General František Moravec finally returned to his homeland

29.4.2022

General František Moravec finally returned to his homeland

Author: by Jakub Fajnor

On Tuesday April 26th, 2022, the Čáslav airfield was the venue to a solemn ceremony on the occasion of repatriation of the cremains of Brigadier General František Moravec into the Czech Republic. The distinguished guests included the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Defence Minister Jana Černochová, other senior defence officials and first and foremost, a host of General Moravec’s relatives.

“After a long 74 years, one of our most prominent soldiers returns to the homeland. Anywhere we went in the United States, they knew his name. He enjoyed a high reputation and was highly valued. General Moravec had to leave his country three times: first when he fought in World War I as a Czechoslovak legionnaire, second time when he fought Nazis from the British exile and the third time when he had to leave because of communists,” Minister Černochová said.

Repatriation of the cremains of one of the greatest Czech legionnaires, resistance fighters and intelligence officers was long planned in close cooperation with his family. His granddaughter Anita Moravec Gard addressed the Czech Military History Institute with a wish for her grandfather to be buried home in the Czech Republic after long years.

“Today, General Moravec returns as a free American into a free Czech Republic. Our family thought his return would be more personal. But his sense of duty would eventually not allow him to settle with such a return. Today his legacy reminds us that it is necessary to stand up for the defence of our countries and our freedom. And that we have to help others defend their country and their freedom,” Ms. Moravec Gard described the circumstances in which General Moravec’s cremains were returning into the Czech Republic.

The ceremony which took place in Čáslav, the native town of General Moravec, followed on a ceremony in Washington D.C., during which senior officials of the U.S. intelligence community including Deputy Director DIA Ms. Suzanne White bid farewell with General Moravec.

The Director of the Military History Institute Brigadier General Aleš Knížek, who had the privilege to personally take over the urn with the cremains and carry into the Czech Air Force Airbus A-319 aircraft, also contributed his remarks. “It is an incredible honour for me to be part of such a historical moment. The transfer of the cremains of General Moravec stands a symbolic example of an extraordinary and long standing friendship between the Czech Republic and the United States of America,“ General Knížek said directly on the flight line of the Joint Base Andrews.

General Moravec will always be an important figure of both the United States and Czechoslovak military and intelligence history. He remains a national hero and an example for today’s service members of intelligence services and the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. This is also testified by the fact that the Czech 601st Special Forces Group bears the honorary name of General Moravec.

František Moravec started his service to his homeland of Czechoslovakia as a legionnaire after he fell into captivity, still in Austro-Hungarian uniform. He served on multiple legions and, after the war, he decided to follow a military career. Shortly after his graduation from the War College, he started to endeavour on intelligence activities.

General Moravec is primarily credited with his activities before the beginning of World War II and during the war. On his departure to England in face of the Nazi rule in 1939, he managed to save a large part of intelligence material. In the Czechsolovak Government in exile, he headed the intelligence branch of the Ministry of National Defence and in this capacity he was the principal author of the plan to assassinate the Deputy Reich Protector Heydrich.

After the end of World War II, General Moravec came into conflict once again, this time with communists, only shortly after his return to the liberated homeland. After February 1948, he managed to emigrate quickly, this time into the United States of America, and again engaged in resistance, this time with an anti-communist focus. Heading the SSC exile intelligence organisation, he was also responsible for agents who were crossing the border on foot. He also worked with the U.S. Defence Intelligence Agency. He died aged 71 in Washington, D.C. on July 26th, 1966.