Emil Hácha (July 12th, 1872 - June 26th, 1945) is a Czech lawyer who becomes in 1938 the third president of the Czechoslovakia and only and single president of the protectorate of Bohemian-Moravie between 1939 and 1945.

Emil Hácha was born in 1872 in the town of Trhové Sviny. It makes studies of right to the university of Prague. He works then in the administration of the Royaume of Bohemian whereas the Bohemian one is still a province of the Austria-Hungary. After the First World War, he becomes judge at the administrative supreme court of Vienna. After the Treated of Versailles, Hácha becomes judge at the administrative supreme court of the Czechoslovakian République and in 1925, Tomáš Masaryk appoints it president of this institution. He is at the same time one of fameaux lawyers of the country, specialist in international law. He also makes translations of English works, like Three men in a boat, of Jerome K. Jerome.

After the Agreements of Munich and the emigration of the president Edvard Beneš, he is elected president of the second Czechoslovakian republic on November 30th, 1938 and asks Rudolf Beran to form a government. Rudolf Beran was president of the party of national unit in which had gathered the majority of the right parties. In March 1939, the action of the German agents and the Slovak separatists leads to an interior crisis that the government tries to solve by an armed intervention on March 9th, 1939. Monseigneur Jozef Tiso, president of the Slovak self government, is reversed, but Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring convenes Hácha with Berlin and threaten it to make bombard Prague. At the edge of the heart attack, terrorized by Hitler, Emil Hácha is thus constrained to sign on March 15th a document accepting the occupation of Bohemia-Moravie by the German troops.

After the occupation of what remained of Czechoslovakia the shortly after on March 15th, 1939, Hácha remains at its position of president but must be subjected to Hitler and Konstantin von Neurath, guard of Bohemian-Moravie, named in November 1939. He protests against the German policy of Germanisation of protectorate. It should well be said that these protests have little effect. In December 1939, Hácha secretly contacts Beneš which prepares to form a government in exile and fact knowledge that with its government, there remains interdependent of Czech external Resistance.

In March 1940, after the defection of the Minister for agriculture left to join Beneš in London, Hácha sends a telegram to Hitler to reaffirm the will of its cabinet to cooperate. It is not sufficient for Hitler which awaited a Serment of allegiance. Hácha then transmits to Berlin its wish to attend the victory of Germany. Beneš reacts by declaring that the limit of opportunism was crossed. Later on, Hácha will congratulate Hitler for its victory in the west.

The situation is degraded after the replacement of Neurath, considered by Hitler as too tender, by Reinhard Heydrich. Hácha which had written a resignation letter without to have sent it, loses any control on the real businesses of the country and becomes a puppet. Many of his/her colleagues and friends are stopped, like the Prime Minister Alois Eliáš, either shot or off-set in concentration camp. The arrest of Eliáš takes place in September 1941, one week after the nomination of Heydrich. In a speech with the radio, Hácha denounces Beneš like " the public enemy number one ".

After the attack successful against Heydrich, of the mass demonstrations are organized against Beneš and the politicians of London. The government offers 10 million crowns to find the culprits. This policy of collaboration is pursued of no gratification on behalf of Hitler which receives Hácha and threatens it to expel several million Czechs out of the Bohemianone.

Hácha dies at the 63 years age, six weeks after the release of Prague. It remains a discussed figure of the Czech history. According to Astrid Hofmanova, Emil Hácha is other thing that this symbol of collaboration with the enemy, treason and timidity which it appears to be. " By accepting the presidential function, it was sacrificed in the interest of the nation and that of the State.