Heliodor Píka
Heliodor Píka | |
---|---|
Order of the White Double Cross, 1st Class[6] |
General Heliodor Píka (3 July 1897 – 21 June 1949) was a Czechoslovak army officer who was the first Victim of judicial murder of the Czechoslovak Communist show trials.[7]
Early life
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2016) |
Heliodor Píka was born in a village of
Service in the Czechoslovak Army
In the 1930s, Píka acted as a military attaché to Romania and Turkey.[3][8] In 1938, in a bid to prevent the occupying German forces from using Czechoslovak Army matériel, he disposed of it by selling arms to the militant Haganah organization in Palestine.[8][9]: 57–58 (Selling arms to non-state actors was forbidden by international conventions but the Czechoslovak foreign affairs department granted its approval.[9]: 58 ) He would later travel to the Balkans, from where he arranged defections of Czechoslovaks and Hungarians from German-occupied territory.[8]
In 1941, during World War II, Píka was appointed chief of the Czechoslovak Military Mission to the Soviet Union (in Moscow).[4]: 93 Loyal to the London-based government of exiled Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš, Píka supported their democratic policies despite Soviet opposition.[3][4]: 93 Píka was under constant pressure from the Soviets to betray Beneš, but despite attempts at blackmail, Píka remained loyal throughout his tenure, which lasted until 1945.[4]: 93
Following the war, Beneš promoted Píka to deputy chief of the general staff of the Czechoslovak Army,[4]: 93 where he was responsible for the arms industry.[9] He held this position until late February 1948, when he was dismissed from the Army on the orders of Rudolf Slánský, with the assistance of Army Security Intelligence Office (known as (Czech: Obranné zpravodajství), (OBZ) its Czech abbreviation) chief Bedřich Reicin (the former head of Czechoslovak military intelligence,[9]: 58 who held a grudge against Píka from the time in which they served together in the USSR).[4]: 94 [10]: 28, 44
Charges of high treason
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2016) |
In early May 1948 (after the
Reicin appointed Karel Vaš as chief investigator in the Píka case.[4]: 94 Reicin would later, in a departure from standard practice, name Vaš the second prosecutor at Píka's trial.[4]: 94 According to Reicin's secretary, Vaš told Reicin: "[j]ust tell me how much you need for Píka, fifteen years or the gallows, and the indictment can be manufactured accordingly...."[4]: 96
From 26 to 29 January 1949, Píka was tried in secret before the Military Senate of the State Court in Prague.
Heliodor Píka was
Aftermath
This section relies largely or entirely on a single source. (December 2016) |
The day after Píka's conviction, Reicin, writing under a pseudonym in the Czechoslovak Army's newspaper, published a series of articles casting a politico-ideological slant upon the Píka affair.[10]: 28 Reicin's articles were soon republished in a widely circulated pamphlet entitled "A Path That Leads to the Depths of Treason".[10]: 45
During the Prague Spring of 1968, Píka's case was reopened at the request of Milan Píka (son of Heliodor) and the elder Píka's lawyer, and a military tribunal declared Heliodor Píka innocent of all charges.[4]: 94 [13] Milan Píka passed away in March 2019. He had become a general in both the Czech and Slovak armies – the only person in history ever to do so.[14]
In 2001, Karel Vaš was indicted by the Czech police's State Office of Investigation on charges of having knowingly used false evidence, falsifying a confession, exceeding his powers and using psychological violence during the Píka affair.[8] These counts would carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.[8]
In June 2001, after a trial before the Senate of the Prague City Court, the eighty-five-year-old Vaš was found guilty of introducing false documents and statements, and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.[4]: 93 [12] Both Vaš and his attorney maintained Vaš's innocence, and promised to appeal.[4]: 93
Honours
The Czechoslovak government conferred the Milan Rastislav Stefanik Order, 3rd class upon Píka in 1991.[5]
On 1 September 2004, Píka was awarded the highest
Píka earned several French medals for his military service as a Legionnaire in France during the First World War.[8] He was also the recipient of many Soviet, American and British military decorations.[5] A street in Prague 6 (Dejvice) was renamed in his honor in 1990 (Generála Píky).
In 1992, Píka was posthumously promoted to the rank of general.
Notes
References
- ^ Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, 2000, archived from the originalon October 4, 2011, retrieved May 25, 2010,
V kvìtnu 1948 zatèen , 28. 1. 1949 ve vykonstruovaném procesu odsouzen Státním soudem v Praze k trestu smrti. 13. 12. 1968 Vyšším vojenským soudem Pøíbram zproštìn pùvodní obžaloby. 1991 vyznamenán Øádem M. R. Štefánika a povýšen do hodnosti armádního generála in memoriam.
- ^ a b c d e "Detail legionáře", Military Central Archives website (in Czech), Prague, Czech Republic: Vojenský ústřední archiv, archived from the original on July 18, 2011, retrieved May 25, 2010
- ^ OCLC 320470118, archived from the originalon July 9, 2001, retrieved May 25, 2010,
Following the Vas trial, Pika finally received full military honors in a ceremony outside Army headquarters in Prague 6 on June 21.
- ^ OCLC 38482151, archived from the original(PDF) on July 20, 2011, retrieved May 25, 2010,
He was a professional officer loyal to former President Edvard Beneš and his London-based government in exile, who served between 1941 and 1945 as the head of the Czechoslovak Military Mission in Moscow. It was a most difficult job, since the officer had to serve several masters. He accomplished the task with considerable success and managed to resist constant Soviet harassment and frequent attempts at blackmail to force him to be disloyal to the Benes government.
- ^ OCLC 54828415,
Pika was officially rehabilitated in 1968, and in 1992 was elevated in memoriam to the rank of army general. The bearer of many of the highest Czechoslovak, Soviet, American, British and other military orders in his lifetime, he received the Order of M. R. Stefanik, third class in 1991, and the Tomas G. Masaryk medal in 2000.
- ^ on October 29, 2005, retrieved May 25, 2010
- ^ McEnchroe, Tom (June 21, 2019), "Heliodor Píka – General who became Communist regime's first judicial murder victim", radio.cz
- ^ OCLC 614882534,
During the 1930s he was military attache in Romania. After Hitler's annexation of Czechoslovak territory in 1938 he fought to prevent the Nazi leader from seizing army weapons by selling them abroad. In exile in the Balkans, he was ordered by Benes in London to organise defections of Czechs as well as Slovaks and Hungarians from their occupied territories.
- ^ ISBN 978-90-04-09320-1, retrieved May 25, 2010,
En 1947, Le général H. Pika était l'adjoint du chef de l'Etat-Major tchécoslovaques, responsable de l'industrie d'armement. C'est lui, ce patriote, non-communiste, qui semble être au départ de la vente d'armes pour la Haganach. Il a été contacté par deux commerçants juifs qu'il avait connus avant la guerre en Roumanie, où il représentait la République tchécoslovaque en tant qu'attaché militaire.
- ^ ISBN 978-2-13-038147-1, retrieved May 25, 2010,
H. Pika déclare: « Mon ultime désir est que la nation reste unie et que chacun, sans différence, travail à l'unité de notre peuple».
- ^ OCLC 54828415,
A closed trial took place in front of the military senate of the state court in Prague [on 26-29 January 1949] ... General Pika was charged with high treason, damaging the interests of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union and of undermining the ability of the state to defend itself. No witnesses were called and no defence was allowed. President Klement Gottwald turned down a request for mercy.
- ^ Agence France Presse, June 15, 2001,
A former communist prosecutor was handed a seven-year sentence here Friday for his part in the political murder of reformist Czech General Heliodor Pika in June 1949.
- ^ from the original on August 25, 2009, retrieved May 25, 2010,
In the early morning of June 21, 1949, General Heliodor Píka, a hero of World Wars I and II, became the first Czechoslovak to be executed by the new communist regime.
- ^ "In memoriam: Gen. Milan Píka, son of war hero and first victim of judicial murder in Communist Czechoslovakia". March 21, 2019.