Václav Morávek

Václav Morávek (8 August 1904 – 21 March 1942) was a Czechoslovak Brigadier General and national hero, one of the best known personalities of the Czech antinazi rezistance and a member of the famous resistance group called the Three Kings.

In summer 1939, he participated in the founding of the Obrana národa (Defense of the Nation), a resistance group made up of former Czechoslovak soldiers.

Morávek was (together with Josef Mašín and Josef Balabán) a member of a group whose main tasks were keeping in contact with Paul Thümmel (considered to be the most important Czechoslovak agent within the Nazi apparatus, his codename was A-54), maintaining radio connections with the London-based Czechoslovak Government-in-exile and sabotage.

Among the most famous are his repeated personal colportage of illegal press to the Prague Gestapo office and his deliberate face-to-face meeting with Oskar Fleischer (who at that time headed a special Gestapo team that was hunting the Three Kings), which Morávek subsequently described in a detailed letter sent to Fleischer's superior.

[1] The most visible sabotage operations carried out by the Three Kings were two bomb attacks in Berlin: one in January 1941 against the Ministry of Air Travel and police headquarters; and second, in the Berlin-Anhalt rail station next month, intended to kill Heinrich Himmler (whose train was unexpectedly delayed).