Remains of Jan Masaryk to Be Exhumed More Than 75 Years After His Death

The remains of Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk are being prepared for exhumation, according to sources close to the investigation into his death cited by the news portal iRozhlas. The case, now nearly 77 years old, remains a subject of dispute among historians and investigators alike.

Masaryk, son of Czechoslovakia's first president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, died in the early hours of 10 March 1948 — shortly after the communist coup. His body was found beneath the window of his official apartment in the Černín Palace. The official verdict was suicide, but debate continues to this day over whether the minister's death was in fact an accident or a staged murder.

Case Reopened Following Archival Discoveries

The Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism reopened the case in January last year, having previously closed it for lack of new evidence. According to the office, the investigation was revived after the recent discovery of documents in the diplomatic archives of France, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Masaryk served as foreign minister from 1940, first in the Czechoslovak exile government in London during the war, and later in the postwar cabinets of Prime Ministers Zdeněk Fierlinger and Klement Gottwald. In February 1948, when non-communist ministers resigned in protest against the communist seizure of power, Masaryk chose not to follow suit, remaining in office to witness the Communist Party's rise to power. He died just weeks later.

Source: novinky.cz