Rudolf Margolius
Encyclopedia
Rudolf Margolius was Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, Czechoslovakia
(1949-1952), and a co-defendant in the Slánský trial in November 1952.
The 1952 Slánský trial
involved the Communist Party General Secretary, Rudolf Slánský
, and his thirteen co-defendants. They were arrested, unjustly accused, tried, and executed as traitors and western spies. The trial was orchestrated by Soviet advisors, sent to Prague
by Stalin, and who were assisted by Czechoslovak Secret Service interrogators and the members of Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee. The destruction of the Czechoslovak Communist high-ranking party officials by their own colleagues has defied attempts to explain it, and our understanding of the affair remains superficial to this day. One of the people who were thrown into the alleged conspiracy was Dr Rudolf Margolius.
The Slánský group consisted of a large range of personalities. On one side was Slánský
, an extremist and one of those who helped to usher Czechoslovakia
into the Stalinist era. At the centre stood Vladimír Clementis
(Minister of Foreign Affairs), a Communist and one of the conductors of the February 1948 Communist Coup, but also a man who had dared to criticize the Stalin-Hitler Pact. On the other extreme of the scale was Margolius. Unlike others in the Slánský group, he joined the Communist Party
late – in December 1945 – and acquired faith in socialism as a result of his experience in Hitler’s concentration camps.
into a patriotic Czech, middle-class milieu. As a law student in the thirties at Charles University, studying together with the Czech poet Hanuš Bonn, he devoted much of his time to the YMCA
travelling in Western Europe, Middle East and America. During Czechoslovakia’s Munich crisis with Nazi Germany
he was an Army reserve officer serving together with his friend, music composer, Jan Hanuš
. In 1939, while Czechoslovakia
was already occupied by the Third Reich he married Heda Bloch (later known as Heda Margolius Kovály
).
In 1941 he was deported to the Lodz Ghetto and subsequently to concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau. In May 1945 after escaping from Dachau he was made a leader of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen
camp for the war refugees. In December 1945 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party influenced by his war experiences and murder of his parents and relatives in the concentration camps and hope of instituting better future for the country. Between 1945 and 1948 he worked for the Association of Czechoslovak Industry in Prague. Afterwards he was promoted to a Chief of Staff of the Minister of Foreign Trade (1948-49) and subsequently became Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade responsible for the sector trading with Western countries (1949-52). Together with his colleague, Evžen Löbl, Margolius was the author of dollar offensive in the Czechoslovak economic policy. In 1949 in London
Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin
and Sir William Strang
who represented the British Government. Margolius was a lawyer and economist and was not directly involved in the contemporary Communist Party machinations or politics.
Dr. Rudolf Margolius was arrested on January 10, 1952. After months of physical and psychological coercion in addition to being forced to sign a false confession, Margolius met for the first time his alleged co-inspirators led by Rudolf Slánský
at the Czechoslovak High Court attached to the Pankrác Prison
in Prague
in November 1952. Margolius was chosen as a member of the ‘conspiracy’ because in his capacity as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade he made trade agreements with capitalist countries against the wishes of the Soviet Union
to increase trade with other socialist countries and he dealt with large sums of money. These details had a great impact on contemporary public opinion. As had been determined in advance in Moscow
and by the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s Central Committee, the court sentenced Margolius and ten others to death, three received life sentences. On December 3, 1952, at the execution, Margolius did not pronounce any last words.
A memorial plaque dedicated to JUDr Rudolf Margolius is located on the family tomb at New Jewish Cemetery, Izraelská 1, Prague
3, sector no. 21, row no. 13, plot no. 33, directly behind Franz Kafka
’s grave.
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...
(1949-1952), and a co-defendant in the Slánský trial in November 1952.
The 1952 Slánský 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...
involved the Communist Party General Secretary, Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf 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...
, and his thirteen co-defendants. They were arrested, unjustly accused, tried, and executed as traitors and western spies. The trial was orchestrated by Soviet advisors, sent to Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
by Stalin, and who were assisted by Czechoslovak Secret Service interrogators and the members of Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee. The destruction of the Czechoslovak Communist high-ranking party officials by their own colleagues has defied attempts to explain it, and our understanding of the affair remains superficial to this day. One of the people who were thrown into the alleged conspiracy was Dr Rudolf Margolius.
The Slánský group consisted of a large range of personalities. On one side was Slánský
Rudolf 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...
, an extremist and one of those who helped to usher 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...
into the Stalinist era. At the centre stood Vladimír 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...
(Minister of Foreign Affairs), a Communist and one of the conductors of the February 1948 Communist Coup, but also a man who had dared to criticize the Stalin-Hitler Pact. On the other extreme of the scale was Margolius. Unlike others in the Slánský group, he joined the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
late – in December 1945 – and acquired faith in socialism as a result of his experience in Hitler’s concentration camps.
Life
Rudolf Margolius was born in PraguePrague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
into a patriotic Czech, middle-class milieu. As a law student in the thirties at Charles University, studying together with the Czech poet Hanuš Bonn, he devoted much of his time to the YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
travelling in Western Europe, Middle East and America. During Czechoslovakia’s Munich crisis with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
he was an Army reserve officer serving together with his friend, music composer, Jan Hanuš
Jan Hanuš
Jan Hanuš was a prolific Czech composer of the 20th century. Almost every category of composition is represented among his works, many of which are overtly political, expressing in turn anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist and anti-Communist sentiments.-Biography:Hanuš studied composition independently with...
. In 1939, while 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...
was already occupied by the Third Reich he married Heda Bloch (later known as Heda Margolius Kovály
Heda Margolius Kovály
Heda Margolius Kovály was a Czech writer.- Early life :She was born Heda Bloch to Jewish parents in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where she lived until 1941 when her family was rounded up along with the rest of the city's Jewish population and taken to the Lodz Ghetto in central Poland.-...
).
In 1941 he was deported to the Lodz Ghetto and subsequently to concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau. In May 1945 after escaping from Dachau he was made a leader of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a mountain resort town in Bavaria, southern Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the Oberbayern region, and the district is on the border with Austria...
camp for the war refugees. In December 1945 he joined the Czechoslovak Communist Party influenced by his war experiences and murder of his parents and relatives in the concentration camps and hope of instituting better future for the country. Between 1945 and 1948 he worked for the Association of Czechoslovak Industry in Prague. Afterwards he was promoted to a Chief of Staff of the Minister of Foreign Trade (1948-49) and subsequently became Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade responsible for the sector trading with Western countries (1949-52). Together with his colleague, Evžen Löbl, Margolius was the author of dollar offensive in the Czechoslovak economic policy. In 1949 in 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...
Margolius negotiated and signed several important economic and financial agreements with Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
and Sir William Strang
William Strang, 1st Baron Strang
William Strang, 1st Baron Strang, GCMG, KCB, MBE was a British diplomat who served as a leading adviser to the British Government from the 1930s to the 1950s and as Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1949 to 1953....
who represented the British Government. Margolius was a lawyer and economist and was not directly involved in the contemporary Communist Party machinations or politics.
Dr. Rudolf Margolius was arrested on January 10, 1952. After months of physical and psychological coercion in addition to being forced to sign a false confession, Margolius met for the first time his alleged co-inspirators led by Rudolf Slánský
Rudolf 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...
at the Czechoslovak High Court attached to the Pankrác Prison
Pankrác Prison
Pankrác Prison, officially Prague Pankrác Remand Prison , is a prison in Prague, Czech Republic...
in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
in November 1952. Margolius was chosen as a member of the ‘conspiracy’ because in his capacity as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade he made trade agreements with capitalist countries against the wishes of 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....
to increase trade with other socialist countries and he dealt with large sums of money. These details had a great impact on contemporary public opinion. As had been determined in advance in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and by the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s Central Committee, the court sentenced Margolius and ten others to death, three received life sentences. On December 3, 1952, at the execution, Margolius did not pronounce any last words.
Posthumous exoneration
The Scotsman reported on 16 May 1968:Czechoslovak President Ludvík SvobodaLudvík Svobodathumb|Svoboda and [[I Corps |I Czechoslovak Army Corps]]Ludvík Svoboda was a Czechoslovak general and politician...
has awarded the Order of the Republic posthumously to Rudolf Margolius, former Deputy Foreign Trade Minister executed in 1952 after the Stalinist Slánský trial. Margolius was accused of being a member of the “anti-party conspiratorial centre,” and was sentenced to death along with former Party Secretary Rudolf SlánskýRudolf SlánskýRudolf 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...
and nine others on November 27, 1952. SlánskýRudolf SlánskýRudolf 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...
and the others were judicially rehabilitated by the Supreme Court in 1963. All had been accused of high treason, espionage and sabotage and organizing a Jewish plot to bring down the régime.
A memorial plaque dedicated to JUDr Rudolf Margolius is located on the family tomb at New Jewish Cemetery, Izraelská 1, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
3, sector no. 21, row no. 13, plot no. 33, directly behind Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
’s grave.
Literature
- Margolius Kovály, Heda (1997): Under A Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968Under a Cruel Star (book)Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968 was published first under this title by Plunkett Lake Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1986. The memoir was written by Heda Margolius Kovály and translated with Francis and Helen Epstein. It is now available in a Holmes & Meier, New York 1997 edition...
, New York: Holmes & Meier, ISBN 0841913773
Na vlastní kůži, Academia, Praha 2003 - Margolius, Ivan (2006): Reflections of Prague: Journeys through the 20th Century, London: Wiley, ISBN 0470022191
Praha za zrcadlem: Putování 20. stoletím, Argo, Praha 2007, ISBN 9788072039470 - London, Artur (1971): The Confession, New York: Ballantine Books, ISBN 0345221702.
See also
- Heda Margolius KovályHeda Margolius KovályHeda Margolius Kovály was a Czech writer.- Early life :She was born Heda Bloch to Jewish parents in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where she lived until 1941 when her family was rounded up along with the rest of the city's Jewish population and taken to the Lodz Ghetto in central Poland.-...
- Ivan MargoliusIvan MargoliusIvan Margolius, , author, architect and propagator of Czech culture and technology.Margolius was born in Prague, son of JUDr Rudolf Margolius, Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade, and Heda Margolius Kovály, Czech writer and translator, both parents being Holocaust survivors...
- Under a Cruel Star (book)Under a Cruel Star (book)Under a Cruel Star: A Life in Prague 1941-1968 was published first under this title by Plunkett Lake Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1986. The memoir was written by Heda Margolius Kovály and translated with Francis and Helen Epstein. It is now available in a Holmes & Meier, New York 1997 edition...
- Artur LondonArtur 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....
- Milada HorákováMilada HorákováDr. Milada Horáková was a Czech politician executed by Communists on charges of conspiracy and treason.- Biography :...
- Jan HanušJan HanušJan Hanuš was a prolific Czech composer of the 20th century. Almost every category of composition is represented among his works, many of which are overtly political, expressing in turn anti-Nazi, anti-Fascist and anti-Communist sentiments.-Biography:Hanuš studied composition independently with...
- Slánský trial
- List of Czech and Slovak Jews