Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia
In Priest, Politician, Collaborator, James Mace Ward offers the first comprehensive and scholarly English-language biography of the Catholic priest and Slovak nationalist Jozef Tiso (1887–1947). The first president of an independent Slovakia, established as a satellite of Nazi Germany, Tiso was ultimately hanged for treason and (in effect) crimes against humanity by a postwar reunified Czechoslovakia. Drawing on extensive archival research, Ward portrays Tiso as a devoutly religious man who came to privilege the maintenance of a Slovak state over all other concerns, helping thus to condemn Slovak Jewry to destruction. Ward, however, refuses to reduce Tiso to a mere opportunist, portraying him also as a man of principle and a victim of international circumstances. This potent mix, combined with an almost epic ability to deny the consequences of his own actions, ultimately led to Tiso’s undoing.
Tiso began his career as a fervent priest seeking to defend the church and pursue social justice within the Kingdom of Hungary. With the breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the creation of a Czechoslovak Republic, these missions then fused with a parochial Slovak nationalist agenda, a complex process that is the core narrative of the book. Ward presents the strongest case yet for Tiso’s heavy responsibility in the Holocaust, crimes that he investigates as an outcome of the interplay between Tiso’s lifelong pattern of collaboration and the murderous international politics of Hitler’s Europe. To this day memories of Tiso divide opinion within Slovakia, burdening the country’s efforts to come to terms with its own history. As portrayed in this masterful biography, Tiso’s life not only illuminates the history of a small state but also supplies a missing piece of the larger puzzle that was interwar and wartime Europe.
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Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia
In Priest, Politician, Collaborator, James Mace Ward offers the first comprehensive and scholarly English-language biography of the Catholic priest and Slovak nationalist Jozef Tiso (1887–1947). The first president of an independent Slovakia, established as a satellite of Nazi Germany, Tiso was ultimately hanged for treason and (in effect) crimes against humanity by a postwar reunified Czechoslovakia. Drawing on extensive archival research, Ward portrays Tiso as a devoutly religious man who came to privilege the maintenance of a Slovak state over all other concerns, helping thus to condemn Slovak Jewry to destruction. Ward, however, refuses to reduce Tiso to a mere opportunist, portraying him also as a man of principle and a victim of international circumstances. This potent mix, combined with an almost epic ability to deny the consequences of his own actions, ultimately led to Tiso’s undoing.
Tiso began his career as a fervent priest seeking to defend the church and pursue social justice within the Kingdom of Hungary. With the breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the creation of a Czechoslovak Republic, these missions then fused with a parochial Slovak nationalist agenda, a complex process that is the core narrative of the book. Ward presents the strongest case yet for Tiso’s heavy responsibility in the Holocaust, crimes that he investigates as an outcome of the interplay between Tiso’s lifelong pattern of collaboration and the murderous international politics of Hitler’s Europe. To this day memories of Tiso divide opinion within Slovakia, burdening the country’s efforts to come to terms with its own history. As portrayed in this masterful biography, Tiso’s life not only illuminates the history of a small state but also supplies a missing piece of the larger puzzle that was interwar and wartime Europe.
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Priest, Politician, Collaborator: Jozef Tiso and the Making of Fascist Slovakia
In Priest, Politician, Collaborator, James Mace Ward offers the first comprehensive and scholarly English-language biography of the Catholic priest and Slovak nationalist Jozef Tiso (1887–1947). The first president of an independent Slovakia, established as a satellite of Nazi Germany, Tiso was ultimately hanged for treason and (in effect) crimes against humanity by a postwar reunified Czechoslovakia. Drawing on extensive archival research, Ward portrays Tiso as a devoutly religious man who came to privilege the maintenance of a Slovak state over all other concerns, helping thus to condemn Slovak Jewry to destruction. Ward, however, refuses to reduce Tiso to a mere opportunist, portraying him also as a man of principle and a victim of international circumstances. This potent mix, combined with an almost epic ability to deny the consequences of his own actions, ultimately led to Tiso’s undoing.
Tiso began his career as a fervent priest seeking to defend the church and pursue social justice within the Kingdom of Hungary. With the breakup of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the creation of a Czechoslovak Republic, these missions then fused with a parochial Slovak nationalist agenda, a complex process that is the core narrative of the book. Ward presents the strongest case yet for Tiso’s heavy responsibility in the Holocaust, crimes that he investigates as an outcome of the interplay between Tiso’s lifelong pattern of collaboration and the murderous international politics of Hitler’s Europe. To this day memories of Tiso divide opinion within Slovakia, burdening the country’s efforts to come to terms with its own history. As portrayed in this masterful biography, Tiso’s life not only illuminates the history of a small state but also supplies a missing piece of the larger puzzle that was interwar and wartime Europe.
James Mace Ward is Assistant Professor of History at DePauw University.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. "For God and Our Homeland," 1887–1918
2 Turning National and Political, 1918–1939
3. “For God and Nation,” 1919–25
4. The Failure of “Activism,” 1925–33
5. The Lure of the World, 1933–38
6. Standing Up for the Truth, 1938–39
7. Sacred Convictions, 1939–44
8 Losing Battles, 1944–2011
Conclusion. The Crown of Thorns
A Note on SourcesAbbreviationsNotesIndex
What People are Saying About This
Paul Hanebrink
"As historians focus more attention on the role that religion (and especially Catholicism) played in twentieth-century European politics, many will want to learn more about the Slovak nationalist movement and the World War II–era Slovak state. Priest, Politician, Collaborator focuses attention squarely on the arresting figure of Father Tiso, a priest who was also a head of state. James Mace Ward's command of the secondary literature on Slovak political life in the period is absolute; in addition, he scoured numerous archives and paged through an incredible number of published sources for every last trace of Jozef Tiso's activities and utterances. Even more impressive is Ward’s ability to find his way through the minefields that surround the interpretation of crucial chapters in Tiso’s life. Ward takes up Tiso’s responsibility for the demise of Czechoslovakia in 1939, his responsibility for the deportation of Slovak Jews, and his role in the suppression of the Slovak Uprising. In each case, Ward’s conclusions are convincing and fair."
Martin Conway
"Priest, Politician, Collaborator is a major and innovative book that shows Jozef Tiso to have been one of the principal figures of Catholic politics in interwar Central Europe, as well as the architect of the independent Slovak state's subsequent collaboration with Nazi Germany."
Benjamin Frommer
"In Priest, Politician, Collaborator, James Mace Ward has produced the definitive biography of one of twentieth-century Europe's most fascinating figures: the Slovak clergyman and wartime president, Jozef Tiso. Ward captures Tiso in all his complexity: as a true believer in Catholicism, a fervent Slovak nationalist, and a calculating politician determined to protect his own reputation and room to maneuver. Ward does not shy from the most controversial chapters of Tiso’s life—in particular, the Slovak leader’s wartime alliance with Nazi Germany and his responsibility for the expropriation, deportation, and ultimate murder of his country’s Jews. Nor does the book succumb to a simple black-and-white portrait of the man as a Nazi henchman or atavistic nationalist. Instead, based on a wealth of archival sources, Ward skillfully demonstrates the complexity and contradictions of Tiso’s thoughts and actions. Priest, Politician, Collaborator is a major achievement: a pathbreaking, impeccably researched work that fundamentally reorients our understanding of Tiso and the Slovak nation he aimed, and claimed, to lead."
John Connelly
"The Catholic Church of the 1930s opposed racism and preached love of neighbor. How then could a Catholic priest preside over a fascist state in league with Nazi Germany and become complicit in genocide? In the most revealing study of clerico-fascism that we possess, James Mace Ward answers these and other urgent questions, with consummate mastery of historical sources, and a profound comprehension of the interrelation of theology and politics. His work is essential reading for students of World War II and the Holocaust."