28.2. 1954 Prime Minister Rudofl Beran died

He was an excellent speaker and knew how to win people over. Rudolf Beran worked his way up to Prime Minister. Although he actively supported the union, after the war he was made a traitor and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died in Leopoldov prison on February 28, 1954.

Rudolf Beran was born on 28 December 1887 in Pracejovice, Prostějov region, into a family of a small farmer and innkeeper. After graduating from the economic school, he went to Prague, where he worked in the Central Union of Economicch societies and then at the headquarters of the Republican Party of Agricultural and Smallholders' People, as the name of the agrarian party was. He soon became secretary and was therefore a very close associate of the chairman, Antonín Švehla.

When Švehla died, Beran was elected head of the Agrarian Party. He disagreed with the rapprochement with the Soviet Union and led the anti-German wing. At the end of 1935, he even wanted to prevent the election of Edvard Beneš to the highest office, which he failed to do. "He made clumsy attempts to cooperate with the Hitler-backed Sudeten German Party in order to deflect pressure from Berlinfrom Berlin, which was growing stronger," writes publicist and author Karel Pacner in his book Unusual Touches of History.

In December 1938, Beran became prime minister of Czechoslovakia, but a few months later he had to accept the German occupation and move to the Protectorate government. However, he stayed there for just over a month, as the entire government signed a resignation and Beran left political life. He actively supported the resistance, often with quite large sums of money. He was in contact with a group calling itself the Defence of the Nation. In May 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo for treason, the main witness being K. H. Frank. Beran was sentenced to ten years in prison and had his property confiscated. Two years later he was released to house arrest for unknown reasons.

During the Protectorate, he had to meet with occupation officials for a time as a government official, which made his next trial after the war more difficult. In 1945, Beran was arrested again, only this time for collaboration with the Germans and was branded a traitor to the nation. The National Court sentenced him to twenty years of hard labour.

Beran was taken to the prison in Leopoldov, where he had to work hard. Eventually he ended up among the prisoners who were unable to work because the health of the former Czechoslovak Prime Minister was deteriorating. The doctor had underestimated his health problems, and the care in prisons was generally poor. Dr. Jiří Krbec tried to save him, but it was too late. "I was with him until the very end. He was sick, he had problems with his blood circulation and heart. He needed special medication, but he wasn't getting it," the doctor later said.

The official cause of Aries' death was heart failure. He died on February 28, 1954. "He was buried in a grave marked with a number behind the prison in Leopoldov. It was not until 1968 that the graves were marked with names. During the reign of the normalising communist leader Gustav Husák, they were bulldozed. A request for a review of the Beran verdict was first rejected by the Supreme Court and then by the Constitutional Court," Pacner added.

Rudolf Beran is today described as one of the most tragic figures in modern history. A patriot who was turned into a villain...

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