Otto Šling
Encyclopedia
Otto Šling was born in Nová Cerekev, a village in south Bohemia
, then part of the Austrian Empire
. After World War II
, Šling became the Communist Party's Regional Secretary of Brno
in Czechoslovakia
(now the Czech Republic
). In 1952, Šling was sentenced to death at a show trial
and then executed. He was later rehabilitated by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
(CPCS
).
In 1932, Šling went to the German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague to study medicine. When the Spanish Civil War
broke out in 1936, he organized a medical unit and went to Spain
in 1937 through the Committee for Aid to Democratic Spain.
Šling was injured in Spain and, after returning home briefly, fled to London
with others involved in the Communist cause after the German advance into the Sudetenland
in 1938. There he met Marian, whom he married in 1941. During the War, he worked as the secretary of Young Czechoslovakia, a Communist organization for the émigrés in London.
After the War ended, Šling was elected to the Provisional National Assembly and became the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Regional Party Secretary of Moravia
in Brno. The CPCS took power in February 1948 amidst little opposition.
’s expulsion from Cominform
in 1948, the Communist regimes across Eastern Europe
embarked on a period of terror and show trials. In 1949, despite trials in Hungary
, Poland
, and Bulgaria
, prime minister Klement Gottwald
maintained the belief that the CPCS had not been infiltrated by any conspirators.
Pressure from the Soviet Union
and from a growing trend in other Eastern European countries (especially in the trial of László Rajk
in Hungary) to link internal treason to an international conspiracy led the CPCS to begin its own search for conspirators.
In the autumn of 1949, there was a push to reaffirm Soviet, not national, socialism, by routing out bourgeois nationalists, and Šling came under scrutiny. The Rajk trial had revealed the possibility that the center of the international plot was in Czechoslovakia. Šling’s name was culled from interrogations from the Hungarian trials, as were the names Artur London
and Gustav Husák
.
Up through mid-1950, Šling was still supported by the Central Committee. After his theatrical check-up of the Znojmo
district officials, though, the Party grew more suspicious and in the summer of 1950, Bruno Köhler drafted a resolution on the errors in the Brno Regional Party.
, General Secretary of the CPCS, distanced himself from Šling, with whom he had been quite close.
The final draft of the resolution, submitted by Köhler and a Central Committee delegation from Prague, accused Šling of being an enemy agent, committing espionage, incorrect methods, suppressing criticism, sabotage, and not recognizing opposition from the class enemy. Šling was then expelled from the party. “Šlingism” became synonymous with even the slightest deviation from the party line.
By February 1951, fifty people were imprisoned in connection with the Šling investigation, including Marie Švermová. During interrogations, Šling would often confess and then retract his confession. Records indicate that Šling was conscious that the investigations were shaped by Moscow. Eventually, he believed that he had to be sacrificed for the Party and even felt it his duty to produce evidence against Slánský when he became the target of investigations.
A curious incident occurred during the trial: Šling was wearing the trousers he had come to prison in, but because he had lost so much weight since his arrest, and because the prisoners were not given belts, lest they use them to commit suicide, he had to hold his trousers up with his hands. During his cross-examination, Šling was gesticulating and accidentally let trousers fall down, causing a merry uproar in the courtroom from all, including Šling, with the exception of the interrogators.
In Šling’s closing statement, he states, “I was a treacherous enemy within the Communist Party…I am justly an object of contempt and deserve the maximum and the hardest punishment.” On November 27, 1952, Rudolf Slánský, Bedrich Geminder, Ludvik Frejka, Vladimir Clementis
, Bedrich Reicin
, Karel Šváb, Rudolf Margolius
, Otto Fischl, Otto Šling, and André Simone were sentenced to death; the three others, including Eugen Loebl and Artur London, received life sentences.
Šling was executed on December 3, 1952. His last words were, “Mr. President [of the Court], I wish every success to the Communist Party, the Czechoslovak people, and the President of the Republic. I have never been a spy.”
This rehabilitation came at a time of de-Stalinization, when governments blamed the previous regimes and ideologies for the current situation. Reports on the trials came out during the Prague Spring
period of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, though were quickly suppressed after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact
troops in August of that year.
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, then part of the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
. After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Šling became the Communist Party's Regional Secretary of Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
(now the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
). In 1952, Šling was sentenced to death at a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
and then executed. He was later rehabilitated by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
(CPCS
CPCS
CPCS is a non-profit civic initiative that was established in 2001 and was registered in 2005 at Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. It was established by a group of scholars and practitioners from diverse backgrounds ranging from politics to media and academia to writers and intellectuals...
).
Background
Otto Šling was the son of a factory owner and became part of the communist movement in his teenage years.In 1932, Šling went to the German Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague to study medicine. When the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
broke out in 1936, he organized a medical unit and went to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
in 1937 through the Committee for Aid to Democratic Spain.
Šling was injured in Spain and, after returning home briefly, fled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
with others involved in the Communist cause after the German advance into the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
in 1938. There he met Marian, whom he married in 1941. During the War, he worked as the secretary of Young Czechoslovakia, a Communist organization for the émigrés in London.
After the War ended, Šling was elected to the Provisional National Assembly and became the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, in Czech and in Slovak: Komunistická strana Československa was a Communist and Marxist-Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992....
Regional Party Secretary of Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
in Brno. The CPCS took power in February 1948 amidst little opposition.
The beginning of the end
Following YugoslaviaYugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
’s expulsion from Cominform
Cominform
Founded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties...
in 1948, the Communist regimes across Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
embarked on a period of terror and show trials. In 1949, despite trials in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, and Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, prime minister Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald
Klement Gottwald was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician, longtime leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia , prime minister and president of Czechoslovakia.-Early life:...
maintained the belief that the CPCS had not been infiltrated by any conspirators.
Pressure from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and from a growing trend in other Eastern European countries (especially in the trial of László Rajk
László Rajk
László Rajk was a Hungarian Communist; politician, former Minister of Interior and former Minister of Foreign Affairs...
in Hungary) to link internal treason to an international conspiracy led the CPCS to begin its own search for conspirators.
In the autumn of 1949, there was a push to reaffirm Soviet, not national, socialism, by routing out bourgeois nationalists, and Šling came under scrutiny. The Rajk trial had revealed the possibility that the center of the international plot was in Czechoslovakia. Šling’s name was culled from interrogations from the Hungarian trials, as were the names Artur London
Artur London
Artur London, , was a Czechoslovak communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský Trial. He was born in Ostrava, Austria-Hungary to a Jewish family....
and Gustav Husák
Gustáv Husák
Gustáv Husák was a Slovak politician, president of Czechoslovakia and a long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia and of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia...
.
Up through mid-1950, Šling was still supported by the Central Committee. After his theatrical check-up of the Znojmo
Znojmo
Znojmo is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic, near the border with Lower Austria, connected to Vienna by railway and road . The royal city of Znojmo was founded shortly before 1226 by King Ottokar I on the plains in front of Znojmo Castle...
district officials, though, the Party grew more suspicious and in the summer of 1950, Bruno Köhler drafted a resolution on the errors in the Brno Regional Party.
Arrest and imprisonment
On October 6, 1950, Šling was arrested, the only evidence of him conspiring against the Party being a letter of unconfirmed authorship, supposedly sent by Šling to Emanuel Viktor Voska, which did not confirm espionage. His wife and two children were taken to Prague the night of October 5 where his wife was imprisoned for several months. Rudolf SlánskýRudolf Slánský
Rudolf Slánský was a Czech Communist politician. Holding the post of the party's General Secretary after World War II, he was one of the leading creators and organizers of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia...
, General Secretary of the CPCS, distanced himself from Šling, with whom he had been quite close.
The final draft of the resolution, submitted by Köhler and a Central Committee delegation from Prague, accused Šling of being an enemy agent, committing espionage, incorrect methods, suppressing criticism, sabotage, and not recognizing opposition from the class enemy. Šling was then expelled from the party. “Šlingism” became synonymous with even the slightest deviation from the party line.
By February 1951, fifty people were imprisoned in connection with the Šling investigation, including Marie Švermová. During interrogations, Šling would often confess and then retract his confession. Records indicate that Šling was conscious that the investigations were shaped by Moscow. Eventually, he believed that he had to be sacrificed for the Party and even felt it his duty to produce evidence against Slánský when he became the target of investigations.
The trial
The scripted show trial that included Šling, Slánský, and twelve others began on November 20, 1952. All were accused of being Trotskyist-zionist-titoist-bourgeois-nationalist enemies of the Czech people.A curious incident occurred during the trial: Šling was wearing the trousers he had come to prison in, but because he had lost so much weight since his arrest, and because the prisoners were not given belts, lest they use them to commit suicide, he had to hold his trousers up with his hands. During his cross-examination, Šling was gesticulating and accidentally let trousers fall down, causing a merry uproar in the courtroom from all, including Šling, with the exception of the interrogators.
In Šling’s closing statement, he states, “I was a treacherous enemy within the Communist Party…I am justly an object of contempt and deserve the maximum and the hardest punishment.” On November 27, 1952, Rudolf Slánský, Bedrich Geminder, Ludvik Frejka, Vladimir Clementis
Vladimír Clementis
Vladimír "Vlado" Clementis was a Slovak minister, politician, lawyer, publicist, literary critic, author and a prominent member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party. He married Lída Pátková, a daughter of a branch director of Czech Hypothec Bank in Bratislava, in March 1933. He became a Communist...
, Bedrich Reicin
Bedrich Reicin
Bedřich Reicin was a Czechoslovak army officer and politician.Reicin was born into a poor Jewish family...
, Karel Šváb, Rudolf Margolius
Rudolf Margolius
Rudolf Margolius was Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, Czechoslovakia , and a co-defendant in the Slánský trial in November 1952....
, Otto Fischl, Otto Šling, and André Simone were sentenced to death; the three others, including Eugen Loebl and Artur London, received life sentences.
Šling was executed on December 3, 1952. His last words were, “Mr. President [of the Court], I wish every success to the Communist Party, the Czechoslovak people, and the President of the Republic. I have never been a spy.”
Rehabilitation and posthumous references to Šling
On August 21, 1963, Otto Šling and the others convicted in his trial were officially rehabilitated by the CPCS and acquitted of all indictments. Three years earlier, the USSR had stated publicly that an anti-state conspiracy center had never existed. In the Dubček Government’s Commission of Inquiry, Václav Kopecký’s report in February 1951 is labeled a “mass of fabrications, idle gossip, and irresponsible dramatics about the Šling-Švermová case.”This rehabilitation came at a time of de-Stalinization, when governments blamed the previous regimes and ideologies for the current situation. Reports on the trials came out during the Prague Spring
Prague Spring
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during the era of its domination by the Soviet Union after World War II...
period of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, though were quickly suppressed after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
troops in August of that year.
Sources
Please be advised that of the sources used, the Dubček Government’s report came out as part of a political push for the reform of socialism, and the Loebl, London, and Šlingova texts are all memoirs that reference Czech records.Works cited
- Crampton, R. J. Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – and After. 2nd ed. New York: RoutledgeRoutledgeRoutledge is a British publishing house which has operated under a succession of company names and latterly as an academic imprint. Its origins may be traced back to the 19th-century London bookseller George Routledge...
, 1994. - “Executed Czechs ‘Rehabilitated.’” The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. 22 August 1963, issue 52476: p. 6. - Loebl, Eugen. My Mind on Trial. New York: Harvest/HBJ, 1976.
- London, ArturArtur LondonArtur London, , was a Czechoslovak communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský Trial. He was born in Ostrava, Austria-Hungary to a Jewish family....
. The Confession. New York: William Morrow and CompanyWilliam Morrow and CompanyWilliam Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, and sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981. It was sold along to the News Corporation in 1999...
, Inc, 1970. - Lukes, Igor. Rudolf Slánský: His Trials and Trial. Cold War International History ProjectCold War International History ProjectThe Cold War International History Project is part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Project was founded in 1991 with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and is located in Washington D.C....
#50. (pdf) - Pelikán, JiříJiří Pelikán*Jiří Pelikán *Jiří Pelikán , Czechoslovakian journalist and member of parliament , then a member of the European Parliament for the Italian Socialist Party...
, ed. The Czechoslovak Political Trials 1950-1954: The Suppressed Report of the Dubček Government’s Commission of Inquiry, 1968. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971. - Šlingova, Marian. Truth Will Prevail. London: Merlin Press, Ltd., 1968.