Přemysl Šámal

This book is the first comprehensive account of the life story of Přemysl Šámal (1867–1941) and his family. The Prague lawyer Šámal was one of the leading figures of interwar Czechoslovakia. During the First World War, he became the head of a secret organisation (the Maffia) and, at the end of October 1918, took part in negotiations between representatives of the foreign and domestic resistance in Geneva. After the founding of the independent republic, he became the head of the capital city of Prague, but in early 1919 he accepted an offer from T. G. Masaryk to become the head of his presidential office. For the next nineteen years, he served as Chancellor to Presidents Masaryk and Beneš, acting as a discreet but key coordinator of the personal relationships and networks of influence that turned the “Castle” into a centre of power outside the official political structures. After the Munich Agreement and Beneš's abdication, Šámal resigned from the chancellery and withdrew from public life. However, he could not accept the occupation of post-Munich Czecho-Slovakia, and by the summer of 1939, he was at the head of the anti-Nazi illegal resistance organisation, the Political Centre. Although his leadership role was largely formal and symbolic (due to his authority as the former head of the Maffia), he was arrested by the Gestapo in January 1940. After more than a year of suffering in Nazi prisons, where he fell seriously ill, he died on 9 March 1941 while interned in Berlin-Tempelhof. The fate of Šámal's family was also tragic: his only son, Jaromír Šámal, was executed as a hostage in the very first days of the Heydrich terror; his daughter-in-law spent the entire war in concentration camps; and his grandchildren, Jiří and Alena, were sent for “re-education” with a family in Germany. After the liberation, both children were successfully located and returned to their homeland and their mother. In writing this book, the authors drew on contemporary accounts from people in Šámal's circle, but primarily on surviving archival sources – a selection of which is included in this edition.