The study describes the last years of Vojtech Tuka, one of the representatives of the Slovak State (1939-1945). This period was significantly affected by his ill health, which was the official reason for his withdrawal from politics in the years 1943-1944. At the end of the war he moved to western Austria, which became the French occupying zone. French military police arrested him in August 1945 in Kitzbühel and interned him in Innsbruck. Because of the very poor state of his health it was an urgent and speedy hearing. He was transported to Prague in December 1945 and was heard to supply information for the Nuremberg trials. Further questioning took place in May 1946 due to its own process at the National court. Investigators were interested in the circumstances of the Slovak State, his activity during the period of autonomy, his contacts with the Nazis in the 1920s, events of March 1939 and the riots in Bratislava, the Treaty of protection with Germany, the war against Poland and the Soviet Union, economic and military linkage to Germany, meeting in Salzburg and the Jewish question. On the questions of the period of his “first political activity” in 1929 he answered only with the intentions of his request for mercy from 1935. The process ended with sentencing and execution of Vojtech Tuka in August 1946.
The period after the Second World War is characterised by retribution – the punishment of crimes committed during the occupation. For this purpose, extraordinary people’s courts were set up also in territory of Slovakia, especially important cases were to be tried by the National Court in Bratislava. The captured Slovak collaborators, fellow nazi security personnel, etc. ended up in these courts. In particular, several trials with representatives of the Slovak State have been closely monitored by the public. The retributive judiciary in the post-war Czechoslovak Republic was created not only as a result of the efforts of the victorious powers to punish crimes committed by the Nazis and their allies during the war, but also served as a means of removing the influence of former political regime officials who served in the Czech Countries and Slovakia from 1939 to 1945. In Nitra, public attention was focused, among other things, on the trial of former Mayor of Nitra František Mojto. Mojto was sentenced to 8 months and other material penalties. The case study assesses the procedural side of the trial – its arrest, indictment, conviction, detention, as well as the causal background behind the completion of the trial.
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