Activities and affiliations

Security, intelligence and policing Czechoslovakia state institutions 1892–1955 ○ Lung cancer

Czechoslovak interior minister whose purge of non-communist police in February 1948 triggered the government crisis and communist takeover

The cabinet voted to reverse his purge, but Nosek ignored the order: eight Prague police commanders were replaced by communists, and twelve non-communist ministers resigned.

The son of a miner, he joined the Social Democratic Party at eighteen and took part in founding the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1921. After the Nazi occupation he fled to Britain, where he served as vice-chairman of the London-based Czechoslovak State Council; returning in 1945 as Minister of the Interior, he systematically packed the police and security apparatus with communists. On 13 February 1948 he dismissed eight non-communist senior police officers, triggering a cabinet crisis in which twelve non-communist ministers resigned, clearing the way for Klement Gottwald's communist takeover.

Security, intelligence and policing Czechoslovakia state institutions 1908–1973 ○ Died

Prague Spring interior minister whose security reforms were undermined by KGB subversion and internal betrayal

On the day of the invasion, Pavel's dismissed deputy Šalgovič helped the KGB arrest Dubček, and the Interior Ministry slipped from its minister's hands.

A Czechoslovak communist who fought in the Spanish Civil War and commanded the People's Militia during the 1948 coup, Pavel became deputy interior minister and participated in the regime's repressions. Arrested in 1951, he was tortured and sentenced to 25 years in the Slánský trial, then acquitted in 1955. Returning as interior minister during the 1968 Prague Spring, he pushed to reform the StB and exposed six KGB liaison agents in his ministry, but his deputy Viliam Šalgovič collaborated with the KGB to arrest Dubček during the invasion, collapsing Pavel's reforms.

Security, intelligence and policing Czechoslovakia state institutions 1919–1990 ✕ Suicide

The deputy interior minister who arrested Dubček and handed him to the Soviets

At the 1987 May Day parade in Bratislava, a student threw two eggs at Šalgovič as he stood on the reviewing stand. He had to leave the platform and hand his soiled jacket to a bodyguard.

A Slovak security officer and politician in Czechoslovakia. During the war he deserted from the pro-Nazi Slovak army to the Soviets and served in the Czechoslovak corps; after the war he joined the StB and took part in political repression. In June 1968 Dubček, considering him a personal friend, appointed him deputy interior minister with oversight of the StB. Šalgovič instead coordinated with the KGB, drew up arrest lists for the reformers, and on 21 August handed Dubček and his colleagues to the Soviet occupiers. Under 'normalization' he was shunted to the ceremonial post of chairman of the Slovak National Council (1975–1989); after the Velvet Revolution he hanged himself in the basement of his home.