František Kriegel

František Kriegel ( born April 10, 1908 in Stanislav, † December 3, 1979 in Prague ) was a reform communist politician Czechoslovakia. Since 1987 he Kriegel Prize is awarded annually to honor.

Life

Kriegel's father was Austrian and his mother was Jewish. He grew up in a multinational setting. Galicia was mainly including various Slav peoples - Ukrainians, Russians, Poles and Czechs - populated and belonged until 1919 to the Austrian half of the ku k monarchy and from 1919 to Poland.

A study at a Polish university was the Jewish -born Kriegel by a numerus clausus failed with anti-Semitic interpretation and so he enrolled at the German University of Prague to study medicine one. Between 1934 and 1936 he practiced at the Clinic for Internal Medicine in Prague.

In 1936, after the coup, the clerical- fascist forces under Franco, he went to Spain and fought in the ranks of the International Brigades on the part of the Second Spanish Republic. 1939 Major Kriegel left along with the defeated republican associations Spain and was apparently only temporarily interned in France. He was one of the few who escaped the tragedy.

In 1940 he appeared on the part of the Chinese Red Army under Mao Zedong in China. His Far Eastern episode ended in 1945 in Burma on sides of the U.S. Army in the fight against the Japanese.

In 1945 he returned to Czechoslovakia and became active in CKD Sokolovo. In the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Praha, he was a leading member. During the conflict between bourgeois forces and the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in February 1948, he starred as Commissioner of the People's Militia in Prague a leading role. He also became acquainted with other later protagonists of the Prague Spring as Josef Smrkovský.

1949 and 1950 he was Deputy Minister of Health and was responsible for the implementation of programmatic his party in this area. In the 1950s, he got into trouble in the fight against Zionism. Between 1963 and 1969 he was a consultant on health issues in Cuba and worked closely with Fidel Castro together.

In the 1960s, he rose to the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia circles. In 1968, he starred as Chairman of the National Front a leading role in the Prague Spring - a search for a third way beyond Stalinism. After the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops, he was, together with the entire leadership - brought to Moscow - Alexander Dubček, Oldrich Černík, Josef Smrkovský, J. Spacek, B. Šimon, Ludvik Svoboda. The presented explanation there, which distanced itself from the " counter-revolutionary " development, was signed by all but Kriegel.

In 1969 he was expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. In 1977, he signed Charter 77, he was monitored by the State Security and died in 1979 in poor material conditions.