 Russian Order of St. Anne IV Class
• 1915 Order of Saint Stanislaus, 2nd class
• 1915 Russian Order of St. Anna II Class
• 1916 Order of St. Vladimir IV class
• 1919 Russian Order of Saint George III. class
• 1923 Czechoslovak War Cross 1914–1918
• 1926 Legion of Honor, 4th class
• 1928 Order of St. Sava, 2nd class
• 1929 Legion of Honor III. class
• 1930 Order of St. Sava, 1st class
• 1937 Order of the Crown of Yugoslavia 1st class
• 1937 Star of Romania 1st class
• 1997 Order of the White Lion 1st class ( in memoriam )

Remarks

1. ↑ In addition to April 7, 1951, some sources also contain April 4, 1951 as the date of death; see. Armádní generál Sergej Vojcechovský a ministr obrany Bohumír Bradáč na manévrech . Publication of the Vojenský historický ústav VHÚ (Military History Institute) of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, online at: vhu.cz/

Individual evidence

1. ^ Armádní generál Sergej Vojcechovský a ministr obrany Bohumír Bradáč na manévrech . Publication of the Vojenský historický ústav VHÚ (Military History Institute) of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, online at: vhu.cz/
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Pavel Hlavatý: Sergej Vojcechovský - “O hranicích se nediskutuje. Hranice se brání! ” . Czech Radio report of October 30, 2014, serial “Portréty”, online at: www.rozhlas.cz/
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Sergej Nikolajevič Vojcechovskij . Curriculum vitae, encyclopedia of the city of Brno, online at: encyklopedie.brna.cz / ...
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Přehled popravených, umučených a padlých československých generálů , keyword armádní generál Sergej Nikolajevič VOJCECHOVSKÝ , biography, online at: codyprint.cz / ...
5. ↑ New memorial to Czechoslovak legionaries divides Russian city . Daily newspaper "Lidovky", online version, March 7, 2013, online at: ceskapozice.lidovky.cz / ...
6. ^ Tomáš Jakl: Incident, ze kterého vzešel boj legií se sovětskou mocí . Publication of the Vojenský historický ústav VHÚ (Military History Institute) of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, online at: vhu.cz / ...
7. ↑ Pavel J. Kuthan: ČELJABINSKÝ INCIDENT . "Památník Čs. Legií" portal. Online at: pamatnik.valka.cz / ... ( Memento from May 29, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Jindrich Marek: Hořkost kronik a zradu EVROPSKÝCH politiku nahradilo mužné sebeobětování . Publication of the Vojenský historický ústav VHÚ (Military History Institute) of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, online at: vhu.cz / ...
9. ↑ Vladimír Bystrov: Únosy československých občanů do Sovětského Svazu v letech 1945-1955 . Edition Svědectví , ed. from Úřad dokumentace a vyšetřování zločinů komunismu ÚDV, an institution of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, Prague 2003, 343 pages, ISBN 80-7312-027-5 , online at: szcpv.org/ , in particular page 55ff. as well as the corresponding footnotes (from p. 68)
10. ↑ Andrej Halada: osudy Legionářů v dobách druhé světové války i té studené . Publication of the Vojenský historický ústav VHÚ (Military History Institute) of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, online at: vhu.cz / ...
11. ↑ Vladimír Bystrov: Únosy československých občanů do Sovětského Svazu v letech 1945-1955 . Edition Svědectví , ed. vom Úřad dokumentace a vyšetřování zločinů komunismu ÚDV, an institution of the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, Prague 2003, 343 pages, ISBN 80-7312-027-5 , online at: szcpv.org/ , cf. in particular the German resume, page 338ff.
12. ↑ Seznam vyznamenaných . Portal of the President of the Czech Republic, online at hrad.cz / ...
13. ↑ Vojcechovský Sergej- Armádní generál / Army General . Compilation based on material from the Central Military Archive (Vojenský ústřední archiv), online at: forum.valka.cz/

Web links

Commons : Sergej Vojcechovský  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Literature and other media by and about Sergej Vojcechovský in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic