Background
Emil Hácha was born on 12 July 1872 in the South Bohemian town of Trhové Sviny.
Emil Hácha was born on 12 July 1872 in the South Bohemian town of Trhové Sviny.
He graduated from a secondary school in Budweis and then applied for the law faculty at the University of Prague. After finishing his studies in 1896 (JUDr.) he worked for the Country Committee of the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague (a self-government body with quite limited power). Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, he became a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court in Vienna (the court was responsible for Cisleithania). He met Ferdinand Pantůček there.
As Hitler moved to take over the country, which was being split by Ruthenian and Slovakian autonomists (the latter under Joseph Tiso), he summoned Dr Hacha to Berlin. In a well-staged encounter beginning at 1 AM on 15 Mar 1939 the fuehrer said German troops would march at dawn and occupy Prague hy 9 AM. The Czechs were given the choice of resisting and having the country “trodden underfoot,” or accepting the occupation peacefully and having some autonomy. Hitler signed the prepared documents and left at 2 AM, whereupon Goering and Ribbentrop “hunted the unfortunate Czechs around the table, thrusting pens into their hands and the documents in front of them,” writes Wheeler-Bennett (ibid.). The elderly and ailing Dr Hacha resisted for several hours, kept going only by injections from “a physician in waiting," before resigning himself, “with death in his soul, to give his signature”. Dr Hacha continued as nominal head of what had become the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He consistently supported the German occupation and urged his countrymen not to offend their masters. Two weeks after being arrested as a collaborator he died in a Prague prison on 1 June 1945.
In 1902 Hácha married Marie Háchová, née Klaus (born 17 April 1873 in Prague, died 6 February 1938 in Prague). They had a daughter, Milada. Marie died ten months before Hácha became president.