Edvard Beneš

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Edvard Beneš (pronounced [ˈɛdvart ˈbɛnɛʃ] (help·info)) (May 28 1884 Kožlany, Bohemia (then part of Austria-Hungary) – September 3 1948 Sezimovo Ústí, Czechoslovakia) was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement and the second President of Czechoslovakia.

[edit] Youth

He was born into a peasant family in a small village of Kožlany near Rakovník, ca. 60 km west of Prague. He spent much of his youth in Vinohrady district of Prague, where he attended grammar school from 1896 to 1904. After studying at the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University in Prague, he traveled to Paris and continued his studies at the Sorbonne and at the Independent School of Political and Social Studies (École Libre des Sciences Politiques). He completed his first degree in Dijon, where he received his Doctorate of Laws in 1908. Then he taught for three years at the Prague Academy of Commerce, and after his habilitation in the field of philosophy in 1912, he became a lecturer in sociology at Charles University.

[edit] First exile

During World War I he was one of the leading organizers of an independent Czechoslovakia abroad. He organized a Czech pro-independence anti-Austrian secret resistance movement called "Maffia". In September, 1915, he went into exile where in Paris he made intricate diplomatic efforts to gain recognition from France and the United Kingdom for the Czechoslovak independence movement, as he was from 1916–1918 a Secretary of the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris and Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs within the Provisional Czechoslovak government.

[edit] Czechoslovakia

From 1918–1935, he was first and the longest serving Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, and from 1920–1925 and 1929–1935 a member of the Parliament. He represented Czechoslovakia in talks of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1921 he was a professor and also from 1921–1922 Prime Minister. Between 1923–1927 he was a member of the League of Nations Council (serving as president of its committee from 1927–1928). He was a renowned and influential figure at international conferences, such as Genoa 1922, Locarno 1925, The Hague 1930, and Lausanne in 1932.

He was a member of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (until 1925 called Czechoslovak Socialist Party) and a strong Czechoslovakist - he did not consider Slovaks and Czechs to be separate ethnicities.

In 1935 he succeeded Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk to become President. He served as de jure President of Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1948. From 1938 to 1945 he was in exile. He was elected only twice: on 14 December 1935 and on 19 June 1946, since Art. 58 para 5 of the Constitution stipulated: The former president shall stay in his or her function till the new president shall not be elected. ("Dřívější president zůstává ve své funkci, pokud nebyl zvolen president nový.") He was confirmed as the former president of the republic by the National Assembly on 28 October 1945 by unanimous vote.[1]

[edit] Second exile

In October 1938, after the Munich Agreement ceded the predominantly German speaking Sudetenland to Germany, but before the German occupation of the Czech speaking remainder of Bohemia and Moravia, he resigned from office and went into exile in Putney, London. Then in 1940 he organized the Provisional Government-in-Exile in London with Jan Šrámek as Prime Minister and himself as President.

In November 1940 Beneš, his wife, their nieces and his household staff moved to The Abbey at Aston Abbotts near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The staff of his private office, including his Secretary Edvard Táborský and his chief of staff Jaromír Smutný moved to The Old Manor House in the neighbouring village of Wingrave while his military intelligence staff headed by František Moravec was stationed in the nearby village of Addington.

In 1941 Beneš and his government planned the Operation Anthropoid, aiming at the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. This was implemented in 1942, resulting in brutal German reprisals such as the execution of thousands of Czechs and the eradication of two villages of Lidice and Ležáky.

Although oriented to the West he was also on friendly terms with Stalin. In 1943 he signed the entente between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in order to secure Czechoslovakia's political position, as well as his own.

[edit] Last years

At the end of World War II, he returned home as the President of Czechoslovakia. He resented the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia on 25 February 1948 led by Prime Minister Klement Gottwald, and resigned as President on 7 June 1948. Gottwald succeeded him as President. He died of natural causes at his villa in Sezimovo Ústí, Czechoslovakia on September 3 1948. He is interred along with his wife in the garden of his villa and his bust is part of the gravestone.

The so-called Beneš decreesexpropriated the property of citizens of German and Hungarian ethnicity, and paved the way for the eventual expulsion of the majority of Germans to Germany and Austria. The decrees are still in force to this day and remain controversial, with the expellees demanding their repeal. The Czech government's repeated assurances that the decrees are no longer applied have been accepted by the European Commission and the European Parliament.

[edit] References

• Neil Rees "The Secret History of The Czech Connection - The Czechoslovak Government in Exile in London and Buckinghamshire" compiled by Neil Rees, England, 2005. ISBN 0-9550883-0-5
• John Wheeler-Bennett Munich : Prologue to Tragedy, New York : Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
• Paul E. Zinner "Czechoslovakia: The Diplomacy of Eduard Benes" pages 100–122 from The Diplomats 1919–1939 edited by Gordon A. Craig & Felix Gilbert, Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America, 1953

[edit] See also

• History of Czechoslovakia
• List of Presidents of Czechoslovakia
• List of Prime Ministers of Czechoslovakia

[edit] External links

• Edvard Beneš and Czechoslovakia during mounting Sudetenland Crisis (English) - an article published in Time Magazine on September 26, 1938 - free archive
• Pictures of Edvard Beneš funeral (1) (English) - lying in state (in the opened coffin)
• Pictures of Edvard Beneš funeral (2) (English) - funeral procession with wreaths and laying of coffin into grave

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