The first knock-out of the Prague Uprising

The Czech Republic commemorates the beginning of the Prague Uprising in 1945. At the end of the Second World War, people stood up to the Nazi occupiers. Already in the morning, the radio announcers refused to broadcast in German. The Nazis then surrounded the building in Prague’s Vinohrady, and a well-known call for help was heard on the airwaves.

Prague
11:12 a.m May 5, 2024

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“We are calling the Czech police, the Czech gendarmerie and the government army to help Czech Radio. We are calling everything that is Czech to the aid of Czech Radio. The SS are murdering Czech people here.” The radio call for help on May 5, 1945 also targeted law enforcement officers of the time.

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“They actually called the uniformed protectorate police with the legendary call. It united the police, the gendarmerie, the fire brigade and the municipal police,” explains Radek Galaš, director of the Police Museum, to Radiožurnál.

The police responded to the radio call. The first 20 men arrived at the radio building on Vinohradská třída.

“Under the command of Karel Hladík, who was the first to enter the building. He was the first to record the first knock-out of the Prague Uprising, because he knocked down a German guard with his fist. He was a boxer,” explains Galaš.

Special section for radio

The boxing training of the law enforcement officers was no accident. A number of them joined the anti-Nazi resistance and already since 1939 they were preparing to occupy the then still German radio station.

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“Toward the end of the war, men were picked to do it. It was a special division of the prison service, they were boxers, they were wrestlers,” adds the director of the Police Museum.

Each of the policemen had one pistol and only eight bullets during the fight for the radio – the Nazis did not allow more. At the same time, defending the radio building was key. The broadcast informed people how to build barricades, but also encouraged.

“Czech hands defend the radio station! We are with you, be with us in spirit. We defend Prague, we defend Prague! Prague is! Prague will remain free!” came the radio.

Fewer enemy units

Not only gendarmes, police and firemen, but also falcons, eagles and scouts joined the uprising. Jaromír Klika was one of them. Some time ago, for the Memory of the Nation project, he recalled why he and his friends founded their own resistance organization.

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“Scout education, the promise and the law protecting the weak against the strong, defending good against evil, contributed in no small measure to this,” he described.

The insurgents built barricades and heavy shooting and explosions could be heard in the streets of Prague for several days. Fortunately for them, there were not so many enemy units in Prague at that time.

“In mid-April, roughly half of the forces that were prepared to suppress the riots were sent to the front for the last desperate battles,” historian Tomáš Jakl said some time ago.

Even so, roughly 3,000 people died in the fight for free Prague. The Prague Uprising ended with the arrival of the Red Army on May 9, 1945, the day after the capitulation of Nazi Germany.