Šmidke, Karol

Born Jan. 21, 1897, in Vitkovicé; died Dec. 15, 1952, in Bratislava. Czechoslovak party and state figure. Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1964, posthumously). Member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1921.

Šmidke was a CPC deputy to the National Assembly from 1935 to 1938. He emigrated to the USSR in August 1939, five months after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by fascist Germany in March 1939. In 1943, Šmidke was sent by the leaders of the CPC to carry out party work in Slovakia. He served on the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) and the Slovak National Council (SNC). During the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 he was chief of staff of the partisan detachments and chairman of the SNC. In 1944 and 1945, Šmidke was chairman of the CPS, and in 1945 and 1946 he was deputy chairman of the SNC and chairman of the Board of Commissioners, an agency of state power in liberated Slovakia. He was chairman of the SNC from 1948 to 1950, and in 1949 he became a member of the Central Committee of the CPC.

Šmidke was awarded the Order of Lenin posthumously in 1969.