Eugen Löbl

(*14 May 1907 in Holíč – †1987 in New York, USA)

When young, he was a member of an association of communist and leftist intellectuals called DAV. He cooperated mainly with V. Clementis, L. Novomeský, G. Husák and D. Okáli.

From 1945 he acted as a deputy minister at the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Prague and he held the position until he was placed under arrest in 1949. In November 1952 he was sentenced in the Slánsky trial to life in prison for alleged high treason, espionage and sabotage. In 1963 he was exculpated and rehabilitated. On 1 April 1964 he was engaged to the services of Štátna banka československá as director of its regional branch in Bratislava. In his theoretical papers and essays, he addressed the need for increasing efficiency of the then socialist economy. He participated in the planning of economic reform. After the events of August 1968, he decided to leave Czechoslovakia for good. He settled in the USA, where he worked in the years 1969 - 1976 as a professor of economics and political sciences at several universities. He became vice chairman of the Slovak World Congress, where he acted as the main specialist in national economy. He worked closely with Š. B. Roman, with whom he wrote a popular-science book entitled Zodpovedná spoločnosť (Responsible society).