He also led the 4th Military engineering group in Pleven. At the end of 1936 he retired from the army. He was appointed chairman of the Military History Commission, as well as chairman of the cycling Union. At this point he had a chance to collect documents for his future books. Minister in Kyoseivanov's cabinets From 14 November 1938 Nedev was Minister of Interior Affairs and Public Health in the cabinet of Georgi Kyoseivanov. He held this office from 23 October 1939 until 15 October 1940. In November 1936, Germany, Italy and Japan signed a treaty agreeing to a common foreign policy. On 11 March 1938 Germany occupied Austria. On 30 September 1939 Germany occupied the Sudetenland, and six months later she invaded Czechoslovakia. In 1939 Italy occupied Albania. On 23 August the Ribentrop-Molotov Treaty was signed. Poland was divided between Germany and the USSR, and on 1 September WWII began. Bulgarian society was divided in two parts; those supporting Great Britain, France and USA, and those supporting Germany, Italy and Japan. The cabinet of Georgi Kyoseivanov remained neutral until 15 September. On 31 July 1938 Bulgaria signed the Balkan Pact – its neighbors gave up the military restrictions of the Neuilly Treaty. Tsar Boris III disbanded Parliament. At Hitler's insistence, Bulgaria began its genocide of Jews in 1939. Nedev twice requested an audience with Tsar Boris III and insisted that no Jewish men who risked their lives for Bulgaria's freedom be sentenced to death. Thanks to his efforts a sailing vessel transporting Jews was not sunk in the Black sea. Nikola Nedev was procurator of the Takvorian Tobacco Company for a year from 1 July 1941. After World War II After World War II, the new political forces in Bulgaria determined Major General Nikola Nedev to be a patriot and a humanist who typified the feats of the Bulgarian army. Despite that assessment, the communist government arrested him in 1951. His family was not informed of his whereabouts for four months. Nedev was held in a concentration camp along with the members of Bulgaria's intelligencia – politicians, senior members of the military, ministers, and intellectuals. In 1954 he was released after three years of hard labor and deprived of his title and pension. Nedev kept his dignity; he thanked God he was alive, and forgave the communists "as they did not know what they had been doing". Awards –