Václav Morávek was Czechoslovak

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

 Brigadier General

Brigadier General

Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...

 and national hero, one of best known personalities of Czech antinazi rezistance

Czech resistance to Nazi occupation

Czech resistance to German Nazi occupation during World War II is a scarcely documented subject, by and large a result of little formal resistance and an effective German policy that deterred acts of resistance or annihilated organizations of resistance...

 and member of famous resistance group called Three Kings.

He was a pistol shooting champion of the Czechoslovak Army (widely known is his personal motto in time of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

: "I believe in God and in my pistols"), and commanded the Artillery battery

Artillery battery

In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit of guns, mortars, rockets or missiles so grouped in order to facilitate better battlefield communication and command and control, as well as to provide dispersion for its constituent gunnery crews and their systems...

 in Olomouc

Olomouc

Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. The city is located on the Morava river and is the ecclesiastical metropolis and historical capital city of Moravia. Nowadays, it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic...

 with the rank of Staff Captain

Senior Captain

Senior Captain is a rare military rank which is used in some countries armed forces.-Army:In some armies of the world, the senior captain is a rank between a regular Captain and a Major. The rank is often only found in armies and air forces...

 during the first Czechoslovak Republic.Demobilised

Demobilization

Demobilization is the process of standing down a nation's armed forces from combat-ready status. This may be as a result of victory in war, or because a crisis has been peacefully resolved and military force will not be necessary...

 after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia

German occupation of Czechoslovakia

German occupation of Czechoslovakia began with the Nazi annexation of Czechoslovakia's northern and western border regions, known collectively as the Sudetenland, under terms outlined by the Munich Agreement. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's pretext for this effort was the alleged privations suffered by...

, he worked as a clerk at Labour Office

Recruitment

Recruitment refers to the process of attracting, screening, and selecting qualified people for a job. For some components of the recruitment process, mid- and large-size organizations often retain professional recruiters or outsource some of the process to recruitment agencies.The recruitment...

 in Kolín.

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

Josef Balabán

Josef Balabán was a Czechoslovakian soldier mostly known for his involvement in resistance against Nazi Germany during World War II....

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

Sabotage

Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...

s. The trio was later nicknamed Three Kings (in Czech Tři králové).

Morávek was known for his foolhardy nature and daring actions. Among the most famous are his repeated personal colportage

Colportage

Colportage is the distribution of publications, books, religious tracts, etc., by carriers called "colporteurs".The term is an alteration of French comporter, "to peddle" as a portmanteau or pun with the word col , with the resulting meaning "to carry on one's neck". Porter, is from Latin portare,...

 illegal press to Prague Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 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. Once, when returning from Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

 with explosives in his luggage, he was checked by a German policeman at Prague railway station - when asked, Morávek cold-bloodedly responded that "what may look like some explosives to you, are in fact ordinary sonds for centrifuges" and was let to go.

The most visible sabotages carried out by the Three Kings were two bomb attacks in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

: 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

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

 (whose train was unexpectedly delayed). In April and May 1941 respectively, Balabán and Mašín were arrested, but Morávek had been eluding luckily for another ten months. He died in a gunfight with agents of Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

while he tried to help his colleague Václav Řehák, whom the Gestapo had arrested shortly before.

On 8 May 2005, he was promoted to Brigadier General in memoriam.