Beneš, Edvard

Beneš, Edvard (1884–1948).President of Czechoslovakia at the time of the Munich agreement in September 1938, he was forced the next month to resign as Hitler regarded him with suspicion. He took up an academic appointment in the USA where he remained until July 1939 when he settled in London, established a National Council, and became the spokesman for his now dismembered country.

At first he had great difficulty in establishing his credentials, his National Council being recognized as representative only of the Czech and Slovak people. But in July 1941, largely on account of his influence with the Czech resistance, and the intelligence he received from it (see Thümmel), both the UK and USSR recognized him as the head of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile.

Though the British and the French had betrayed him by signing the Munich agreement, Beneš was active in organizing Czech forces to fight with the Allies, and it was he who gave the order for Heydrich's assassination in Prague, appointed General Svoboda as C-in-C of the Czech Army, and did what he could to aid the Slovak rising in Slovakia in August 1944. Having signed an agreement with Stalin, he returned to Czechoslovakia in 1945 and was re-elected president, but following the communists's seizure of power, against which he had constantly battled during the war, he resigned in 1948.