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Rudolf Slánský (July 31, 1901 – December 2, 1952) joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia at the party's founding in 1929 and became a senior lieutenant of leader Klement Gottwald. Slánský, who was Jewish, fled to the Soviet Union when the Germans invaded the Sudetenland in October 1938. He returned to Czechoslovakia in 1944 and participated in the Slovak rebellion against fascist rule.
Slánský became General Secretary of the Communist Party after World War II and the second most powerful person in the country after Gottwald who became leader of a Communist dominated coalition government.
After 1948 Gottwald moved to introduce a Soviet style system, pushing aside his coalition partners. Slánský, however, resisted Stalinism and in September 1951 was arrested and charged with being a Titoite. His arrest was part of a Soviet inspired purge of "national Communists". The Prague Trials that followed were notable for their anti-Semitic overtones. Slánský was found guilty of "Trotskyite-Titoist-Zionist activities in the service of American imperialism" and hanged on December 2, 1952.
de:Rudolf Slánský