Václav Morávek

Václav Morávek was born on 8 August, 1904, in Kolín, in the family of a grammar school professor. Since his youth, he was a Boy Scout and a deeply religious man. In 1925, he successfully completed the Military Academy in Hranice. After the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia in 1939, he was demobilized (he had the rank of a staff captain by then). He unsuccessfully tried to cross the border into Poland. As early as 1939, he joined the resistance organization Defense of the Nation in the region of Kolín. After his arrival in Prague, together with LtCol. Josef Balabán and LtCol. Josef Mašín, they created the intelligence/sabotage group called "Three Kings". They carried out a number of sabotage and diversionary operations and maintained contacts with the Czechoslovak exile representation. Their boldest action became the bombing of the German Air Ministry and the police headquarters in Berlin. They also unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Heinrich Himmler. Since the spring of 1940, Václav Morávek went into hiding since the Gestapo was on his heels. In spite of the huge risk, he managed to mock his pursuers from the German secret police. He also managed twice to escape from the encirclement of the Gestapo. Despite the arrest of his two associates from the group, he carried on his resistance activities. On 21 March, 1942, he was killed in a shootout with agents of the Gestapo.