Alois Eliáš
Encyclopedia
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was the majority ethnic-Czech protectorate which Nazi Germany established in the central parts of Bohemia, Moravia and Czech Silesia in what is today the Czech Republic...
from April 27, 1939 to September 28, 1941.
Career in 1939-1942
The first government under the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia was only provisional in nature because it served as a successor to the government of CzechoslovakSecond Czechoslovak Republic
The Second Czechoslovak Republic refers to the second Czechoslovak state that existed from October 1, 1938 to March 14, 1939, thus existing for only 167 days...
Second Republic
German occupation of Czechoslovakia
German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...
. A replacement of the aforementioned government was discussed at the end of April 1939. The State President of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia Emil Hácha
Emil Hácha
Emil Hácha was a Czech lawyer, the third President of Czecho-Slovakia from 1938 to 1939. From March 1939, he presided under the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.-Judicial career:...
thought Alois Eliáš as his best choice. Hácha hoped that the popularity acquired by Eliáš during his earlier military career would prove beneficial to the puppet regime. He had served with the Czechoslovak Legion in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and attained the rank of general. Although somewhat dubious, some historians have written that Hácha hoped Eliáš' former contacts with the Reichsprotektor Konstantin von Neurath
Konstantin von Neurath
Konstantin Freiherr von Neurath was a German diplomat remembered mostly for having served as Foreign minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938...
could influence the Reichsprotektor of the desirability of Eliáš as the Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
.
Finally, on April 27, 1939, he was appointed Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
. Eliáš took office led by the conviction that he might have a unique opportunity to help his country. During his tenure in office he gave support to the underground resistance to the Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
occupiers. On September 27, 1941, a week after the appointment of Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Heydrich
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich , also known as The Hangman, was a high-ranking German Nazi official.He was SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia...
as the new Reichsprotektor, Eliáš was arrested, put on trial and sentenced to death. After Heydrich was assassinated (see Operation Anthropoid
Operation Anthropoid
Operation Anthropoid was the code name for the targeted killing of top German SS leader Reinhard Heydrich. He was the chief of the Reich Main Security Office , the acting Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, and a chief planner of the Final Solution, the Nazi German programme for the genocide of the...
) nearly a year later, on May 27, 1942, Eliáš was finally executed at the Kobylisy Shooting Range
Kobylisy Shooting Range
Kobylisy Shooting Range is a former military shooting range located in Kobylisy, a northern suburb of Prague, Czech Republic....
as a part of the wide German reprisals for Heydrich's death.
Eliáš was given a state funeral with full honours on May 7, 2006 and was buried at Vítkov Cemetery in Prague.
The Sandwich Affair
In early September 1941, Alois Eliáš planned to poison important Czech journalists who were actively cooperating with the Nazi regime. Eliáš officially invited the journalists to the Office of the Government. He brought sandwiches to the office of his urologist, whose name has been never published at the request of his family. At the urologist's office, the sandwiches were laced with botulism toxin, tuberculosisTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
-causing Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a pathogenic bacterial species in the genus Mycobacterium and the causative agent of most cases of tuberculosis . First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, M...
, and typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
-causing Rickettsia
Rickettsia
Rickettsia is a genus of non-motile, Gram-negative, non-sporeforming, highly pleomorphic bacteria that can present as cocci , rods or thread-like . Being obligate intracellular parasites, the Rickettsia survival depends on entry, growth, and replication within the cytoplasm of eukaryotic host cells...
bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
. Eliáš took the poisoned sandwiches to the Office of the Government. Although he handled this highly infectious material, he did not fall ill.
On September 18, 1941, the delegation of the invited journalists ingested the poisoned sandwiches. The death of the editor of the journal Czech Word (České slovo), Karel Lažnovský, was the only fatality from the poisoning. Other journalists, including Jaroslav Křemen and Emanuel Vajtauer, fell ill.
The subsequent arrest
Arrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
of Eliáš was not a consequence of the poisoning attempt, but rather due to his cooperation with the Czech resistance movement
Czech resistance to Nazi occupation
Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance...
.
External links
- Biography of Alois Elias (in Czech)
- Members of government led by Elias, 27.4.1939 - 19.1.1942 (in Czech)
- Funeral of Alois Eliáš and his wife 8 May 2006 - record of direct transmission (in Czech)