Fischer, Josef, Doc., PhDr.

Fischer, Josef, Doc., PhDr. 

The philosopher, sociologist, publicist and translator, Doc. PhDr. Josef Fischer (2. 4. 1891 Kolín - 19. 2. 1945 Neubrandenburg) worked first as a high school teacher, and from 1928 he was an associate professor at Charles University in Prague. He was mainly interested in the philosophy of history. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a leading representative and theoretician of the group of left-wing social democratic intellectuals associated around the Workers' Academy. In the 1930s, he was heavily involved in the anti-fascist movement. From 1937 to 1939, he was chairman of the Society of Friends of the Democratic Spain, and in the spring of 1938 he was one of the initiators of the manifesto We Shall Remain Faithful. In 1939-1941, he was a leading figure of the anti-Nazi resistance organisation, the Petition Committee We Shall Remain Faithful, and the main author of its programme document For Freedom and the New Czechoslovakia. He was involved in the editing and distribution of illegal magazines and other publications. In 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pankrác Prison in Prague. At the end of 1944 he was sentenced to death in Berlin and executed in February 1945. His wife, Milena Fischerová-Balcarová (1905-1945), a Czech actress, reciter and broadcaster, who died in March of that year in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, also had taken an active part in the resistance. 

Fischer, Josef, Doc., PhDr.