Hubert Ripka

Who was Hubert Ripka?

Hubert Ripka was a Czechoslovak political figure and author.

The son of a forester, Ripka was the diplomatic correspondent of the Czech newspaper Lidové Noviny in the mid-1930s and an adviser to Czechoslovakian president Edvard Beneš. An opponent of the Munich Agreement, Ripka moved to France after its signing and wrote Munich: Before and After, an indictment of the events. When France surrendered to German forces in 1940, Ripka moved to England and became Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Czechoslovakian government-in-exile. After Germany's defeat in 1945, Ripka returned to Czechoslovakia and took office in the postwar government as Minister for Foreign Trade. With the Communist seizure of power in February 1948 Ripka left Czechoslovakia once more, remaining in exile until his death ten years later.