Emanuel Moravec

Emanuel Moravec (; 17 April 1893 – 5 May 1945) was a Czech army officer and writer who served as the collaborationist Minister of Education of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia between 1942 and 1945. He was also chair of the Board of Trustees for the Education of Youth, a fascist youth organisation in the protectorate.

In World War I, Moravec served in the Austro-Hungarian Army, but following capture by the Russians he changed sides to join Russian-backed Serbian forces and then the Czechoslovak Legion, which went on to fight on the side of the White Army in the Russian Civil War. During the interwar period he commanded an infantry battalion in the Czechoslovak Army. As a proponent of democracy during the 1930s, Moravec was outspoken in his warnings about the expansionist plans of Germany under Adolf Hitler and appealed for armed action rather than capitulation to German demands for the Sudetenland. In the aftermath of the German occupation of the rump Czechoslovakia, he became an enthusiastic collaborator, realigning his political worldview towards fascism. He committed suicide in the final days of World War II.

Unlike some officials of the short-lived protectorate government, whose reputations were rehabilitated in whole or in part after the war, Moravec's good reputation did not survive his tenure in office and he has been widely derided as a "Czech Quisling".

Early life and education Emanual Moravec was born in Prague, the son of a modest merchant family originally from Kutná Hora. He graduated from a vocational school and found employment as a clerk at a Prague company.

The Czechoslovak Legion, a volunteer unit composed of diaspora Czechs and Slovaks as well as deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army, had been formed in 1917 to support the Allies; it later became involved in the Russian Civil War, fighting on the side of the White Russians. Over the next two years, Moravec saw combat with the Legion in Russia.

In 1931 Moravec was appointed an instructor at the War School and promoted to colonel. Moravec argued that the head of the Danube Basin was guarded by what he described as the "fortress of Bohemia" – the land barrier that marked the natural border between eastern and western Europe. If a state were to take Czechoslovakia it would, therefore, control the head of the Danube basin and be free to strike against either France or Poland with ease.

Munich Agreement

In 1938 German demands for the Sudetenland came to a head. In September, General Jan Syrový, inspector-general of the Czechoslovak Army, was installed by President Edvard Beneš as prime minister. In response to the German ultimatum, Syrový declared that "further concessions from our side are no longer possible"; 42 Czechoslovak divisions were mobilized in preparation for an expected German invasion.

At this time, as well as holding his army post, Moravec was serving as a member of the Committee for the Defense of the Republic, a nationalist pressure group led by the son of the former Czechoslovak finance minister Alois Rašín. According to Moravec, "apostles without courage" had led Czechoslovakia to capitulation. He expressed anger at the government's evocation of national ideals in its announcement of the agreement, declaring that a state unwilling to defend its ideals should not boast of them in the same way "a whore has no right to boast of her honor". As a further expression of his contempt for the government, he mockingly requested leave to join the army of El Salvador.

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia alt=An excerpt from a newsreel showing Moravec at the 1944 Week of Czech Youth in Prague. An excerpt from a newsreel showing Moravec at the 1944 Week of Czech Youth in Prague.

Emanuel Moravec was the original target of what became known as Operation Anthropoid, but Reinhard Heydrich (pictured) was ultimately selected for assassination. On 16 March 1939, Germany occupied the rump Czechoslovak state and the German-controlled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was declared. According to František Moravec, (František Moravec bore no relation to Emanuel Moravec.)

Both Moravec and his private secretary, Franz Stuchlik, were keen rock collectors. After Moravec's death, his collection was confiscated by the Czechoslovak state and donated to the National Museum. With her he had two sons, Igor (1920-1947) and Jurij (1923-1964). In 1942 Moravec married Jolana Emmerová, his housemaid, who was only sixteen when their relationship caused the end of his previous marriage.

Children Igor fought on the Eastern Front as a volunteer with the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. His younger brother, Jurij, served in the Wehrmacht's 137th Infantry Division and unlike Igor was privately critical of his father's political views. Jurij was arrested and sentenced to a prison term at the end of the war and upon release emigrated to West Germany. This contrasts with other protectorate-era officials like Emil Hácha, whom Laughland calls "a tragic figure", During the 2006 presentation of the Gratias Agit Award, given annually by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs to recognize those who promote the Czech Republic, foreign minister Cyril Svoboda declared that "... we are also a country of those who have deformed our good name, people [such] as Emanuel Moravec, Klement Gottwald".

Czech historian Jiří Pernes has argued that if Moravec had died before March 1939, he would have been remembered as a well-regarded Bohemian patriot; his pre-war record was sufficiently distinguished to earn him a place in history. He was later criticized for the volume which, it was alleged, was heavily plagiarized from a doctoral dissertation on Moravec's life written by Josef Vytlačil. The episode suggests an ambivalence between genuine and pathological national pride, also by casting Landa, himself a known and controversial nationalist.

Publications Moravec, Emanuel. (1936). Obrana státu ("National Defence"). Prague: Svaz čs. důstojnictva. Moravec, Emanuel. (1936). Válečné možnosti ve střední Evropě a válka v Habeši ("Military Capabilities in Central Europe and the Abyssinian War") Prague: Svaz čs. důstojnictva. Moravec, Emanuel. (1939). Válečné možnosti ve střední Evropě a válka v Habeši ("Military Capabilities in Central Europe and the Abyssinian War") Prague: Orbis Verlag. Moravec, Emanuel. (1940). Děje a bludy ("Ideas and Delusions") Prague: Orbis Verlag. Moravec, Emanuel. (1941). O smyslu dnešní valky; cesty současné strategie. ("The Meaning of Today's War") Prague: Orbis Verlag. Moravec, Emanuel. (1941). V úloze mouřenína: Československá tragedie 1938 ("In the Role of the Moor: the Czechoslovak Tragedy of 1938") Prague: Orbis Verlag. Moravec, Emanuel. (1942). Tři roky před mikrofonem. ("Three Years in Front of the Microphone") Prague: Orbis Verlag. Moravec, Emanuel. (1942). Tatsachen und Irrtümer ("Facts and Errors") Prague: Orbis Verlag. Moravec, Emanuel. (1943). O český zítřek. ("About Tomorrow's Czechia") Prague: Orbis Verlag.