Svoboda, Ludvík

Ludvík Svoboda (1895−1979) – Czechoslovak soldier and politician. He was captured as an Austrian soldier on the Eastern Front in World War I and then fought as a legionary. In 1939 he escaped to Poland. Released from internment in in the Soviet Union after the Nazi invasion, he gradually organized a Czechoslovak field battalion from officers and volunteers, the 1^st Czechoslovak Independent Field Battalion, , the nucleus of 1^st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the USSR, which he commanded. From 1968 to 1975 he was President of Czechoslovakia.