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| Europe |
| Czech Republic: WWII Resistance leaders honored |
| 2007-09-20 |
| ‘I believe in God and my guns.Â’ Excerpt: The youngest of the Three Kings, Morávek joined the resistance in 1939, shortly after the demobilization of Czech troops following the 1938 signing of the Munich Dictate, says PobřÃslo. Relieved from his post of artillery battery commander in Olomouc, staff captain Morávek became part of the National Defense (Obrana národa), an underground diversionary organization that communicated intelligence to Allied forces and sabotaged the Nazi occupation. It was at one their first meetings that Morávek met Balabán and MašÃn. “MašÃn asked [Morávek] what he believed in,” PobřÃslo says. “He answered with a legendary sentence: ‘I believe in God and my guns.’” Seasoned by their military experience, Morávek, Balabán and MašÃn were soon at the helm of National Defense missions. “Their operations were so bold that the Gestapo itself nicknamed them the Three Kings,” PobřÃslo says. In 1941, after three years of resisting the Nazis, the GestapoÂ’s noose around the National Defense tightened. After numerous close brushes with the Gestapo, Morávek was killed March 21, 1942, during a shootout in which he was vastly outnumbered. A modest plaque near the Powder Bridge in PragueÂ’s Dejvice neighborhood marks the spot where he fell, PobřÃslo says. |
| Posted by:mrp |