František Kriegel (10 April 1908 – 3 December 1979) was a Czechoslovak politician, physician, and a member of the Communist Party reform wing of the Prague Spring (1968).

František Kriegel was born in Stanisławów (today Ivano-Frankivsk), Austria-Hungary (present Ukraine) to the family of a Jewish builder.

[3] Kriegel had to earn a living in a shoemaker's shop or as an extra in the theatre (he even sold sausages in football stadiums), but he enjoyed an independent life in the highly tolerant society of 1920s Czechoslovakia.

[3] During the Great Depression, he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) and believed that social and national justice would solve the problem of the poor and the Jewish question.

When he returned to Czechoslovakia, Kriegel refused a post in the party organisation but stood as a member of the National Assembly and was elected in 1964.

When Alexander Dubček was elected the first secretary of the Central Committee of KSČ in January 1968, Kriegel was one of the main proponents of the democratic wing of the party.

Throughout this period, he did not give up his medical career; he worked as chief physician first at the Rheumatic Diseases Research Institute (1963–1965) and then at Thomayer University Hospital [cs] in Prague (1965–1969).

[6] He was so distrusted by the Soviets that he was not allowed to be present during the negotiations of the two parties, and when he was asked to sign the text of the concluding statement[7] he was the only one of 26 politicians to refuse.

He died in a Prague hospital under police control on 3 December 1979,[4][8] and his body was seized by the authorities to prevent any demonstrations at a funeral.