Pictured: Slovak fascist Vojtech Tuka (far right) meeting Adolf Schicklgruber and Otto Meissner during October 1941.

Next up in the parade of antisocialist piss buckets is the First Slovak Republic, the only official member of the Axis to consider itself republican (unless you count the so‐called Italian Social Republic). In terms of fascism, Slovakia is a bit of an odd case: rather than already being independent, it constituted half of Czechoslovakia until mid‐March, 1939, and beforehand it actually ceded some territory to the Kingdom of Hungary and the Polish régime. Still, the classic symptoms of fascism were visible. Quoting Jan Rychlík in Joining Hitler’s Crusade: European Nations and the Invasion of the Soviet Union, 1941, page 111:

The transformation of the political system from [pseudo]democracy as it existed in pre‐Munich Czechoslovakia to the [fascism] of HSĽS took place during October and December 1938. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press and other political rights were abolished and strong censorship was imposed on all newspapers and other publications. Trade unions, which in the interwar period were usually affiliated to various political parties, were dissolved or forced to merge with the Christian Workers Association, the only permissible union controlled by HSĽS.

The Slovak autonomous government dissolved and then banned the Communist Party before doing the same to the Social Democratic Party. Centre‐of‐right political parties were forced to merge ‘voluntarily’ with HSĽS. This was a case with the Slovak branch of Czechoslovak Republican Peasant and Smallholders Party (usually called the Agrarian Party), the strongest political party in pre‐Munich Czechoslovakia.

Except for HSĽS only two parties representing German and Hungarian minorities were allowed, and even these parties could not run independently in the elections to the Slovak Diet. The elections took place on 18 December 1938. Only a single list of candidates, dominated by the HSĽS, was presented to the electorate, and in these circumstances they ‘captured’ 98 per cent of the votes.¹¹

All of this is related to the fact that both Tiso and his colleagues were petty bourgeois and had military backgrounds. Quoting James Mace Ward’s Priest, Politician, Collaborator, pages 29–31:

Even though he spent most of his ten months in Oscsad studying for his doctoral exams, he helped his superior organize a farmers’ union. The association, for example, sold goods such as footwear at prices that undercut the local “Jew.”⁷³ […] Rajecz lacked enough credit institutions, so Tiso and a few associates organized one in 1912. Because control of credit translated into influence, the Hungarian government preferred to corral such institutions within a National Central Credit Union.⁷⁶ Tiso and his partners steered free of these ties, opening their institution instead as a branch of a Zsolna bank with good Slovak nationalist credentials. […] Already in the reserves, the priest mobilized with the 71st, Trencsén’s kaiserliches und königliches infantry regiment.

Even though Czechs and Slovaks have always been closely related, the Slovak Republic was violently anti‐Czech anyway. (Sound familiar?) It was also violently antisemitic, but it would be an exaggeration to summarize its antisemitism as an import. The Slovak Republic was dependent on imports, however; the Third Reich was critical to its survival. Returning to Joining Hitler’s Crusade, page 116:

Formally Slovakia was an independent state with its own army and foreign representation. Its sovereignty, however, was severely limited by its special relationship to [the Third Reich]. According to the ‘Treaty of Protection’ (Schutzvertrag), signed originally in Vienna on 18 March and conclusively in Berlin on 23 March 1939, [the Third Reich] obtained the right to build military bases in the so‐called ‘Zone of Protection’ (Schutzzone) which was situated in Western Slovakia between the White Carpathians and the border of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Slovakia was also obliged to conduct its foreign and defence policy according the interests of [Berlin].¹⁸ A secret protocol to the Treaty of Protection subordinated the Slovak economy to [Berlin’s] needs.¹⁹

Hmm, there is something oddly familiar about this… anyway, the Slovakian bourgeoisie’s yearning for spazio vitale began pretty quickly. Pages 120–1

The government was also asked to take part in the military operations against Poland (the government was assured that the Slovak army would not be used outside Slovak territory,²⁹ but this promise was not fulfilled). In exchange, [Berlin] promised to guarantee the Slovak–Hungarian border. If Poland was defeated, Slovakia would regain the territories lost in the fall of 1938, and eventually also those which were lost to Poland already in 1920.³⁰ After a short hesitation the Slovak government accepted [Berlin’s] requirements.

We know what happened after that. Now, concerning the Slovak Republic’s Axis membership, page 122:

On 24 November 1940 Slovakia, together with Hungary and Romania, joined the Tripartite Pact.³⁴ In April 1941 Slovakia did not participate in the campaign against Yugoslavia and Greece. On the other hand, when the war stared on 6 April, Bratislava severed diplomatic relations with Belgrade and on 10 April expressed a willingness to recognize the new independent Croatian state.

On 21 June 1941 the Chief of the German General Staff, General Franz Halder, visited Bratislava incognito. He informed the head of the [Fascist] military mission in Slovakia, General Paul von Otto, that [Berlin] expected the participation of the Slovak army in the war against the Soviet Union.³⁵ On the following day, 22 June 1941, the war started.

The [Reich’s] minister to Slovakia, Hans Eluard Ludin, visited Tiso and Tuka to present them with [Berlin’s] request for Slovakian participation. Tuka agreed and offered military aid.³⁶ On the same day diplomatic relations between the USSR and Slovakia were broken off³⁷ and Defence Minister General Ferdinand Čatloš ordered reservists to report for ‘extraordinary military training’. Only on 24 June did the government approve participation in the war, which was then officially announced by radio broadcast.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Slovaks constituted 5% of the non‐German armies in the invasion, and the Slovak Republic served the Axis until late 1944, when the Wehrmacht occupied Slovakia and the head of state, Vojtech Tuka, resigned shortly afterwards.