Otakar Hromádko

Otakar Hromádko
Otakar Hromádko in Yverdon in 1982
Born	(1909-08-30)August 30, 1909 Kněž, Austria-Hungary
Died	April 14, 1983(1983-04-14) (aged 73) Yverdon, Switzerland
Nationality	Czech
Occupation	Journalist, Army officer
Known for	Revolutionary, victim of Stalinist processes in Czechoslovakia

Otakar Hromádko (30 August 1909 in Kněž, district Čáslav, Czechoslovakia – 14 April 1983 in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland) was a Czechoslovak journalist and army officer. He spent first half of his life fighting for communist ideals and later became a victim of communist purges and a political émigré.

At the age of five, he lost his father in World War I and during his studies became a supporter of emerging communist movement in Czechoslovakia. He fought as a volunteer in International Brigades in Spanish Civil War and French anti-Nazi resistance during World War II. After World War II he returned to Czechoslovakia and took part in strengthening the dominance of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the years leading to, and immediately following, the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état. In the early 1950s he fell victim to communist purges and was sentenced to 12 years of prison. He served over five years in prisons and labor camps in uranium mines. In 1956, he was released and later fully rehabilitated. After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 he emigrated to Switzerland. He died in Yverdon-les-Bains in 1983.

Although he grew up a strong anti-militarist, he ended up having a significant military career. His anti-militarism can be traced back to loss of his father in World War I and to the influence of his mother and grandfather Kadleček. He avoided conscription to Czechoslovak army and served his first prison term for painting anti-militarist slogans on a church in 1930. But in the late 1930s, along with many other left-leaning young activists, he has found himself fighting in Spanish Civil War and French resistance against regimes of Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler. He was awarded military decorations by four countries – France (Croix de guerre), Poland (War Order of Virtuti Militari), Yugoslavia (Order of National Merit) and Czechoslovakia (several decorations including the Czechoslovak War Cross and highest order of Czechoslovakia, Order of the White Lion). His military career culminated in the late 1940s when he became the general secretary of all communist organizations in the Czechoslovak army.