World War II Database

Emil Hácha was born in the town of Trhové Sviny. He studied in České Budějovice in his younger years, and then studied law at the University of Prague. He became a politician with the Country Committee of the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague. He was appointed a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court in Vienna in 1918, then in the next year deputy president of the court. His career reached its pinnacle on 30 Nov 1938 when he was chosen as the President of Czechoslovakia, but it was a difficult role for him to assume for that the northerly neighbor, Germany, which had just annexed Sudetenland in the previous month, continued to show aggression toward his nation. During the night of 14-15 Mar 1939, he was in Berlin meeting with Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring, where he was threatened with military action if he did not surrender Czechoslovakia to Germany. Hácha begged for respite, but the only response Hitler gave him was that German troops were already deployed at the German-Czech border and were ready to invade at his order, and Göring added that the air force would be able to bombard Prague by dawn. Hácha had no choice but to give in to the German demands; he felt it was the only way to avert bloodshed. He signed the document which allowed Germany to annex Czechoslovakia; the nation was split up to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and the Slovak Republic. He became the powerless head of a puppet government of Bohemia and Moravia, but in secret he worked with his predecessor, former president Edvard Beneš, to undermine the German occupation. When Reinhard Heydrich replaced the milder Konstantin von Neurath as the German protector, Hácha became intimidated by Heydrich's harsh rule and became a collaborator. When Prague was taken by Allied forces on 13 May 1945, Hácha was arrested. His health conditions brought him to a hospital, where he died a month later.

Emil Hácha Timeline

Photographs

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