Tiso, Jozef  ( born Oct. October 13, 1887 , Velká Bytča, Austria-Hungary [now in Slovakia]—died April 18, 1947 , Bratislava, Czech. Czechoslovakia [now in Slovakia] )  Slovak priest and statesman who fought for Slovak autonomy within the Czechoslovak nation during the interwar period and headed the German puppet state of independent Slovakia (1939–45) until he was overthrown by the Red Army and Czechoslovak Partisans at the end of World War II.

Becoming a prominent member of Andrej Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party after World War I, Tiso was a member of the Czechoslovak government from 1927 to 1929 and succeeded Hlinka as party leader in 1938. On Oct. October 6, 1938, he Tiso became premier of autonomous Slovakia in the new federal Czechoslovakia, assuming the presidency after his country, under Adolf Hitler’s sponsorship, declared its independence (1939) to forestall annexation by Hungary.
