Jozef Tiso
Monsignor Jozef Tiso (October 13, 1887–April 18, 1947) was a Roman Catholic priest and a famous Nazi collaborator as president of Slovakia during World War II. After serving as a Catholic educator, he rose to leadership in the Slovak People's Party and became a deputy of the Czechoslovak parliament. He went on to serve as a member of the Czechoslovak government and finally became prime minister after Hitler annexed the neighboring Sudetenland. He soon became the President of the Independent Slovak Republic from 1939-1945, allied with Nazi Germany.
Tiso's role in the treatment of Slovak Jews during the war has been a source of constant controversy. His defenders insist that Tiso helped save some Jews from deportation, especially those who made contributions to the national economy. Others claim that Tiso played a major part in the extermination process.
When the country was freed from Nazi occupation at the end of World War II, Tiso was found guilty of treason and collaboration with the Nazis by pro-Soviet, Czechoslovak authorities.
Early life
Born in Veľká Bytča (today's Bytča), Jozef Tizo graduated from the Pasmaneum college in Vienna in 1910 as a theologian. He worked as a Catholic curate in several towns, teaching Slovak spelling, organizing theater performances, and doing cultural work.
At the beginning of World War I, Tiso served as a military chaplain. In 1915, he became the director of the local minor seminary at Nitra and a teacher at the Piarist high school in the same town. From 1921 to 1924, Tizo served as the secretary of the local bishop and a teacher at the seminary of divinity at Nitra. In 1924, he became the seminary's dean and parish priest of the town of Bánovce nad Bebravou.
Political ascent
Tiso's political rise was based on his activities as a head leader of the Slovak People's Party. Father Andrej Hlinka had founded the party as a Roman Catholic group in 1913, while Austria-Hungary still ruled Slovakia. The party sought the autonomy of Slovakia within Czechoslovakia. After 1923, it became the largest party in Slovakia. It comprised one of the two purely Slovak parties in Slovakia. When Hlinka died in 1938, Tiso became de facto leader of the party. Officially, however, he served as its deputy leader from 1930 to October 1, 1939, becoming the official party leader after that date.
Tiso continued to work actively as the parish priest of the town of Bánovce nad Bebravou from 1924 to 1945, even during his party presidency. From 1925 to 1939, he served as a deputy in the Czechoslovak parliament in Prague. During this time, he was also the Czechoslovak Minister of Health and Sports from 1927 to 1929. For a brief period from October 6 to November 28, 1938, he also served as Czechoslovak Minister for Slovak Affairs.
After Adolf Hitler's Germany annexed the Sudetenland (the German part of Czechoslovakia), Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš fled the country, in October 1938. During the chaos which resulted, the Slovaks declared their autonomy within Czechoslovakia. Tiso, as the leader of the Slovak People's Party, became the prime minister of this autonomous Slovakia. Hungary, however, had never accepted the separation of Slovakia from its control in 1918 after WWI. It took advantage of the situation and managed to persuade Germany and Italy, by means of the so-called Vienna Award (Vienna Arbitration), to pressure Slovakia to allow Hungary to occupy one third of Slovak territory in November 1938.
In this situation, all Czech or Slovak political parties in Slovakia, except for the Communists, joined forces and set up the "Hlinka's Slovak People's Party - Party of Slovak National Unity" in November 1938. This coalition formed the basis for the future authoritarian regime in Slovakia. In January 1939, the Slovak government officially prohibited all parties apart from the Party of Slovak National Unity, the "Deutsche Partei" (a party of Germans in Slovakia), and the "Unified Hungarian Party" (a party of Hungarians in Slovakia).
From February 1939, representatives of Germany, planning to occupy the Czech part if the country and not strongly interested in Slovakia at this time, began to persuade Slovak politicians to declare the independence of Slovakia. On March 9, 1939, Czech troops occupied Slovakia, a situation unacceptable to Hitler, and Tiso lost his post of prime minister.
On March 13, 1939, Hitler invited Tiso to Berlin and personally persuaded him to declare the immediate independence of Slovakia under German "protection." Otherwise, Hitler warned, Hungary Poland would certainly annex the remaining territory of Slovakia.
Tiso then reportedly spoke by phone to the Czechoslovak president Emil Hácha and to the new prime minister of Slovakia, Karol Sidor. They agreed to convene the Slovak parliament the next day and let it decide what course to take. On March 14, the Slovak parliament unanimously declared the "independence" of Slovakia, and on March 15, Germany invaded the remaining Czech lands, exactly according to German plans.
Tiso served as the prime minister of independent Slovakia from March 14, 1939 until October 26, 1939. On October 26, he became the country's president. Only on October 1, 1939, did he officially become the president of the Slovak People's Party. From 1942 on, Tiso styled himself Vodca ("Leader"), an imitation of the German Führer.
Policies and demise
The "independence" of Slovakia remained largely illusory in the sense that Slovakia had become a German puppet state. The Slovak People's Party functioned as almost the sole legal political organization in Slovakia. The Party under Tiso's leadership aligned themselves with Nazi policy on anti-Semitic legislation in Slovakia. This was no hard task, given Hlinka's policy of a "Slovakia for the Slovaks," a line vehemently adhered to by Jozef Tiso.
The respective main act was the so-called Jewish Code. Under the anti-Semitic Jewish Code, Jews in Slovakia could not own any real estates or luxury goods, were excluded from public jobs and free occupations, could not participate in sport or cultural events, were excluded from secondary schools and universities, and were required to wear the star of David in public. Tiso, himself - like many people in Central Europe at that time - had definite anti-Semitic views (as some of his own letters from the end of World War II suggest).
In general, opinions differ widely on his role in the Jewish deportations from Slovakia, but it is known that he adhered to the Nazi line to a great extent. Some sources prefer the view that Tiso supported the deportations tacitly; other sources point out that the first deportations had to take place secretly behind his back due to his "personal opposition." As to the then-Slovak government, however, documents concerning the holocaust in Slovakia (such as E.Niznansky et al. (eds.), Holokaust na Slovensku, vols. 1-5. Bratislava: NMS/ZNO, 2001-2004) prove that the Slovak government consentingly cooperated with Germans and even somewhat coordinated deportations. In fact, Hitler praised the policy concerning the Jews of Slovakia in a meeting with Tiso in the Klassheim Castle in Salzburg (Ostmark), on April 22, 1942.
The deportations of Jews from Slovakia started in March 1942, but were stopped - despite heavy opposition to this from Germany, which demanded they resume - in October 1942 by the Slovaks, when it became clear that Nazi Germany had not "only" misused the Slovakian Jews as forced labor workers, but had also partly executed them in camps. Public protests arose, as well as pressure from the Holy See to stop the deportations. Slovakia became the first state in the Nazi sphere to rigorously stop deportations of Jews. However, some 58,000 Jews (75 percent of Slovak Jewry) had already suffered deportation, mostly to Auschwitz, of whom only a minority survived. Between October 1942 and October 1944, Independent Slovakia even served as a safe last resort for Jews suffering persecution in Nazi-occupied neighboring countries such as annexed Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Poland, and occupied Ukraine.
Jewish deportations were resumed by German occupation authorities in October 1944, when the Soviet army reached the Slovak border, and the Slovak National Uprising took place. As a result of the Uprising and the approach of the Soviet forces, Nazi Germany had decided to occupy all of Slovakia and the country lost its independence and saw the deportation of Jews resumed again after two years. During the 1944-1945 German occupation, the country saw 13,500 more Jews deported and another 5,000 imprisoned.
Tiso lost power when the Soviet Army conquered the last parts of western Slovakia in April 1945. He faced a charge of "internal treason, treason of the Slovak National Uprising, and collaboration with Nazism." On April 15, 1947, the National court (Národný súd) sentenced him to death. Only president Edvard Beneš had the power to grant a reprieve. However, despite broad Slovak public opinion and the intervention of the Slovak Democratic Party, as well as a vote in the Czechoslovak cabinet against execution, he refused to grant Tiso amnesty. Jozef Tiso was hanged on April 18, 1947.
Legacy
Of all individuals in Slovak history, none is more divisive than Monsignor Jozef Tiso, who presided over the founding of that autonomous portion of the Czecho-Slovak state. During World War II, Hitler sought to impose his final solution on states in their sphere of influence, such as Slovakia. To this day, a debate rages as to what role Tiso played in the transport of Jews to the Polish death camps during this horrific period. While some believe that Tiso saved Jews from the gas chambers, especially those who made contributions to the Slovak economy, others insist that Tiso played a key role in the extermination process, itself. Despite warnings that deportations could lead to the death of Jews, Tiso permitted them to take place in 1942, and even authorized the payment of 500 Reichsmarks for each Jew deported to Germany.
History remembers Tiso both as a puppet of the Nazis as well as someone who spared Slovakia from a cruel Nazi occupation that befell much of the rest of Europe during the war.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Deák, István; Gross, Jan Tomasz; and Judt, Tony. 2000. The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. ISBN 0691009546 and ISBN 978-0691009544
- Murin, Charles. Remembrances and Testimony. Montreal: RealTime Pub., 1992. ISBN 978-0969779803 and ISBN 0969779801
- Sutherland, Anthony X. 1978. Dr. Josef Tiso and Modern Slovakia. Cleveland: First Catholic Slovak Union, 1978. OCLC 4625396
- Vnuk, Frantisek. This is Dr. Jozef Tiso, President of Slovak Republic. Cambridge, ON: Friends of Good Books, 1977. B0006DZZZ1
External links
- WorldStatesmen- Slovakia
- Online exhibit from the Holocaust World Resource Centre
- In the Spirit of Christianity
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