Edvard Beneš

Edvard Beneš
2nd President of Czechoslovakia
In office 18 December 1935 – 5 October 1938
Preceded by	Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk
Succeeded by	Emil Hácha
President of Czechoslovakia in exile
In office 1940 – 2 April 1945
4th President of Czechoslovakia
In office 28 October 1945 – 7 June 1948
Preceded by	Emil Hácha
Succeeded by	Klement Gottwald
4th Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
In office 26 September 1921 – 7 October 1922
Preceded by	Jan Černý
Succeeded by	Antonín Švehla
Born	28 May 1884(1884-05-28) Kožlany, Austria-Hungary
Died	3 September 1948 (aged 64) Sezimovo Ústí, Czechoslovakia
Political party	Czech National Social Party
Spouse	Hana Benešová

Edvard Beneš with wife 1921, autochrome portrait by Josef Jindřich Šechtl

Edvard Beneš with his wife 1934

Statue of Edvard Beneš in front of headquarters of Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague

Edvard Beneš (pronounced [ˈɛdvart ˈbɛnɛʃ]) (28 May 1884 – 3 September 1948) was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement and the second President of Czechoslovakia.

Youth

Edvard Beneš was born into a peasant family in a small village of Kožlany near Rakovník, ca. 60 km west of Prague. He spent much of his youth in Vinohrady district of Prague, where he attended a grammar school from 1896 to 1904. After studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Charles University in Prague, he left for Paris and continued his studies at the Sorbonne and at the Independent School of Political and Social Studies (École Libre des Sciences Politiques). He completed his first degree in Dijon, where he received his Doctorate of Laws in 1908. Then he taught for three years at the Prague Academy of Commerce, and after his habilitation in the field of philosophy in 1912, he became a lecturer in sociology at Charles University. He was involved in Scouting.^[1]

First exile

During World War I, Beneš was one of the leading organizers of an independent Czechoslovakia abroad. He organized a Czech pro-independence anti-Austrian secret resistance movement called "Maffia". In September, 1915, he went into exile where in Paris he made intricate diplomatic efforts to gain recognition from France and the United Kingdom for the Czechoslovak independence movement, as he was from 1916–1918 a Secretary of the Czechoslovak National Council in Paris and Minister of the Interior and of Foreign Affairs within the Provisional Czechoslovak government.

Czechoslovakia

From 1918–1935, Beneš was first and the longest serving Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, and from 1920–1925 and 1929–1935 a member of the Parliament. He represented Czechoslovakia in talks of the Treaty of Versailles. In 1921 he was a professor and also from 1921–1922 Prime Minister. Between 1923–1927 he was a member of the League of Nations Council (serving as president of its committee from 1927–1928). He was a renowned and influential figure at international conferences, such as Genoa 1922, Locarno 1925, The Hague 1930, and Lausanne in 1932.

Beneš was a member of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (until 1925 called Czechoslovak Socialist Party) and a strong Czechoslovakist - he did not consider Slovaks and Czechs to be separate ethnicities.

In 1935, Beneš succeeded Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk as President. He opposed Germany's claim to the German German-speaking Sudetenland in 1938. In October, the Sudeten Crisis brought Europe on the brink of war, which was only averted as France and Great Britain signed the Munich Agreement, which allowed for the immediate annexation and military occupation of the territory by Germany.

After this event, which proceeded without Czechoslovakian participation, Beneš was forced to resign on 5 October 1938 under German pressure and Emil Hácha was chosen as President. In March 1939, Hàcha's government was bullied into authorising the German occupation of the remaining Czech Republic. (Slovakia had declared its independence by then.)

Second exile

On 22 October 1938 Beneš went into exile in Putney, London. In November 1940 in the wake of London Blitz, Beneš, his wife, their nieces, and his household staff moved to The Abbey at Aston Abbotts near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. The staff of his private office, including his Secretary Edvard Táborský and his chief of staff Jaromír Smutný, moved to The Old Manor House in the neighbouring village of Wingrave, while his military intelligence staff headed by František Moravec was stationed in the nearby village of Addington.

In 1940 he organized the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London with Jan Šrámek as Prime Minister and himself as President. In 1941 Beneš and František Moravec planned Operation Anthropoid, with the intention of assassinating Reinhard Heydrich.^[2] This was implemented in 1942, and, predictably, resulted in brutal German reprisals such as the execution of thousands of Czechs and the eradication of two villages of Lidice and Ležáky.

Although not a Communist, Beneš was also on friendly terms with Stalin. In 1943 he signed the entente between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union in order to secure Czechoslovakia's political position, as well as his own.

Second presidency

After the Prague uprising at the end of World War II, Beneš returned home and reassumed his former position as President. He was not elected President in 1945 but unanimously confirmed as the former president of the republic by the National Assembly on 28 October 1945. Under article 58.5 of the Constitution, "The former president shall stay in his or her function till the new president shall be elected." On 19 June 1946 Beneš was formally elected to his second term as President.^[3]

The Beneš decrees (officially called "Decrees of the President of the Republic"), among other things, expropriated citizens of German and Hungarian ethnicity, and paved the way for the eventual expulsion of the majority of Germans to Germany and Austria. The decrees are still in force to this day and remain controversial, with the expellees demanding their repeal. The Czech government's repeated assurances that the decrees are no longer applied have been accepted by the European Commission and the European Parliament.

Beneš presided over a coalition government involving Democrats and Communists, with the Communist leader Klement Gottwald as prime minister. On 25 February 1948, the Communists assumed complete power in a coup d'état. Beneš resigned as President on 7 June 1948 and Gottwald succeeded him as President.

Death

Beneš died of natural causes at his villa in Sezimovo Ústí, Czechoslovakia on 3 September 1948. He is interred along with his wife in the garden of his villa and his bust is part of the gravestone.

Footnotes

References

• Rees, Neil (2005). The Secret History of the Czech Connection: The Czechoslovak Government in Exile in London and Buckinghamshire During the Second World War. Buckinghamshire: Neil Rees. ISBN 0-9550883-0-5. OCLC 62196328. 
• John Wheeler-Bennett Munich : Prologue to Tragedy, New York : Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.
• Zinner, Paul E. (1994). "Czechoslovakia: The Diplomacy of Eduard Benes". in Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert. The Diplomats, 1919-1939. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 100–122. ISBN 0-691-03660-8. OCLC 31484352. 
• Milan Hauner *(ed.): Edvard Beneš’ MEMOIRS: THE DAYS OF MUNICH (vol.1), WAR AND RESISTANCE (vol.2), DOCUMENTS (vol.3). First critical edition of reconstructed War Memoirs 1938-45 of President Beneš of Czechoslovakia (published by Academia Prague 2007. ISBN 978-80-200-1529-7)

See also

• History of Czechoslovakia
• List of Presidents of Czechoslovakia
• List of Prime Ministers of Czechoslovakia

External links

• Biography at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic
• ""Sons of Death"", Time Magazine (26 September 1938). Retrieved on 14 August 2008.  (English) - an article published in Time Magazine on 26 September 1938 - free archive
• Pictures of Edvard Beneš funeral (1) (English) - lying in state (in the opened coffin)
• Pictures of Edvard Beneš funeral (2) (English) - funeral procession with wreaths and laying of coffin into grave
• Pictures of Edvard Beneš and his wife (English) - archive of Šechtl and Voseček Museum of Photography

Presidents of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1918–35) · Edvard Beneš (1935–8) · Emil Hácha (1938–9) · Edvard Beneš (1938/45–48) · Klement Gottwald (1948–53) · Antonín Zápotocký (1953–7) · Antonín Novotný (1957–68) · Ludvík Svoboda (1968–75) · Gustáv Husák (1975–89) · Václav Havel (1989–92)