General Alojz Lorenc was born in 1939 in Trencin, Slovakia. After completing basic training, he devoted his life to organized military and politics. He graduated from the Antonin Zapotoski Military Academy in Brno, where he specialized in radio tracking, and then served in the Armed Forces for a short period. In 1970 he was detached to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. He pursued graduate studies in Governance and built an automated deciphering device.
The young Lorenc’s talent did not go unnoticed. By 1977 he was already head of the National Directorate for deciphering services and in 1981 he was appointed as director of the National Security Corps of Bratislava and Western Slovakia; in 1985, he became first deputy interior minister for the entire state.
The bloodless collapse of the state regime in 1989 marked the beginning of the end for the general, despite the fact that many credited him with orchestrating the Velvet Revolution. The post-revolution cleansing operation placed him in the eye of the post-communist cyclone, resulting in his arrest three times, eleven detentions, and convictions.
The cold-blooded technocrat of the Czechoslovakian secret services relates his experiences in two books, Ministerstvo strachu? (Ministry of Terror?) (Bratislava, 1992) and Desifrovany Svet (Deciphered World, Bratislava, 2000). Today he works in the private sector as a security consultant.