Alexej Čepička

General Alexej Čepička (August 18, 1910, Kroměříž – September 30, 1990, Dobříš) was a Czechoslovak communist politician.

Čepička was born into a poor family. He studied law in Prague. At the age of 19 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia but was not very politically active. Later, he worked in advocacy. In 1942 he was imprisoned by Gestapo and was held in Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps until the end of World War II.

After his return to Kroměříž Čepička got involved in local administration, dealing brutally, quickly, and effectively with post war chaos. He married the daughter of Klement Gottwald, the leader of the Communist Party, who later became prime minister and President of Czechoslovakia.

As a candidate of the Communist Party, Čepička was voted into parliament in the 1946 elections. In 1947, he was named into the position of minister of interior trade (ministr vnitřního obchodu).

After the Communist takeover of power in 1948, he became Minister of Justice. In this position he let the law system be dominated by the will of the Communist Party; a law prosecuting political opponents was approved and put into full force. In 1950, he was named head of the state commission dealing with churches (Státní úřad pro věci církevní). His task in this position was to suppress any sign of resistance from religious organisations, especially from the Catholic Church.

During 1950-56, Čepička served as Minister of Defence. According to historian Karel Kaplan, Čepička was ordered by Joseph Stalin personally to prepare the Czechoslovak Army for incursion into Western Europe area [1]. The preparations included militarisation of the society, purges of those suspected of low loyalty to the new regime, salary rises of army officers, and growth in numbers of army personnel.

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