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This article discusses war crimes in occupied Prague and a public execution in 1946. The content is shared solely for historical education and to commemorate the victims.

50,000 witnesses at the last public execution in Prague – Josef Pfitzner on September 6, 1946

On a cool autumn morning of September 6, 1946, more than 50,000 Czechoslovakians gathered in Pankrác Square in Prague. They had come to witness one of the largest public executions in postwar Europe – and the very last of its kind in Czechoslovakia.

The man who was led to the gallows was Josef Pfitzner (1901–1946) – a former history professor at Charles University in Prague, leader of the Sudeten German Party and, after the Anschluss in 1938, deputy mayor of occupied Prague.

As part of the Nazi repressive apparatus in Bohemia and Moravia, Pfitzner was directly involved in:

Suppression of Czech intellectuals, politicians and Jews

Organization of mass arrests and expulsions of Czechs from the Sudetenland

In particular, after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, Pfitzner helped to compile lists of victims for reprisals such as the massacres of Lidice and Ležáky, in which hundreds of civilians, including women, were killed.

Causing a famine:   He confiscated food supplies from the Czech population to feed the German military and civilian population, which led to a severe famine among the common people.

Aiding and abetting persecution and deportation:   He worked closely with the Gestapo, suppressed the Czech resistance movement, and participated in the deportation of Jews to extermination camps.

Breach of trust:  As a pre-war history professor, he used his knowledge and authority to serve Nazi propaganda and the Nazi apparatus, thus becoming a symbol of intellectual betrayal and the brutality of the puppet regime.

After the liberation of Prague by the Red Army on May 9, 1945, Pfitzner was arrested along with hundreds of other Nazi officials. In August 1946, the Extraordinary People’s Court in Prague opened his trial. Dozens of witnesses—from survivors to former political prisoners—testified to Pfitzner’s role in ordering arrests and confiscations, as well as in supporting the Holocaust in the Protectorate.

On August 29, 1946, the court sentenced him to death for high treason and war crimes.

Before a silent crowd, Pfitzner mounted the scaffold on September 6. The sentence was carried out immediately. This marked the end of public executions in Czechoslovakia and the postwar period of “retribution.”

We are not telling this story today to incite hatred, but to:

Honor the memory of the thousands of Czech victims who died under occupation, including those massacred in Lidice and in concentration camps.

Let us acknowledge the courage of the survivors who testified despite their ongoing trauma.

Remind each generation that justice, however delayed, must prevail to prevent history from repeating itself.

Official sources:

Records of the Prague Extraordinary People’s Court of 1946 – Czech National Archives

Photographs by Svatopluk Sova (Czech History Museum)

Frantisek Beneš, “The Lidice Massacre” (1947)

Eduard Stehlík, “Lidice – The Story of a Czech Village” (2004)