Hubert Ripka
Hubert Ripka
Postwar foreign trade minister who resigned in February 1948 and went back into exile
On 20 February 1948, Ripka joined non-Communist ministers in resigning amid a government crisis over police appointments. President Beneš accepted the resignations; after the Communist takeover, Ripka went into exile again.
A journalist turned National Socialist politician, he went to England in 1940 and became secretary of state in the foreign ministry of the London exile government. Returning in 1945, he became minister of foreign trade and sat in the Constituent Assembly from 1946 to 1948. One of the non-Communist ministers who resigned over the police purge in February 1948, he left the country again when the Communists took power. In exile he wrote on Czechoslovakia, Munich and the events of February 1948, and he died in London in January 1958.
Career timeline
- 1940Went to Britain and served as minister of state in the foreign ministry of the government in exile in London.
- 1945Named minister of trade in the provisional government and returned to Czechoslovakia in May.
- 1946–1948Served in the Constituent Assembly.
- 1948After resigning in February, went into exile and wrote about Czechoslovakia, the Munich Agreement, and the events of February 1948.