Name: Fighting the Nazis with humour: wartime broadcasts by the legendary Voskovec and Werich
Uploaded: 2026-05-15T08:41:14+00:00
Channel: Martin Hladík
Description: Filip Šír from the National Museum in Prague has spent years researching into a series of remarkable wartime broadcasts made by the much-loved Czech duo Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich. Their satirical sketches and songs, some of them in English, were broadcast on shortwave from the United States and formed an important part of the

Photo: Archive of National Museum

Filip Šír from the National Museum in Prague has spent years researching into a series of remarkable wartime broadcasts made by the much-loved Czech duo Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich. Their satirical sketches and songs, some of them in English, were broadcast on shortwave from the United States and formed an important part of the campaign to fight Nazi propaganda and indoctrination with humour. Until recently they had been all but forgotten.

Voskovec and Werich’s satirical cabaret, the Liberated Theatre, was hugely popular in 1930s Prague and their sketches and songs, many composed by brilliant jazz composer Jaroslav Ježek are much loved to this day.

See more here.

Author: David Vaughan