Jozef Gašpar Tiso (, ; 13 October 1887 – 18 April 1947) was a Slovak politician and Catholic priest who served as president of the Slovak Republic, a client state of Nazi Germany during World War II, from 1939 to 1945. In 1947, after the war, he was executed for treason in Bratislava.
Born in 1887 to Slovak parents in Nagybiccse (today Bytča), then part of Hungary, Austria-Hungary, Tiso studied several languages during his school career, including Hebrew and German. He was introduced to priesthood from an early age, and helped combat local poverty and alcoholism in what is now Slovakia. He joined the Slovak People's Party () in 1918 and became party leader in 1938 following the death of Andrej Hlinka. On 14 March 1939, the Slovak Assembly in Bratislava unanimously adopted Law 1/1939 transforming the autonomous Slovak Republic (that was until then part of Czechoslovakia) into an independent country. Two days after Nazi Germany seized the remainder of the Czech Lands, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed.
Jozef Tiso, who was already the prime minister of the autonomous Slovakia (under Czechoslovak laws), became the Slovak Republic's prime minister, and, in October 1939, he was elected its president.
Tiso collaborated with Germany in deportations of Jews, deporting many Slovak Jews to extermination and concentration camps in Germany and German-occupied Poland, while some Jews in Slovakia were murdered outright. Deportations were executed between 25 March 1942 until 20 October 1942. An anti-fascist partisan insurgency was waged, culminating in the Slovak National Uprising in summer 1944, which was suppressed by German military authorities, with many of its leaders executed. Consequently, on 30 September 1944, deportations of Jews were renewed, with additional 13,500 deported.
When the Soviet Red Army overran the last parts of western Slovakia in April 1945, Tiso fled to Austria and then Germany, where American troops arrested him and then had him extradited back to the restored Czechoslovakia, where he was convicted of high treason, betrayal of the national uprising and collaboration with the Nazis, and then executed by hanging in 1947 and buried in Bratislava. In 2008, his remains were buried in the canonical crypt of the Cathedral in Nitra, Slovakia.
Early life
Tiso was born in Bytča (then ) to Slovak parents, in Trencsén County, of the Kingdom of Hungary, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was raised in a religious family and studied at the local elementary school. Then, as a good student with a flair for languages, he studied at a lower grammar school in Žilina. The school had clearly Hungarian spirit, since all Slovak grammar schools were closed at the time of his study. Here, he began to use the Hungarian form of his name Tiszó József. In 1902, he began to study at higher Piarist grammar school in Nitra. The Bishop of Nitra, Imre Bende, offered him a chance to study for the priesthood at the prestigious Pázmáneum in Vienna. Tiso, taught by several elite professors, became familiar with various philosophies and the newest Papal Encyclicals. He also extended his language skills. Along with already known Hungarian, German and Latin, he studied Hebrew, Aramaic dialects and Arabic. The school reports describe him mostly as an "excellent", "exemplary", and "pious" student. Enrolling in the University of Vienna in 1906, he graduated as a Doctor of Theology in 1911.
His early ministry was spent as an assistant priest in three parishes in today's Slovakia. Tiso was interested in public affairs and performed extensive educational and social work. During his fight against poverty and alcoholism, he may also have adopted some stereotypical and simplified views on Slovak-Jewish relations. Such views were not unusual in the contemporary society, including among priests or other people with higher education. He blamed the Jewish tavern owners for the rising alcoholism and he was also a member of self-help association selling food and clothing cheaper than the local Jewish store. Tiso became a member of Nép párt (Catholic People's Party) and contributed to its Slovak journal Kresťan (Christian).