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In-Depth Information
THE ASSASSINATION OF REINHARD HEYDRICH
The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942 was the only attempt the Allies ever
made on the life of a leading Nazi. It's an incident that the Allies have always billed as a
great success in the otherwise rather pathetic seven-year history of the Czech resistance.
But, as with all acts of brave resistance during the war, there was a price to be paid. Given
that the reprisals meted out to the Czech population were entirely predictable, it remains a
controversial, if not suicidal, decision to have made.
The target, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, was a talented and upwardly mobile anti-
Semite (despite rumours that he was partly Jewish himself), a great organizer and a skilful
concert violinist. He was a late recruit to the Nazi Party, signing up in 1931, after hav-
ing been dismissed from the German Navy for dishonourable conduct towards a woman.
However, he swiftly rose through the ranks of the SS to become second in command after
Himmler,andintheautumnof1941hewasappointed Reichsprotektor ofthepuppetstate
ofBöhmenundMähren-effectively,themostpowerfulmanintheCzechLands.Although
his rule began with brutality, it soon settled into the tried and tested policy that Heydrich
liked to call Peitsche und Zucker (literally, “whip and sugar”).
On the morning of May 27, 1942, as Heydrich was being driven by his personal body-
guard, Oberscharführer Klein, in his open-top Mercedes from his manor house north of
Prague to his office in Hradčany, three Czechoslovak agents (parachuted in from England)
were taking up positions in the northeastern suburb of Libeň. The first agent gave the sig-
nal as the car pulled into Kirchmayer Boulevard (now V Holešovičkách). Another agent, a
Slovak called Gabčík , pulled out a Sten gun and tried to shoot, but the gun jammed. Rath-
er than driving out of the situation, Heydrich ordered Klein to stop the car and attempted
to shoot back. At this point, the third agent, Kubiš , threw a hand grenade at the car. The
blast injured Kubiš and Heydrich, who immediately leapt out and began firing at Kubiš.
Kubiš,withbloodpouringdownhisface,jumpedonhisbicycleandfleddownhill.Gabčík,
meanwhile, pulled out a second gun and exchanged shots with Heydrich, until the latter
collapsed from his wounds. Gabčík fled into a butcher's, shot Klein - who was in hot pur-
suit - in the legs and escaped down the backstreets.
Meanwhile, back at the Mercedes, a baker's van was flagged down by a passer-by, but
the baker refused to get involved. Eventually, a small truck carrying floor polish was com-
mandeered andHeydrichwastakentotheBulovkahospital. Heydrichdiedeightdayslater
from shrapnel wounds and was given full Nazi honours at his Praguefuneral ; the cortege
passed down Wenceslas Square, in front of a crowd of thousands. As the home resistance
had forewarned, revenge was quick to follow. The day after Heydrich's funeral, the village
of Lidice was burnt to the ground and its male inhabitants murdered; two weeks later the
men and women of Ležáky suffered a similar fate.
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