'The Youth Are Leading Brno': Otto Šling and his Career in Brno, 1945-50
Mládež vede Brno Otto Šling a jeho brněnská kariéra (1945-1950)

Summary/Abstract: The article presents Otto Šling as a politician somewhat different from the usual Com¬munist functionaries. It shows him to be an intelligent, educated, brave, and ambitious man, who gained renown for his unconventional ways of management. He was born into a German-Jewish bourgeois family in Nová Cerekev near Jihlava, in 1912. While a university student he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCz), fought in the Spanish Civil War, and spent the Second World War as an exile in Great Britain, where he was in the leadership of the anti-Fascist Young Czechoslovak organization. After returning home in spring 1945 he became Secretary of the CPCz Regional Com¬mittee in Brno and, with his energetic demeanour, he attained a strong position in the Party. According to the testimony of his contemporaries he was at the time one of the non-dogmatic functionaries, who were trying to achieve a Czechoslovak road to Com¬munism.

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