THE TRIAL OF THE SLOVAK POLITICIAN AND STATESMAN VOJTECH TUKA IN 1946

Abstract

The article examines the preparation and conduct of the trial of V. Tuka in 1946. The figure of this politician is one of the most odious in the history of Slovakia. As early as October 1929, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his anti-state activities in Czechoslovakia in favor of Hortist Hungary. In 1937, V. Tuka was amnestied. The following year returned to active political activity and took part in the collapse of Czechoslovakia and the formation of the Slovak state under the patronage of Nazi Germany. As Prime Minister, he has been involved in many war crimes and crimes against humanity. In particular, he was the main initiator of the final solution to the Jewish question in the Slovak state. After the decline of the Slovak state and the revival of Czechoslovakia, V. Tuka came under the laws to punish Nazi criminals, occupiers, traitors, and collaborators and appeared before the People’s Court in Bratislava. Even though at that time V. Tuka was already an elderly, physically weak person confined to a wheelchair, the court sentenced him to death by hanging for anti-government activities, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The results of the forensic medical examination and the current legislation did not prevent the death sentence from being enforced on August 20, 1946. The author of the article states that the trial of V. Tuka was politicized mainly because, in his face, the Czechoslovak authorities sought to condemn the idea of Slovakia’s independence and Ludaks’ regime as an ideology. V. Tuka’s activity convincingly proved that the Slovak state of 1939–1945 was a by-product of the Nazi aggression against Czechoslovakia. The trial of 1946 created obstacles to accustoming Slovakia’s independence and the moral justification of the Ludaks’ regime. The assessment of the Second World War events was based on this precedent in the part that required the harshest sanctions against traitors and collaborators. During the trial of V. Tuka, the public danger of the activities of Slovak traitors, war criminals, and collaborators was actually determined, and its results were used to organize similar trials of other high-ranking officials of the Slovak state.