Home > Ludvík Svoboda

In World War I Svoboda deserted from the Austro-Hungarian army, while on the Eastern Front, and fought for the Czech Legion in Russia.

In the early 1930s he taught at a military academy. In World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough he initially went to Poland, forming a Czechoslovak militry unit there, before going to the USSR, where he was head of the Czech Army Corps. He first fought the fascists in March 19431943 is the common year starting on Friday. Events January January 4 End of term for Culbert Olson, 29th Governor of California. He is succeeded by Earl Warren. January 11 The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China. January 1.

After WWII Svoboda was appointed Minister of Defence, and did not counter the Communist coup of February-March 19481948 is a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). Events January January 1 Nationalisation of UK railways to form British Railways. Arab militants lay siege to the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. First day of the Ital. He then joined the Communist Party and was elected a deputy to the National AssemblyThe National Assembly is the name of either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. The best known, if not first, National Assembly, was that established following the French Revolution in 1789, known as the Assembl. Svoboda was forced out of the army (in which he had reached the rank of General November 1945) in 1950 under pressure from Stalin. He was deputy Prime Minister of the Czechoslovak government in 1950 and 1951. In the purges which followed Svoboda was imprisoned, and released in the Khrushchev period, subsequently heading the Klement Gottwald Military Academy. In November 1965 Svoboda named a hero of the Soviet Union, and of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (being awarded the latter title again in 1970 and 1975).

After the ending of the Antonín Novotný regime, in the period known as the Prague Spring, Svoboda was elected President of Czechoslovakia on 30 March 1968, on the recommendation of Alexander Dubcek, the First Secretary. Svoboda resisted the pressure applied by the Soviet regime under Leonid Brezhnev. He also secured the release of Dubcek when the latter, and other members of the Czechoslovak government were abducted to the Soviet Union in August 1968.

Svoboda survived the removal of reformist Communists in Czechoslovakia, and retired in 1975 on grounds of ill health.

Svoboda means freedom in Czech.