President Zeman must apologise for claim journalist Ferdinand Peroutka wrote ‘Hitler was a gentleman’

The Supreme Court has confirmed that President Miloš Zeman must apologize publicly to the granddaughter of the late journalist Ferdinand Peroutka for erroneously and repeatedly claiming he wrote an article praising Nazi Germany’s leader titled ‘‘Hitler was a gentleman’.

Zeman first made the claim in a speech at a Holocaust conference in 2015. The journalist’s granddaughter has waged a protracted legal battle suing for a public apology.

Peroutka was interned in the Buchenwald for his democratic convictions, fled Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover, and went on to lead Radio Free Europe’s Czech service.

Today, annual awards to outstanding Czech journalists are given out in his name, and Prague 5 councillors have voted to erect a stature to Peroutka, known as the “father of Czech journalism”.