As a proponent of democracy during the 1930s, Moravec was outspoken in his warnings about the expansionist plans of Germany under Adolf Hitler and appealed for armed action rather than capitulation to German demands for the Sudetenland.

He was subsequently paroled and given command of a machine-gun platoon in the First Serbian Volunteer Division; a unit consisting of former prisoners of war, including Serbs and other Slavs from the countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, fighting on the Russian side.

[1]: 146 [4] Upon his release, he joined the Czechoslovak Legion, falsely claiming to hold an engineering degree to receive an officer's commission.

[9]: 272  In it, he signaled his support for the creation of the democratic state of Czechoslovakia that had come out of World War I, as well as his personal loyalty to Masaryk: The age of democracy has given us a new man, who has spoken and demanded to be heard in every field of human activity.

[10] Moravec argued that the head of the Danube Basin was guarded by what he described as the "fortress of Bohemia" – the land barrier that marked the natural border between eastern and western Europe.

In September, General Jan Syrový, inspector-general of the Czechoslovak Army, was installed by President Edvard Beneš as prime minister.

[13][14] At this time, as well as holding his army post, Moravec was serving as a member of the Committee for the Defense of the Republic, a nationalist pressure group led by the son of the former Czechoslovak finance minister Alois Rašín.

[16] During the short-lived Second Czechoslovak Republic, with Prague actively seeking to appease Germany to avoid further territorial losses, Moravec was forced to quit teaching at the military academy.

[15] Moreover, he found himself prohibited by the government from writing for newspapers due to concerns that the incendiary, anti-German nature of his editorials would be unduly provocative.

[19] Moravec was particularly concerned that his earlier denunciations of Germany, and his reputation as a strident anti-German polemicist, might make him a target of the new regime.

[16] Writing in V úloze mouřenína – Československá tragedie 1938, the most popular of his works, Moravec sought to more fully reconcile his support for the Germans with his earlier calls for resistance.

He indicted Beneš and the intelligentsia for Czechoslovakia's defeat and declared it was the unwillingness of the elite to confront Germany militarily that demonstrated democracy's moral decay, thereby ultimately justifying its termination: ... the mottoes humanism and democracy were fluttering about everywhere, but the Czech nation was actually living off its great military tradition of Hussitism and revolutionary armies.

The soppy lemonade of moribund pacifism offered in the fragile glass of the League of Nations (that was after 1919 already cracked) was enjoyed only by a group of the intelligentsia that had a particularly girlish character.

[22] By the time Moravec was given authority for the education ministry, Czech universities had been closed, school textbooks revised, and more than 1,000 student leaders deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

[26] Hácha discussed the proposal with Reich Minister for Bohemia and Moravia Karl Hermann Frank who ultimately decided not to forward it to Adolf Hitler.

[9]: 239–240 During the Prague Uprising of May 1945, Moravec attempted to drive to a radio station under German control in the hope of broadcasting an appeal for calm.

His first wife, Helena Georgijevna Beka, whom he met while a prisoner of war in Samarkand, was a close relative of the prominent Bolshevik Alexei Rykov.

His younger brother, Jurij, served in the Wehrmacht's 137th Infantry Division and unlike Igor was privately critical of his father's political views.

[31] While serving in France, Jurij was caught drunk on guard duty and sentenced to six months imprisonment and a one grade demotion.

[34] This contrasts with other protectorate-era officials like Emil Hácha, whom Laughland calls "a tragic figure",[34] or Jaroslav Eminger, who was later completely exonerated for his service in the Protectorate government.

[36][37] Czech historian Jiří Pernes has argued that had Moravec died before March 1939 he would have been remembered as a well-regarded Bohemian patriot; his pre-war record was sufficiently distinguished to earn him a place in history.

The episode centres on Moravec' fierce opposition to president Beneš' capitulation to the invading German forces, ending with their face-to-face discussion.