![]() Svoboda led diplomatic negotiations with the Soviet authorities for two years, until the invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany. There was no Czechoslovak diplomatic representation on the territory of the USSR at that time, so Lt. Eastern military groups" moved successively to Kamenec Podolský, Olchovce, Jarmolince, Oranky and the Spaso-Jevfimij Monastery in Suzdal. These internment camps were neither POW camps, nor labor camps, nor gulags. ![]() In order not to disperse as civilian emigrants to the Soviet Union, which at that time had a mutual non-aggression agreement with Germany (within the so-called Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact), the soldiers were isolated from the public in internment camps, where they lived according to Czechoslovak Republic army regulations. The group crossed without weapons and in civilian clothes, but as a military unit with the consent of the Czechoslovak ambassador in Poland, Juraj Slávik, and after negotiations with the Soviet diplomatic authorities on the territory of Poland. In the USSR, the group was immediately renamed the "Eastern Group of the Czechoslovak Republic army". The escape of the group to Romania was ruled out because there was a threat that the Romanians would hand them over to the Germans. After the defeat of Poland in September 1939, Svoboda transferred a group of more than 700 officers and soldiers to the Soviet Union (USSR) for asylum. The Polish president allowed the Czechoslovaks a military unit designated the "Legion of Czechs and Slovaks" only on 3 September 1939, the third day after the German invasion of Poland, so Svoboda had little opportunity to intervene in the fighting. Those soldiers who remained in Poland joined the Czech Republic military unit on the territory of Poland. Within three months, 1,200 airmen were dispatched to France. Hundreds of emigrating junior officers passed through this camp. In June 1939 he fled to Poland, and as the oldest and most senior officer formed a Czechoslovak military unit in Kraków. It is supposed that at the same time he established a connection with Soviet intelligence. Lieutenant Colonel Svoboda served in several positions, and became a battalion commander until the German occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939.Īfter the German occupation and the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia Lieutenant Colonel Svoboda became a member of a secret underground organization Obrana národa ("Defence of the Nation"). He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1934 and transferred back to the 3rd infantry regiment. He passed several courses and also learned the Hungarian language, which he taught between 19 at the Military Academy. ![]() In the same year, Svoboda was transferred to the 36th infantry regiment in Uzhhorod, Subcarpathia, then part of Czechoslovakia, until 1931. Svoboda worked at his father's estate before launching his military career in the Czechoslovak Army as a member of the 3rd ( Jan Žižka) infantry regiment in Kroměříž in 1921. He returned home through a " Siberian anabasis". He joined the Czechoslovak Legion and took part in the battles of Zborov and Bakhmach. Svoboda was sent to the Eastern Front, and fell into Russian captivity on 18 September 1915 at Tarnopol. Their children include the Czech economist and academic, Zoe Klusáková-Svobodová (1925–2022). In 1915, he had to join the Austro-Hungarian Army. Svoboda attended the agricultural school at Velké Meziříčí and worked at a vineyard. His father died when he was one year old and he was raised by his mother Františka who remarried to František Nejedlý. Svoboda was born in Hroznatín, Margraviate of Moravia, Austria-Hungary, to the family of Jan Svoboda. He fought in both World Wars, for which he was regarded as a national hero, and he later served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1975. Ludvík Svoboda ( Czech pronunciation: 25 November 1895 – 20 September 1979) was a Czech general and politician. Minister of National Defence of Czechoslovakia
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