Václav Nosek

Václav Nosek (26 September 1892 – 22 July 1955) was a Czech communist politician who served as Minister of the Interior of Czechoslovakia from 4 April 1945 to 14 September 1953.

Biography The son of a miner, Nosek joined the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party (ČSSD) at the age of eighteen and was an active trade unionist. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, and fought during the Serbian campaign and on the Eastern and Italian fronts, before being wounded and discharged in 1917. Belonging to the left wing of the ČSSD, Nosek took part in the party split and the subsequent founding of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) in 1921. During the 1920s he worked as an organizer of the communist trade unions in Prague, and in 1929 he was elected to the Central Committee of the KSČ.

After the occupation of the Czech lands by Nazi Germany in 1939, Nosek was arrested and jailed in Prague's Pankrác Prison for several weeks. From 1941 he was a member, and from 1942 vice chairman, of the London-based Czechoslovak National Council, led by Edvard Beneš.

After 1950, Nosek's influence decreased, as the security forces came under the Ministry of National Security in May 1950, significantly curtailing the power of the Ministry of the Interior. On 14 September 1953, Nosek left his position as Minister of the Interior, but remained in the government as Minister of Labour and Social Welfare until his death from lung cancer in July 1955. After cremation, his remains were buried at the Jan Žižka National Monument at Vítkov. In 1990, his ashes were moved to Olšany Cemetery, together with those of about 20 other communist leaders which had also originally been placed in the Jan Žižka National Monument.

Honours and awards