Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General Frantisek Moravec

Moravec, Frantisek

ISBN 10: 037010353X / ISBN 13: 9780370103532

Published by The Bodley Head Ltd, 1975

About this Item

Scarce. 1st edition. VG condition book with dust jacket. DJ is clean, has fresh colours and has little wear to edges. Book has clean and bright contents.

Seller Inventory # 9999-9993615122

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General Frantisek Moravec
• Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd
• Publication Date: 1975
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 037010353X
• ISBN 13: 9780370103532
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

This fascinating 1975 hardback biography entitled ‘Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General Frantisek Moravec' published by The Bodley Head, 252pp, ISBN 037010353x was penned by General Moravec, the head of Czechoslovak Military Intelligence from 1937-1945. During the 2nd World War, he lived and worked in London. A regular soldier - he had fought in the First World War, and entered Prague in 1918 in the entourage of the first President, Thomas Masaryk-in 1929 he appealed in vain against being posted to Intelligence, which he regarded as a comedown from being an operational officer. The Intelligence Service at that time was comically unprofessional and virtually useless. In 1934, Moravec was entrusted with its reconstruction, and he gradually built up an organisation which was to become increasingly important with the growth of the Nazi threat to Europe. The story is full of dramatic episodes, as when he risked going to a frontier town to meet an unknown volunteer spy, well aware that the rendezvous might be a German trap. As it turned out, he enlisted that night one of the most valuable secret agents in the history of espionage. Through this man, known as A-54, Moravec learned-and passed on to the British and French-an extraordinary mass of vital information about Hitler's aggressive plans. In London, during the war, his exiled organisation made a contribution to Allied Intelligence out of all proportion to its size. He also organised from London, the assassination of Heydrich- the Butcher of Prague-whom Hitler had put in charge in what was intended to be virtually the extermination of the Czechoslovak nation. When he returned to Czechoslovakia after the war, he knew he was a marked man, hated and feared by the Communists who were working steadily towards a total take-over of the country. When it came, he escaped by boarding a workmen's train in old clothes and carrying 'everything I could take away from a lifetime of service to Czechoslovakia...'