Ludvik Svoboda

Svoboda, General Ludvik (1895–1979),Slovak Army officer who, after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, escaped to Poland and raised a Czech Legion which fought the Germans during the Polish campaign that autumn. The Legion then escaped to the USSR and in February 1942 Svoboda formed the 1st Czech Independent Infantry Battalion which fought on the Eastern Front during the German–Soviet war. In December 1943 he was promoted general and made C-in-C of the Czech Army by the Czech president, Edvard Beneš. By 1944 Svoboda's command had become a corps which took part in the fighting in Slovakia. He was president of Czechoslovakia and C-in-C from 1968 to 1975.

Ludvík Svoboda , 1895-1979, Czechoslovak general and political leader. Svoboda served in the Czech Legion in World War I and became an officer (1922) in the army of the newly founded Czechoslovak republic. He was forced to flee (1939) to the USSR when the Germans entered Prague. In World War II he organized and led a Czech army unit that fought (1941-45) under the Soviet high command. After the war Svoboda was (1949-50) Czechoslovak minister of defense. Regarded as a national hero, he emerged from retirement in 1968 to serve as president of Czechoslovakia after the resignation of Antonín Novotný . He continued in this largely ceremonial post after the liberal regime was suppressed by the USSR (Aug., 1968); he retired in 1975.