Donate
A man in a suit and bowler hat is stepping out of a building while carrying a briefcase.
DW

Could a 78-year-old murder mystery be solved?

Jan Masaryk, Czechoslovakia’s postwar foreign minister, died in 1948 after the Communist takeover. His death remains mysterious, but Czech police are now reopening a criminal investigation on suspicion of murder.

DW & The World

A meeting of the non-intervention committee was held at the foreign office on October 19. Dr. Jan Masaryk (Czech Envoy Extraordinary) at the foreign office for the meeting in London on Oct. 19, 1937.

AP/File

It’s a mystery that continues to baffle to this day: A little over 78 years ago, the body of Czechoslovakia’s postwar foreign minister, Jan Masaryk, was found beneath his bathroom window just two weeks after the Communists had seized power.

Was the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (“Committee for State Security”) or its Czechoslovak counterpart involved?

As DW Inside Europe’s Rob Cameron reports, police are now examining fresh evidence.

Click on the player above to hear the full report.

Will you support The World?

The story you just read is not locked behind a paywall because listeners and readers like you generously support our nonprofit newsroom. Now more than ever, we need your help to support our global reporting work and power the future of The World. Can we count on you?