World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseVojtech Tuka was born in Hegybánya, Austria-Hungary (now Stiavnické Bane, Slovakia) in 1880. He studied law at universities in Budapest, Austria-Hungary; Berlin, Germany; and Paris, France. Between 1914 and 1919, he taught law at the Elizabethan University in Pozsony, Austria-Hungary (now Bratislava, Slovakia). In late 1918, he joined the nationalist Slovak People's Party. In 1919, the Elizabethan University was dissolved, and he remained in Pozsony, working as an editor while also serving as a secretary of the Slovak People's Party. In 1923, he founded the Rodobrana militia organization. In 1928, he published an article claiming that there had been a secret clause to the 1918 declaration that formed the nation of Czechoslovakia which put Slovakia on a path to independence; this article would soon lead to his arrest and imprisonment for treason. He was released from imprisonment in 1938, having served 10 years of his 15-year sentenced. In Oct 1939, Tuka was named the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, a German puppet nation, by President Jozef Tiso. Tuka gave himself the simultaneous role of Minister of Foreign Affairs as well. In the following year, he successfully convinced the Slovak assembly to enact Constitutional Law 210 which gave his government sweeping powers to establish anti-Semitic policies, as urged by the Germans. Under the guidance of German SS-Hauptstrumführer Dieter Wisliceny, he enacted the Ordinance Judenkodex, which required Slovakian Jews to wear the yellow Stars of David, annulled all debts owed to Jews, confiscated Jewish property, and deported all Jews from the capital Bratislava. Deportation of Jews soon began under his leadership, but the government halted the deportations in Oct 1942 when Slovakian ministers realized that many of the Jews were being massacred en masse in extermination camps, and that Tiso had protested against such inhumane treatment toward Slovakian citizens; nevertheless, 57,700 Jews had already been sent to camps by that time. In 1943, Tuka, now aged 63, began to show signs of poor health. He resigned from his post on 2 Sep 1944, shortly after the start of the Slovakian National Uprising. He would play no further role in Slovakian politics for the remainder of the war. He was arrested by the Allies in Austria, who handed him to the government of the restored Czechoslovakia. Despite his poor health (a stroke had placed him in a wheelchair), he was found guilty of treason and was executed by hanging on 20 Aug 1946.

Photographs

Vojtech Tuka Timeline