He saved his friends

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On May 13, 1941, Josef Mašín together with his friends Václav Morávek and František Peltán, were broadcasting an important radio telegram for the Czechoslovak exile government in London from their flat in present-day Čiklova Street. It was late in the afternoon when suddenly the doorbell started ringing. Waiting behind the door were members of the Gestapo. The German secret state police had been on the heels of Mašín and Morávek for several months. The resistance fighters knew what they had to do. Before they destroyed the radio transmitter and the telegram, they sent a message to London about their hopeless situation. Then Josef Mašín threw open the door and opened fire at the Gestapo agents. He hit one of them but the rest threw themselves at him and pulled him to the ground. Josef Mašín was heavily outnumbered in this fight and together with some of the agents, he fell down the stairs and broke his leg. His two friends slammed the apartment door and before the Gestapo could break into the apartment, they were able to escape from it – descending from the fourth floor on a thin cord used for grounding the radio transmitter. Josef Mašín tried to shoot himself in the hopeless situation he was in but the agents prevented him from doing so by shooting him in the wrist. Even though Mašín was afterwards brutally tortured for many months, he showed tremendous personal courage and didn't give anyone away. He even physically attacked the Gestapo interrogators several times. He was executed on 30 June, 1942, in Prague-Kobylisy.

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Josef Mašín

Josef Mašín was born on August 26, 1896, in Lošany, the son of a farmer. During the First World War, he fought in the Czechoslovak legions in Russia. He participated in the first major battle where the legions played an active part – the battle of Zboriv. He was wounded several times in the course of the fighting and received many military decorations for his bravery. During the First Czechoslovak Republic, he was a member of the Czechoslovak army. In the role of a deputy regiment commander, he refused to submit to the order not to resist the occupying German army in March 1939 and wanted to blow up a munitions depot. For this he was suspended and charged with mutiny. During the occupation, he joined the resistance organization Defense of the Nation, along with Colonel Josef Balabán and Staff Captain Václav Morávek. They created an intelligence-sabotage group called the "Three Kings". Together, they carried out a huge number of sabotage activities and maintained contacts with the Czechoslovak exile representation. The highlight of their activities became the bombing of the German Air Ministry and police headquarters in Berlin. They also unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate Heinrich Himmler. In May 1941, Josef Mašín was arrested under dramatic circumstances. After several months of torture, he was executed on June 30, 1942, in Prague-Kobylisy. In 2005, he was posthumously promoted to the rank of major general. His sons Josef and Ctirad, who later formed an anti-communist resistance group, succeeded to make a legendary escape to West Berlin in 1953.

Prague, Čiklova Street

Available in: English | Česky

Čiklova Street is located in the Prague quarter of Nusle and at the time of the war a part of it was named Pod Terebkou and another one Hemina. Today, it bears the name of an Orthodox clergyman, Václav Čikl, who used to live in the street. At the time of WW II, when Bohemia and Moravia were occupied, this man joined the resistance movement and as a caretaker of the Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral, he helped hiding the assassins of the Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich. For this, he was executed on September 5, 1942, in Prague-Kobylisy. His wife Marie died in the Mauthausen concentration camp. The radio operator of the organization "Defense of the Nation", Otakar Batlička, also worked in this street. He was executed as well. In May 1941, the injured Josef Mašín was arrested in Čiklova Street as well. He worked for the anti-Nazi intelligence-sabotage group "Three Kings".

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He saved his friends

Josef Mašín