Occupation

On this date in 1948 a Czech diplomat was found dead on a street in Prague.  We hear, read, or see through a variety of media discussions of war. There never seems to be a last word. Books are still written about the Civil War, not to mention WWII. There are recent books dealing with wars before the time of Christ. What is less covered by the various media is what occurs after war. One movie, with a screenplay written by Graham Greene, was “The Third Man.” That movie, set in Allied occupied Austria gives a strong sense of life in occupied Vienna, and the trials and tribulations faced by the local population.  Vienna at the time was divided among the four WWII powers, although the central city was under international control.   Holly Martins is looking for his friend Harry Lime, but after a faked funeral he discovers his friend is stealing penicillin, diluting it and reselling it on the black market.  If we know little about Allied occupied Europe, we know even less about the occupation, or takeover, of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union.  The take over had a major effect in the home state of my Hovel ancestors, what is the former Bohemia, part of the Czech Republic and part of the former Czechoslovakia.  Jan Masaryk, son of Czechoslovakia’s first president Tomas Masaryk, was one victim of the Soviet take over.

Masaryk on cover of "Time" magazine

Marsayk, who was born in 1886, was a diplomat. He served as foreign minister in to the new Czech government, Czech ambassador to Great Britain, and during WWII served in Great Britain as the foreign minister for the exiled Czech government. With the end of the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia to continue his diplomatic role. However, the Soviet Union had occupied the nation and was intent on installing, as in a number of other countries of Eastern Europe, a puppet regime beholden to Moscow. The Soviets already saw success for this venture in Poland and East Germany. For a while Masaryk succeeded in keeping the Soviet’s at bay. However, historians report that he made a fatal mistake—he had told the west that Czechoslovakia was interested in participating in the Marshall Plan. You should recall the Marshall Plan from high school history—an aid program to European countries torn apart by war. The Western Allies realized that retribution, as occurred after WWI was not the proper answer to an area torn once again by war. When the Soviets were informed about this, they became incensed, and in February 1948 a communist coup took place leaving Marsayk as the only non-communist in the government as he had refused to resign.

Photo of his body on the ground

On March 10, 1948 Marasyk’s body was found on the ground outside the foreign ministry building. The official story was he had committed suicide. The official report was that he was despondent and in a state of depression. However, that story was met with suspicion and skepticism in the West. All know that Stalin was ruthless, and after WWII would kill to reach his ends. Western democracies were correct in their suspicion. The doctor who certified Masaryk’s death was himself found dead a few weeks later, another apparent suicide. Most agree that the window from which Masaryk supposedly jumped would have been difficult for him to not only reach, but then to jump from. Fifty-five years after he was found, and of course after the fall of the Soviet empire in Eastern Europe, his death was ruled a murder. I suspect Mr. Putin is not too happy with that more modern police investigator. The findings of the cause of death were based on bi-mechanics. The position of his body shows he did not jump but was sent to death by at least one other person. The position of the body indicates that he was facing the building, and went feet first, both of which is inconsistent with a person committing suicide by jumping. Further, bodily fluids of the deceased were found on the window sill in the room, which shows evidence that he was killed before the body was dropped out the window. The investigator says the evidence points to suffocation before his body was heaved out the window.

NY Times article on his death

The person who found the body would, twenty years later, note that he did not believe it to have been a suicide. Further, it was reported that Masaryk had left the building, but was approached by a man who told him he would “take him to safety.” With an investigation taking place decades after the body having been found, and no eyewitnesses left, there is little evidence pointing to a murder(s). His body was full of cuts and scrapes, which of course were not reported as that would have been inconsistent with the Communist story-line. There is also a bullet wound that a doctor, during the later investigation, noted he had seen in Masaryk’s head, even though no gun was found in the room. The window from which he jumped was also closed at the discovery of his body. The three persons who performed the autopsy were all members of the Communist party.

Scene from "The Third Man"

If Holly Martins, in the “Third Man”, had a difficult time in post-war Vienna think how much worse the brief time under communist regime it was for Jan Masaryk. The Soviets would not desire the non-Communist child of Czechoslovakia’s first president in their puppet government. They wanted yes men. In the end Masaryk is one more, as one writer noted, “victim of the tyranny of Russian imperialism.”  Of course, where would history be without the Soviet Union?  Would there have been a space race and the technological advances it provided?  Of course, there were also advances in systems so people could be killed easier.  This gets to one of the most famous quotes in movie history, near the end of the movie "The Third Man" Harry Lime turns to his old friend and says:

Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.