Slansky trial

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Official German trial protocol from 1953

The Slansky trial (official Czech name Proces s protistátním spikleneckým centrem Rudolfa Slánského , German "Trial against the leadership of the anti-state conspiratorial center with Rudolf Slansky at the head") was a show trial in 1952 in Prague against 14 members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( KSČ), including eleven Jews . From November 20 to 27, 1952, Rudolf Slánský , general secretary of KSČ, and 13 other leading party members were charged and convicted of participating in a Trotskyist - Titoist - Zionist conspiracy . Eleven of the defendants, including Rudolf Slansky, were hanged on December 3 in Pankrác prison in Prague , and three received life imprisonment . Prosecutor General in this process was Josef Urválek .

prehistory

The starting point of the trial was the affair of the US diplomat Noel Field and the associated show trial of László Rajk in Hungary. These show trials were staged at Stalin's behest. Apparently, Klement Gottwald - the President of Czechoslovakia - had initially resisted Soviet attempts to arrest Slansky, probably also because the two had been close personally since their exile in Moscow. It was only when Gottwald himself was threatened with arrest and removal that he gave his consent to issue an arrest warrant against Slansky, not without delaying its implementation. The decisive factor was a spontaneous letter from the Czech anti-communist emigre organization Okapi , in which Slansky was offered an escape to the West. This was an attempt to denounce leading Communist party members who were supposed to be collaborating with Western secret services. This letter, apparently sent without the knowledge of Western secret services, subsequently served as evidence for the Soviet allegations of treason against Slansky, whereupon Gottwald was forced to act.

The process

After the trial with Milada Horáková in 1950 with a total of 35 follow-up trials, during which a total of 639 people were indicted and 10 death sentences were pronounced, the trial with Slansky was the second major trial in Czechoslovakia after 1948. Leading members of the KSČ were in custody for years, The first among them was Evžen Löbl , Deputy Foreign Trade Minister, arrested on November 24, 1949, followed by Otto Šling , the party secretary in Brno , on October 6, 1950 . On November 21, 1952, one day after the start of the trial, Klement Gottwald announced: “During the investigation, we discovered how treason and espionage infiltrated the ranks of the Communist Party. Their goal is Zionism. ”Slansky took“ active steps ”to“ shorten Gottwald's life with the help of hand-picked doctors from the enemy camp ”. At the same time, Stalin led a campaign in the Soviet Union against an alleged conspiracy by doctors, primarily of Jewish origin, the so-called doctors' conspiracy . With the trial of Slansky, Gottwald got rid of a dangerous rival and was able to assert himself as a serious and loyal politician to Stalin.

The process was largely shaped by anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism . In the caption of the indictment was expressly stated instead of Czech or Slovak citizenship to the "Jewishness" of eleven defendants. An excerpt from the indictment:

“That as Trotskyist-Titoist, Zionist, bourgeois-nationalist traitors and enemies of the Czechoslovak people, the people's democratic order and socialism in the service of the American imperialists and under the guidance of hostile Western espionage services, they formed an anti-subversive conspiratorial center, undermined the people's democratic order, the socialist construction disrupted, damaged the national economy, engaged in espionage activities, weakened the unity of the Czechoslovak people and the defensive capacity of the republic in order to tear them away from the solid alliance and friendship relationship with the Soviet Union, to liquidate the people's democratic order, to restore capitalism, the republic to the camp of the Dragging imperialism into it and destroying their autonomy and independence. "

The state of Israel was portrayed as the instigator of a new world war and as an international espionage center, it was making profits through predatory trade agreements, Zionist agencies were “reliable agencies” and “the forward base of American imperialism”, and Czechoslovakia was becoming economic through illegal mass emigration of Jews to Israel weakened, etc. The defendants were convicted as "cosmopolitans" and "Zionists", similar to " rootless cosmopolitans " at that time in the USSR. Two Israeli citizens appeared as witnesses for the prosecution: Mapam leader Mordechai Oren and his cousin Shimon Ornstein. In a subsequent trial, both were sentenced to life imprisonment, but were released in 1954. In their memoirs, they explain in detail how they were forced to make false confessions.

The statements of the show trial were forwarded to the Czechoslovak secret service in advance by Soviet advisors . At least some of the defendants had been promised extenuating circumstances if they adhered to the written guidelines; however, these promises were broken. In order to prevent spontaneous deviations from the specifications, as happened, for example, in similar cases in Hungary, samples were even set up for the procedure.

Between 1960 and 1963, all of the defendants were gradually rehabilitated in private trials . It was not until 1968 that the public in Czechoslovakia was informed in detail about the course of the process.

List of defendants

  • Vladimír Clementis (* 1902) Foreign Minister, arrested on January 28, 1951 - death penalty
  • Otto Fischl (* 1902) Deputy Minister of Finance, arrested on June 30, 1952 - death penalty
  • Josef Frank (* 1909) Deputy General Secretary of the KSČ Central Committee, arrested on January 23, 1952 - death penalty
  • Ludvík Frejka , alias Ludwig Freund (* 1904) head of the economic department of the KSČ Central Committee, arrested on January 30, 1952 - death penalty
  • Bedřich Geminder (* 1901) head of the international department of the secretariat of the KSČ Central Committee, arrested on November 24, 1951 - death penalty
  • Vavro Hajdů (* 1913) Deputy Foreign Trade Minister, arrested April 2, 1951 - for life
  • Evžen Löbl (* 1907) Deputy Foreign Trade Minister, arrested on November 24, 1949 - for life
  • Artur London (* 1915) Deputy Foreign Minister, arrested January 29, 1951 - for life
  • Rudolf Margolius (* 1913) Deputy Foreign Trade Minister, arrested on January 10, 1952 - death penalty
  • Bedřich Reicin (* 1911) Deputy Minister for National Defense, arrested on February 8, 1951 - death penalty
  • Otto Katz alias André Simone (* 1895) editor of Rudé právo , arrested on June 9, 1952 - death penalty
  • Rudolf Slánský (* 1901) General Secretary of the KSČ Central Committee, arrested on November 24, 1951 - death penalty
  • Otto Šling (* 1912) secretary of the KSČ in Brno , arrested on October 6, 1950 - death penalty
  • Karel Šváb (* 1904) Deputy Minister for National Security, arrested on February 16, 1951 - death penalty

reception

The 1970 French feature film The Confession is based on the factual report by co-defendant Artur London .

The son of Rudolf Margolius , Ivan Margolius, deals with the Slansky trial in his book: Reflections of Prague: Journeys through the 20th Century ( ISBN 0470022191 ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Igor Lukes:  The Rudolf Slansky affair: new evidence. In: Slavic Review, 58 (1), 1999. pp. 160-187.
  2. ↑ Dr. Horáková Milada a spol. , Report of the ÚSTR (Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes), online at: ustrcr.cz / ...
  3. ^ The Slansky Trial in: Show Trials - Staging and Medialization of Political Justice in Eastern Europe
  4. ↑ Karel Schling (Šling): Otto Šling - příběh jednoho komunisty , In: paměť a dějiny 2012/04, publication of the Institute Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů , online at: ustrcr.cz / ...
  5. ↑ Pravda , November 21, 1952.
  6. ↑ Ministerstvo spravedlnosti (Ministry of Justice of Czechoslovakia): Proces s vedením protistátního spikleneckého centra v čele s Rudolfem Slánským, Prague 1953, p. 8.
  7. ↑ Josefa Slanska: Report on my husband Kirkus Review

literature

  • Jan Gerber : A trial in Prague. The people against Rudolf Slansky and comrades. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen / Bristol 2016, ISBN 978-3-525-37047-6 .
  • Jan Gerber: Prague Perspectives. The Slansky Trial 1952. In: Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute / Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook 9 (2010). Pp. 575-620.
  • Jan Gerber: Slansky trial. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 5: Pr-Sy. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-02505-0 , pp. 508-513.
  • Artur London: I admit. The trial of Rudolf Slansky [= AtV texts currently]. Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991. ISBN 3-7466-0043-X
  • Josefa Slanska: Report about my husband. The Slansky affair. Europa-Verlag Vienna Frankfurt Zurich, 1969
  • Zakázaný document. Zpráva komise ÚV KSČ o politických procesech a rehabilitacích v Československu 1949–68 (Prohibited document. Report of the Commission of the Central Committee of the KSČ on the political processes and rehabilitation in Czechoslovakia 1949–68), Europa-Verlag, Vienna 1970 (Czech edition), Introduction and closing words by Jiří Pelikán
  • Igor Lukes: The Slanky Case. An organization in exile and the end of the Czechoslovak communist leader in 1952. Translation from English by Hermann Graml . In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Volume 47 (1999), IfZ Munich, Issue 4 pp. 459 - 501.