Miloš Havel

Miloš Havel (3 November 1899 – 25 February 1968) was a Czech film producer and studio executive. Havel was a director of the film production company Lucernafilm, which was founded by his father in 1912. He was also a chairman of the film studio A-B, which built its new studios in Barrandov in 1932. He remained in charge of the studio during German occupation of Czechoslovakia. After World War II his wartime activities were criticized heavily, and he was put on trial for charges relating to collaboration with Nazi Germany. Though acquitted, he was banned from working in the film industry. He left the country and settled in Munich. He was the uncle of Czech president Václav Havel.

Career Havel ran the movie theater Lucerna Palace in Prague and later established the Barrandov Studios. At that time, Barrandov Studios produced newsreels and propaganda films for the government of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia as well as Czech productions.

Following World War II, Havel was denounced from a variety of quarters for his wartime activities; though sometimes the accusations were politically motivated, even Havel family friend Jaromír Kopecký privately confided in Václav Havel his opinion that Havel was a Nazi collaborator.

Havel attempted to emigrate, but his exit visa was denied. The prosecution also alleged that he had used Lucerna Palace to fulfill his "perverted cravings" for young men. Havel attempted to skip the country in 1949, but was arrested by Soviet authorities and deported back to Czechoslovakia where he was sentenced to one year of labor. In 1999, Václav Havel organized a hundredth birthday party for his late uncle. A film on the life of Miloš Havel, with a screenplay by Jan Novák, has been in development since 2016.

In a review of Havel's biography, Anna Batistová wrote that "His short membership in the National Fascist League, his connections to Freemasons, Czech and German intelligence, and the disclosure of one of his friends as a double agent just add to the ambiguity, which, on the one hand, does not allow us to paint his character simply black or white. On the other hand, as the author of his biography argues, this ambiguity probably allowed him to help the domestic film industry, and to ultimately save it from German hands."