Celebration Flags Lowered To Half Mast

Chronicle (Levin), 11 March 1948, Page 5

Celebration Flags Lowered To Half Mast

Received Thursday ,10.5 a.m. LONDON* March 10. Plags which earlier today were flying in honour of the anniversary of the first Czech president, Thomas Masaryk were this evening lowered to half mast for his son Jan Masaryk, says Reuter's Prague correspondent. A huge black banner was unfurled over the entrance to Parliament and black fiags fluttered in front of public buildings. It i§ offieially announced that ... black fiags will be flown until the morning after the State funeral on March 13. The Czech Government broadcasting system, in giving fhe announcement of Mr. Masaryk's suicide said: "In the early hours of this morning Jan Masaryk voluntarily took his life. He had suffered an illness coupled with insomnia and it is probable that in a moment of nervous disturbance he jumped out of the window of his offieial flat into the courtyard of the palace. Right to the last minute he had shown no sign of depression. The cireumstances are being investigated." Later the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Vaclav Nosek, told Parliament that Mr. Masaryk last evening was in his usuSI good spirits but in the night "a nervous erisis developed. Mr. Masaryk's erisis reached a climax at 6 a.m. today. He was unable to control his mind any long'er and went into the bathroom adjoining his bedroom and threw himself from the window

His dead body was found 30 min- ! utes later." j . Puring the evening Mr. Masaryk jhad been reading telegrams from' i his friends in America and Bri- j tain. Expressing disappointment at what Mr. Nosek called his ,"brave j behaviour," he added. "We feel : his loss deeply and we will ke.ep him in honourable and eternal memory.