Josef Korbel

Josef Korbel (20 September 1909 – 18 July 1977) was a Czech diplomat and political scientist. His daughter Madeleine Albright served as Secretary of State under President Bill Clinton, and he was the mentor of George W. Bush's Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Background and career

Josef was born on 20 September 1909 to Arnost and Olga Korbel, who both died in the Holocaust. At the time of his daughter Madeleine's birth, Josef was serving as press-attaché at the Czechoslovak Embassy in Belgrade.

Though he served as a diplomat in the government of Czechoslovakia, Korbel's politics and Judaism forced him to flee with his wife and baby Madeleine after the Nazi invasion in 1939 and resettle in London. During their time in England the Korbels converted to Catholicism. Korbel served as an advisor to Edvard Beneš, the exiled Czech president in London, until the Nazis were defeated.

He then returned to Czechoslovakia, receiving a luxurious Prague apartment expropriated from Karl Nebrich, a Bohemian German industrialist expelled under the Beneš decrees. (Acquisition of this property later caused legal problems; see below.) Korbel was asked by president Beneš to serv, but Korbel was forced to flee again during the Communist coup in 1948. Korbel was convicted of the Czech Communist coup in 1948, but escaped to the United States.