Three kings (resistance group)

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The Three Kings Group , Tři králové in Czech , was a relatively small, non-communist-oriented Czech resistance group that fought against the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia during the time of the Protectorate . The leadership of the group consisted of former army officers of the disbanded Czechoslovak armed forces Josef Balabán , Josef Mašín and Václav Morávek . The group Tři králové emerged from the resistance organization (and a kind of underground army ) Obrana národa and worked closely with it; she was active in the period from 1939 to 1941/1942. From 1940 she was represented in the umbrella organization of the Czech resistance ÚVOD .

History and activity

The intelligence and sabotage group, Tři králové, worked in parallel with the Obrana národa resistance group made up of members of the former Czechoslovak army . The group was spun off from Obrana národa , founded and led by Lieutenant Colonel Josef Balabán , Lieutenant Colonel Josef Mašín and Captain Václav Morávek , who in his monograph, along with Agent A-54 , are counted among the most colorful personalities of the resistance in the Protectorate by Karel Pacner . These three officers, who always signed their communications, reports of sabotage, etc. with the abbreviation "B + M + M", were called "the three kings" by the Gestapo , alluding to the abbreviation "C + M + B" . The group is sometimes František Peltan counted (1913-1942), who as a radio operator for both the group králové Tři as well Obrana národa worked. Little information is given about the numerical strength of the resistance group. On the occasion of the award of honorary citizenship to the three leading members in 2012, the portal of the Prague 6 district mentions that the Gestapo, which tried to uncover the intelligence network, later named the number 185 people. After the group was formed around March 1939, the channels for the intelligence activities, for which Josef Balabán was in particular, were immediately set up. The employees collected all important information about the situation in the Protectorate (and partly also in Slovakia) and passed it on to the Czechoslovak government- in- exile in London. They also maintained contacts with Soviet diplomats who worked in Prague until the attack on the USSR. They also obtained important information about various transports and the situation in factories through contacts with the resistance group Petiční výbor Věrni zůstaneme , where many trade unionists from the railways and post offices worked.

These messages to London were first sent by courier, later a radio link was preferred, for which Václav Morávek and František Peltán were responsible. The courier routes also served as an escape route for endangered employees who had to flee before arrest. Up to five to eight people could be smuggled abroad every day.

The employees of the Tři králové group also took part in the resistance magazine V boj : on the one hand editorial, and part of the edition was produced in the premises of the plumbing company of Josef Líkař in Karlovarská street (Bílá Hora district). Líkař, who was later also executed for his resistance activities, made his company available to ON as a weapons and explosives depot (and in some cases also produced them); besides him, his whole family was included. They also distributed the magazine, some of which they even smuggled into the Gestapo headquarters in Prague.

An essential part of this work was the contact with Paul Thümmel , known as Agent A-54, an officer in the German Abwehr who was mediated by Morávek in mid-1940. Thümmel also worked as a double agent for the Czechoslovak intelligence service of the government-in-exile in London. Through this contact, the Czechoslovak government in exile - and thus also the Allies - received some important information. In March 1942, Thümmel warned Morávek of the planned Gestapo access, which then took place and meant Morávek's end.

Diversion and sabotage was the other focus of activity, for which Josef Mašín was particularly responsible. This included the procurement of weapons, ammunition and explosives for the Obrana národa group and for its own actions, which included acts of sabotage and attacks against German transports. One of the outstanding actions was bomb attacks on targets in Berlin. There were two attacks in front of the police headquarters and in front of the aviation ministry. Other bomb attacks were carried out in Leipzig and Munich. Another attack was the attempt to liquidate the SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler . The explosives detonated in time, but the train with which Himmler was traveling was delayed, so that this assassination attempt failed.

Breaking up the group

Josef Balabán was arrested on April 22, 1941 and executed on October 3. On May 13, 1941 Josef Mašín and Václav Morávek were placed; while Morávek was able to escape, Mašín was arrested and executed on June 30, 1942. Morávek was shot dead on March 21, 1942 when he tried to free his colleague, who had been arrested while meeting with agent Thümmel.

Gleanings

After 1989 the three main actors in the group were promoted to the rank of major general and brigadier general in memoriam .

All three members of the resistance group were granted honorary citizenship of the Prague 6 district in 2012, where they had one of the main focuses of their resistance activities.

In 1998 the director Karel Kachyňa processed the fates of the three soldiers in a seven-part television film Tři králové .

See also

literature

  • Karel Pacner: Československo ve zvláštních službách. Pohledy do historie československých služeb 1914–1989. Volume 2: 1939-1945. Themis, Prague 2002, ISBN 80-7312-008-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Tři králové , report on the server of the Prague 6 district on the occasion of the (since 2002) annual award of honorary citizenship to deserving citizens, here to all three members of the Tři králové resistance group in 2012, online at: praha6.cz / ...
  2. ↑ František Peltán, čtvrtý ze "Tří králů" , in: Kolínský týdeník PRES (Kolín's weekly newspaper) March 14, 2013, online at: kolinskypres.cz / ...
  3. ↑ BALABÁN Josef , detailed curriculum vitae in: Vojenské osobnosti československého odboje 1939–1945 , publication of the Historical Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Czech Republic, AVIS, Prague 2005, p. 14, online (archived) at: vojenskaakademiehranice.ic.cz / ...
  4. ↑ a b František Moravec : Špión, jemuž nevěřili , translation (from English) by Hana Moravcová-Disherová. Sixty-Eight Publishers, Vol. 32, Toronto 1977, ISBN 0-88781-032-2 (3rd edition: Academia, Prague 2002, ISBN 80-200-1006-8 ); English original edition: František Moravec: Master of spies. The memoirs of General Frantisek Moravec. Bodley Head, London et al. 1975, ISBN 0-370-10353-X (also: Time-Life Books, Alexandria VA 1991, ISBN 0-8094-8570-2 )
  5. ↑ Josef Líkař, Václav Řehák a bělohorská 'cukrárna' , news portal of the Tiscali.cz server, online at: tiscali.cz / ...
  6. ↑ Zásobovali odboj výbušninami, gestapo per popravilo. Teď se dočkali pomníku , report by the Český rozhlas radio station on the occasion of the inauguration of a monument in Prague, May 13, 2013, online at: irozhlas.cz/
  7. ↑ Calendar: 21. března 1942 - padl poslední ze Tří králů škpt. Václav Morávek ( Memento of March 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on July 23, 2012
  8. ↑ POHNUTÉ OSUDY: Legenda Tří králů Václav Morávek: Věřím v Boha a své pistole , online newspaper Lidovky.cz, March 21, 2017, online at: lidovky.cz / ...