Ferdinand Ďurčanský

Born in Rajec, in the Trencsén County of the Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Slovakia), he was educated at the Institute des Hautes Études Internationales in Paris, the University of Bratislava and The Hague Academy of International Law, receiving his law doctorate and working as a professor of law in Bratislava.Philip Rees, Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890, p. 107

Ďurčanský gained a grounding in nationalism in the universities. With Rodobrana declining in influence during the mid-1930s, the focus of Slovak extreme nationalist discontent shifted onto the journal Nástup, which had a university student and graduate readership and which was edited by Ďurčanský.Yeshayahu Jelinek, 'Storm-Troopers in Slovakia: The Rodobrana and the Hlinka Guard', Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 6, No. 3. (1971), p. 102 Unlike some of his contemporaries, who advocated autonomy, Ďurčanský was a supporter of a fully independent Slovakia, and when he and Jozef Tiso visited Adolf Hitler in 1938, it was only Ďurčanský who pressed the Nazi leader on the issue.Vojtech Mastny, The Czechs under Nazi Rule: The Failure of National Resistance 1939–1942, New York: Columbia University Press, 1971 In October 1938, he told Hermann Göring that Slovakia's "Jewish problem will be solved similarly to Germany's".{{cite book | last1=Hutzelmann |first1=Barbara |editor1-last=Hutzelmann |editor1-first=Barbara|editor2-last=Hausleitner |editor2-first=Mariana |editor3-last=Hazan |editor3-first=Souzana|title=Slowakei, Rumänien und Bulgarien|trans-title=Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria |date=2018 |publisher=Institut für Zeitgeschichte |location=Munich |isbn=978-3-11-036500-9 |page=21|language=de| series={{ill|Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945|de}} [The Persecution and Murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany 1933-1945]|volume=13 |chapter=Einführung: Slowakei |trans-chapter=Introduction: Slovakia|quote=Judenproblem wird ähnlich wie in Deutschland gelöst }}

His followers, who came to be known as the 'Young Generation', held a number of posts in the Slovak People's Party administration of Vojtech Tuka, with Ďurčanský himself serving as Minister for Home and Foreign Affairs.Jelinek, 'Storm-Troopers in Slovakia', p. 108 He was dismissed following the Salzburg Conference, because the Germans disapproved of his independent-minded foreign policy (he had attempted to maintain communication with the Western powers and keep friendly relations with the Soviet Union).{{cite journal |last1=Jelínek |first1=Yeshayahu |title=Slovakia' Internal Policy and the Third Reich, August 1940–February 1941 |journal=Central European History |date=1971 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=245–246|doi=10.1017/S0008938900015363 |s2cid=145451318 |language=en |issn=1569-1616}}

Tiso attempted to recall him in 1944, but the Nazis refused. Nonetheless, he remained a strong supporter of Tiso and collaboration, attempting to organise resistance to the Soviet Union until early 1945 when he fled to Austria.

The United Nations War Crimes Commission accepted Czechoslovak charges that he had been paid by the Nazi secret service and had been complicit in the deaths of Jews. Condemned to death in absentia, he nevertheless escaped to the West in 1945 and became a stern critic of the communist government. According to Mark Aarons and John Loftus Ďurčanský was a member of Intermarium, an underground anti-communist network with its headquarters in Paris that played a leading role in helping Nazis escape justice after the war and which was under the control of British intelligence.Mark Aarons and John Loftus, Ratlines: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets, William Heinemann, 1991, p. 217 Having fled to the Vatican, Ďurčanský was said to have linked up with other like-minded members of the group in order to conspire to restore the Slovak regime as well as other rightist totalitarian regimes in the newly communist states of Eastern Europe. To this end Ďurčanský made daily broadcasts to the Slovak areas of Czechoslovakia (according to The New York Times) whilst also publishing leaflets stating that he would soon return to take over as Prime Minister of an independent Slovakia.Aarons & Loftus, Ratlines, p. 218 He established his own Slovak Liberation Committee as a basis for such plots although his attempts were severely undermined in September 1947 when General Ferjenčík concluded an investigation in which he revealed full details of Ďurčanský's group, as well as the level of infiltration by communist agents. Ferjenčík's report was used as the basis for a full takeover by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.Aarons & Loftus, Ratlines, pp. 218-219 The speed with which his coup plot collapsed and the completeness of communist knowledge led to speculation amongst British intelligence that Ďurčanský was in fact a double agent but no evidence was forthcoming and before long he had risen to become President of Intermarium.Aarons & Loftus, Ratlines, p. 219

Having had his plot exposed Ďurčanský took advantage of the ratlines in operation to escape to Argentina. He had for some time been under the protection of British agent Kim Philby and when he was appointed Senior Liaison Officer to the United States and Canada in 1949 he attempted to arrange for Ďurčanský to be moved to North America. However at this point the Central Intelligence Agency had thrown its weight behind a moderate group called the Czech Democrats and rejected the chance to work with a Slovak separatist with a collaborationist background.Aarons & Loftus, Ratlines, p. 220 Philby did however manage to secure entry into Canada on a British visa in December 1950 for Ďurčanský and he made the country his base of operations for the next few years and visited the country regularly on speaking engagements into the 1970s.Aarons & Loftus, Ratlines, p. 221

Ďurčanský returned to Europe in 1952, settling in Munich and conducting much of his work on behalf of Slovak independence from West Germany. However he spoke to various Slovak groups in the United States in 1959 with the United States Department of State claiming that he was granted a visa as 'membership in or affiliation with the defunct Nazi Party in itself no longer constitutes a ground of ineligibility.'Ralph Blumenthal, [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE1D7133DF935A15751C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print 'In the War Crimes Archives: Rifts on Prosecutions'] His work against the Czechoslovak communist government included spells as President of both the Slovak Committee for Action Abroad and the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations. He also wrote extensively for rightist journals such as Nation Europa, Zeitschrift für Geopolitik and Politische Studien.

Ďurčanský died of natural causes in Munich.

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• {{cite journal |last1=Legge |first1=Jerome S |title=Collaboration, Intelligence, and the Holocaust: Ferdinand Ďurčanský, Slovak Nationalism, and the Gehlen Organization |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |date=2018 |volume=32 |issue=2 |pages=224–248 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dcy029}}

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Category:1906 births

Category:1974 deaths

Category:People from Rajec

Category:Slovak People's Party politicians

Category:The Hague Academy of International Law people

Category:Slovak nobility

Category:Slovak Nazi propagandists

Category:Nazis sentenced to death in absentia

Category:Prisoners sentenced to death by Czechoslovakia