The idea to erect a monument to Karel Havlíček, a native of nearby Borová, arose in connection with the national commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the journalist’s death

in 1906, when a fund was also established for its construction, headed by Mayor Eduard Šubrt. At the end of World War I, the original idea was revived by the Barák association in connection with the approaching 100th anniversary of the writer’s birth. The leading figure of the whole undertaking was the local professional painter Otakar Štáfl, secretary of the Association for the Construction of a Memorial to Karel Havlíček in Německý (Havlíčkův) Brod, who approached the well-known sculptor Bohumil Kafka with a request to create a design.

The negotiations over its location were crucial for the final design of the Havlíček memorial.

According to the sculptor, it was to be placed in Budoucnost Park above Hastrman Pond, while the town council wanted to erect it in the main square, even at the cost of removing the monuments already there—the plague column and Koudel’s fountain. Following the intervention of ministerial councillor and former imperial-royal conservator of the local district, Zdeněk Wirth, the idea was abandoned. After discussions between the sculptor Kafka and the town’s residents, it was agreed the monument would be placed in the park.

Kafka invited his trusted architect, Josef Gočár—his close collaborator since 1908 on numerous commissions—to submit several proposals for the urban design of the area surrounding the monument. As the monument was financed through public collections and donations, a more modest solution was ultimately realized: a simplified treatment of the surrounding space and a pedestal of Světlá granite, crafted by the stonemason Antonín Podpěra. A four-metre bronze statue based on Kafka’s 1923 design was placed on top of it, cast from confiscated Austrian cannons secured by the minister of national defence Václav Klofáč, a native of Brod.

The statue was ceremoniously unveiled on 14 September 1924, in the presence of several political figures. It remained in place only until 1943, when the Protectorate authorities ordered its removal—the pedestal was demolished and the statue taken to non-ferrous metal warehouses in Prague, where it was hidden and survived the war.

Shortly after the war, the space was given a new function and a new form. In May 1945, victims of Nazi terror were buried at the site of the original monument. The statue therefore had to be placed on a new pedestal in a newly modified space above the mass grave. The ceremonial unveiling took place in July 1946 in the presence of President Edvard Beneš.

A memorial to the fallen of both world wars was subsequently erected above the grave, bearing the names of the heroes. It was designed by František Marek and Vincenc Makovský, who carried forward the legacy of their late teachers, Kafka and Gočár. The memorial took the form of a simple concave arch of polished granite, engraved with the names of the victims of both wars, and was unveiled in May 1947.

In 1977, the names of the fallen legionnaires were removed from the monument for ideological reasons and replaced with two reliefs by Viktor Dobrovolný. After 1989, at the initiative of the Civic Forum, the removed names were restored to the monument.