Emil Hacha (12 July 1872 – 27 June 1945) was President of Czechoslovakia from 30 November 1938 to 14 March 1939, succeeding Edvard Benes. He was the last president of an independent and democratic Czechoslovak state before the German occupation in 1939, and he served as the head of state of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from 1939 until the end of World War II in 1945.
Biography[]
Emil Hacha was born on 12 July 1872 in Schweinitz-in-Boehmen, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary. He graduated from the University of Prague with a law degree and became a judge and later a member of Czechoslovakia's Legislative Council.
President of Czechoslovakia[]
Hacha in Berlin, March 1939
On 30 November 1938, he was elected president after Edvard Benes left office, with Hacha being a conservative and a man who was unlikely to partition the country further. However, March 1939 saw Slovakia appeal to Nazi Germany to safeguard its secession, and Hacha was summoned to Berlin. Adolf Hitler kept him waiting for hours before informing him that German troops were ready to enter his country, and he told him that he could either surrender peacefully and allow Czechoslovakia some freedom, or he could choose to go to war and let German planes bomb Prague. Hacha had a heart attack upon hearing of this threat, and he decided to allow Germany to annex Czechoslovakia. Hacha opposed the Germanization of the republic and secretly cooperated with Edvard Benes' government-in-exile, but Hacha also signed the Nuremberg Laws into Czech law, persecuting Czech Jews. When Reinhard Heydrich became the new Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Hacha lost all power, and he was a puppet until 1945. He died in prison on 27 June 1945 after the Red Army liberated Prague, and some suspected assassination.