PRAGUE: Unseen strangers cut telephone lines and locked doors inside the Prague Foreign Ministry when Jan Masaryk, then Foreign Minister, died mysteriously 20 years ago, the Czechoslovak newspaper “Smena” reported yesterday [April 7].

Jan Masaryk, son of the Republic’s founder, was found sprawled in the courtyard of the Czernin Palace — the Foreign Ministry — in his pyjamas early in the morning of March 10, 1948. It was one of the greatest mysteries of the Stalinist era and happened a month after the Communist take-over in Czechoslovakia. At the time, the official version said he leapt to his death in a fit of melancholy. Other versions circulated that he was murdered by outside agents.

Yesterday’s article recorded an interview with Pavel Straka, a Foreign Ministry employee in Ori, who was dismissed after Masaryk’s death and given 12 years imprisonment for treason. His main crime was that he told friends of Masaryk not to believe in the official suicide version. He was freed in 1962 and now works in a brewery.

Straka told the reporter that on the night of March 9-10 he was on night duty and saw Masaryk enter the building. After Masaryk retired to his private apartment in the Ministry, Straka said he heard several cars arriving. Then he became aware that the telephones inside the building had gone dead. Someone on the outside then turned the key of his office and locked him in. At 0200 the noise of cars was restored and his door was unlocked. Shortly afterwards Masaryk’s body was found. Straka said he noticed the windows of Masaryk’s bedroom were closed.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2018