Josef Frank (politician)

Josef Frank (25 February 1909, Prostějov – 3 December 1952, Prague) was a Czechoslovakian Communist politician.

Between 1939 and 1945 he was imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp.^[1]

Josef Frank speaking at the third congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, 1950

In 1952 he was expelled from the party. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to death by hanging in the Slánský trial, a show trial orchestrated from Moscow.^[2] In 1968 he was made a Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in memoriam.^[3]

Frank is the central character of Howard Brenton's 1976 play Weapons of Happiness, in which he is imagined not dead, but rather living in exile.^[4]

Notes

1. "Buchenwald Concentration Camp 1937-1945" (A Guide to the Permanent Historical Exhibition) by Harry Stein, Wallstein, 2005. ISBN 978-3-89244-695-8
2. Czechoslovak Rehabilitations Analysis, Blinken Open Society Archives Retrieved on 5 Oct 2009
3. "Czechoslovak orders and medals" Retrieved on 5 Oct 2009
4. "Literary Encyclopedia: Weapons of Happiness" Retrieved on 5 Oct 2009