Nazism and communism in Prague: history and free walking tour (2026)

The history of the 20th century in Prague does not begin in 1939 or end in 1989. It is a story that starts in 1918 with the First Czechoslovak Republic, the most stable democracy in Central Europe between the two World Wars, and does not truly end until 1993, when Czechoslovakia peacefully split into two countries. For the full context, see our guide to the history and culture of the Czech Republic.

Between those two dates: Nazi occupation, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, deportations, Terezin, the boldest assassination of the Second World War, forty years of communism, the Prague Spring, Jan Palach, the Velvet Revolution and the first non-communist government since 1948.

All of that -- or the best part of it -- is in Prague's New Town. In the buildings you can see as you walk. In the plaques on the walls. In the basements where it happened.

The free walking tour New Town: Nazism and communism

ODISEA's Free Walking Tour New Town: Nazism and Communism covers the part of Prague's history that standard tours leave out. While the Old Town Free Tour focuses on medieval and Renaissance architecture, this one walks through 20th-century Prague: Nazism, occupation, resistance, communism and the fall of communism.

Meeting point: V Celnici 4, Praha 1 -- the same starting point for all ODISEA tours. Duration: approximately 2.5--3 hours. Price: free tour with a voluntary tip at the end. Language: Spanish (English tours available on request).

The tour is not chronological; it is spatial. The route follows the physical locations where events took place, and the guide builds the historical context as the group moves through the city.

The route: tour stops

The Dancing House (tancici dum)

The tour begins at, or passes near, the Dancing House, the Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunic building constructed in 1996 on the site where an art nouveau building was destroyed by the American bombing of 1945 (American aircrews mistook Prague for Dresden, which was being bombed at the same time).

The Dancing House has a popular nickname: Fred and Ginger -- the glass building that dances above the concrete figure supporting it, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is the symbol of postmodern Prague, a city that built something entirely new over the scars of the 20th century.

The contrast between the site bombed by mistake in 1945 and the building that stands there today is the kind of historical irony the tour works with from the very beginning.

The National Theatre (narodni divadlo)

The National Theatre is the symbol of the 19th-century Czech National Revival, the cultural movement that asserted Czech identity against Austro-Hungarian domination. It was built entirely with public donations, Czech by Czech, crown by crown. It caught fire during construction in 1881, was rebuilt in two years and reopened in 1883.

In the context of the tour, the National Theatre represents Czech cultural identity -- what the Nazis tried to suppress and what survived. During the occupation, the theatre continued to operate under Nazi supervision, albeit with restrictions on its repertoire. Culture as a form of passive resistance.

The Lucerna gallery (pasaz lucerna)

The Lucerna -- the complex of theatre, cinema, concert halls and shopping arcades built by Vaclav Havel's grandfather -- is one of the few buildings in central Prague that remains in the hands of the same family that built it, despite the communist expropriation of 1948 and the subsequent restitution after 1989.

Inside, there is a sculpture by David Cerny: King Wenceslas riding an upside-down dead horse, hanging from the ceiling of the arcade. It is Cerny's ironic response to the official equestrian statue of Wenceslas in Wenceslas Square, a two-minute walk away. The same figure, two entirely different interpretations of national identity.

The Havel family -- builders of the Lucerna, expropriated in 1948, who recovered the building in 1989 at the very moment Vaclav Havel became president -- is the history of the Czech Republic in miniature.

The crypt of Saints Cyril and Methodius (katedrala sv. cyrila a metodeje)

This is the centrepiece of the tour. The moment groups remember weeks later.

In the basement of the Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, at Resslova 9, the final confrontation of Operation Anthropoid -- the boldest assassination of the Second World War -- took place on 18 June 1942.

The full story:

On 27 May 1942, Czech paratrooper Jozef Gabcik attempted to shoot Reinhard Heydrich, the third-ranking man in the SS, the "Butcher of Prague", the architect of the Final Solution, as his official car rounded a bend in the Prague district of Liben. The gun jammed. His partner Jan Kubis threw a specially modified grenade. Heydrich died of his wounds on 4 June.

It was the only operation of the entire Second World War in which a senior SS leader was killed in a mission authorised by a government-in-exile (the Czech government in London and the British SOE).

The Nazi reprisal was immediate and brutal: Lidice, a village 20 km from Prague accused without evidence of sheltering the attackers, was destroyed in its entirety. All 173 adult men were shot. The 184 women were deported to Ravensbruck. The 88 children were sent to extermination camps (17 survived). The village was wiped off the map -- literally: demolished, burned, the ground levelled.

Gabcik, Kubis and five fellow paratroopers took refuge in the crypt of the Orthodox cathedral. They were betrayed by a member of the resistance group who broke under Nazi pressure. On 18 June, 750 SS soldiers surrounded the cathedral. The confrontation lasted hours. The Germans tried to flood the crypt using fire hoses. The paratroopers held out until they ran out of ammunition.

All of them died. None surrendered.

The crypt is now a museum, one of the most sober and most powerful in Prague. The bullet marks are still on the walls. The tools the Germans used to try to open the ventilation hatch are on display. The full story is documented in the panels of the adjoining museum.

Admission: check updated price (approx. 100 CZK / adult). Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday -- check times before visiting.

Why this is the most intense moment of the tour: the guide tells the story of how they died, and the manner in which they died, in the exact place where it happened. The crypt has the scale of what it was: a small basement where seven people held out for hours against 750 SS soldiers. When the guide finishes telling the story down there, groups usually walk out in silence.

Charles Square (karlovo namesti)

Charles Square, the largest square in Prague, also designed by Charles IV in the 14th century as a cattle market for the New Town, is the point on the tour where the medieval world and the 20th century connect.

Here the guide explains the context of the New Town: why Charles IV designed this district so far from the Old Town, how Nove Mesto was always the neighbourhood of the bourgeoisie and intellectuals, and how that tradition of independent thought made it the natural setting for the 20th century's moments of resistance.

Wenceslas Square (vaclavske namesti)

Wenceslas Square, the final stop and the most symbolically charged point of the tour.

The guide walks through the three defining moments of the 20th century in the square:

1968: the Prague Spring and the Soviet tanks that rolled in at 11 pm on 21 August. The citizens who surrounded the tanks, argued with the soldiers, placed Czech flags in the gun barrels. The resistance that could not stop the invasion but was captured in photographs that went around the world.

1969: on 16 January, 20-year-old student Jan Palach doused himself in petrol and set himself on fire at the top of the square, in front of the statue of Wenceslas. He died on 19 January. It was not an act of despair; it was a calculated, documented protest against Czech society's resignation to the Soviet occupation. He left a letter with specific demands. The plaque in the pavement marking the exact spot always has flowers.

1989: on 17 November, a student demonstration was brutally suppressed. In the days that followed, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Wenceslas Square every evening. They carried keys -- the sound of the keys was the sound of the Velvet Revolution. On 10 December, the first non-communist government since 1948. On 29 December, Vaclav Havel as president. 43 days from the suppressed demonstration to a change of government. Without a single casualty.

The head of Kafka (hlava franze kafky)

The tour ends at, or passes by, the Revolving Head of Franz Kafka by David Cerny, installed in 2014 in front of the Palladium shopping centre in Namesti Republiky. It consists of 42 steel rings that rotate independently and, at certain points in the cycle, align to form Kafka's face.

Kafka was born in Prague, wrote in German, and always refused to identify fully with Czech, Jewish or German culture. The ambiguity of identity that runs through all his work -- the character who does not know exactly what crime he has committed, who does not understand the system that judges him -- is also the ambiguity of 20th-century Prague: a city that was Czech, Austrian, German, Jewish, Soviet and Czech again, without any of those identities ever being complete or definitive.

The revolving head is the perfect metaphor: depending on the moment you look at it, you see a different face.

Why this tour before the Terezin excursion

In ODISEA's 4-day itinerary, the Free Walking Tour New Town: Nazism and Communism takes place on Day 2. The Terezin day trip from Prague takes place on Day 3.

The order is not random.

The New Town tour establishes the framework: the Nazi occupation of Prague, Operation Anthropoid, the Lidice reprisal, the deportation system. Terezin the following day turns that framework into something physical and concrete. The story the guide tells in the crypt of Saints Cyril and Methodius -- Heydrich, the deportation of Prague's Jews, the context of the Final Solution -- is amplified when the next day you are standing in the camp through which 140,000 people passed.

Anyone who has done the New Town tour understands Terezin differently. And anyone who has visited Terezin understands, in retrospect, what the guide told them in the crypt in a different way.

Book the free walking tour New Town: Nazism and communism

The tour operates with groups of up to 30 people. During peak season (May--September), days fill up in advance. Booking is through the ODISEA website.

Book your free tour

Frequently asked questions

What is Operation Anthropoid? The mission authorised by the Czech government-in-exile and the British SOE to eliminate Reinhard Heydrich, head of the SS in Bohemia and Moravia, the third-ranking man in the Nazi hierarchy, architect of the Final Solution. On 27 May 1942, Czech paratroopers Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis attacked Heydrich's official car in Prague. Heydrich died on 4 June. It is the only assassination of a senior SS leader carried out during the Second World War.

Where is the Operation Anthropoid crypt in Prague? In the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Resslova 9, Nove Mesto, Praha 2. The museum in the crypt is open Tuesday to Sunday. Reduced admission (check updated price before visiting).

What happened in Lidice? Lidice was a village 20 km from Prague. It was destroyed in its entirety as reprisal for the assassination of Heydrich: 173 men shot, 184 women deported to Ravensbruck, 88 children sent to extermination camps. The village was demolished and burned. 153 women and 17 children survived. The Lidice Memorial, on the site of the destroyed village, is a 30-minute drive from Prague.

What is the difference between the Old Town Free Tour and the New Town Free Tour? The Old Town Free Tour covers medieval and Renaissance Prague: the Astronomical Clock, Tyn Square, the Jewish Quarter, Gothic and Baroque architecture. The New Town Free Tour: Nazism and Communism covers 20th-century Prague: the Nazi occupation, Operation Anthropoid, Jan Palach and the Velvet Revolution. They complement each other -- in the 2-day itinerary, the Old Town tour is Day 1 and the New Town tour is Day 2.

Do I need to know any history to enjoy the tour? No. The guide builds all the context during the tour. No prior knowledge is needed -- just time (2.5--3 hours) and a willingness to listen to a story that is, at several points, emotionally intense.

The New Town Free Tour connects with the Terezin day trip from Prague as a natural extension of the historical context. For the full itinerary where this tour fits in: what to do in Prague in 2 days.