Jan Rys-Rozsévač

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Jan Rys-Rozsévač (1 November 1901 – 27 June 1946) was a Czech journalist and politician who led the fascist group Vlajka. He was born in Bílsko u Hořic, Bohemia, and began studying medicine but did not finish. In 1936 he joined Vlajka, a nationalist organization founded in 1930, and used the pen name Jan Rys. He wrote two controversial books: Jewish Freemasonry – the Scourge of Humankind (1938) and Hilsneriáda and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1939).

After the Munich Agreement in 1938 Vlajka was banned and he was imprisoned, but was released just before the country was occupied in March 1939 to lead Vlajka again. He tried to build a mass fascist movement and moved Vlajka toward collaboration with the Nazis and the Gestapo. In 1939–1940 Vlajka organized large meetings against former Czech leaders Masaryk and Beneš. The German authorities, seeking collaborators, supported other groups instead, and Vlajka was disbanded at the end of 1942. Rys-Rozsévač and several others were sent to Dachau and later to Tyrol, where he was freed in May 1945.

After the war, he was sentenced to death and executed by hanging at Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1946.