The Assassination That Shook the Third Reich: Operation Anthropoid

“They wanted to consign the name of Lidice to eternal oblivion, and they have engraved it forever into the memory of man.” - Thomas Mann

On the morning of 27 May 1942, one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany was being driven through Prague in an open Mercedes. Reinhard Heydrich had become so confident in his control of occupied Czechoslovakia that he travelled through the city with remarkably little protection. Waiting for him beside a sharp bend in the road were two Czechoslovak soldiers. One carried a British Sten submachine gun and the other carried a specially modified explosive. Their instructions were simple in theory and almost suicidal in practice: kill Reinhard Heydrich. The mission was called Operation Anthropoid.

Heydrich was not simply another Nazi official. He was head of the Reich Security Main Office, which controlled the Gestapo, Security Police and the Sicherheitsdienst intelligence service. He was one of Heinrich Himmler’s closest subordinates and one of the central architects of the Holocaust. In January 1942, only months before the attempt on his life, Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference, where senior German officials coordinated the implementation of the Final Solution across Europe. He had earned a collection of sinister nicknames, including the Butcher of Prague and Hitler’s Hangman.

In September 1941, Heydrich had also been appointed Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He arrived in Prague and almost immediately imposed martial law, ordered arrests and executions and attempted to crush Czech resistance. At the same time, he recognised that the factories of occupied Czechoslovakia were enormously important to the German war effort, so he combined terror with calculated attempts to keep Czech workers productive. He was intelligent, ruthless and extremely effective, which made him particularly dangerous.

The Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London wanted to strike back. There was also a wider political issue at stake. Czechoslovakia had effectively been dismantled following the Munich Agreement of 1938, and President Edvard Beneš needed to demonstrate to Britain and the other Allies that Czech resistance to German occupation was still alive. Killing one of the highest-ranking Nazis in Europe would certainly achieve that. In October 1941, Czechoslovak intelligence officers began preparing an assassination mission that was given the codename Anthropoid.

The two men eventually selected were Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. Gabčík was a Slovak soldier who had fought with Czechoslovak forces in France before escaping to Britain. Kubiš was not originally supposed to participate. Another soldier, Karel Svoboda, had initially been selected but suffered an injury during parachute training and was forced to withdraw. Gabčík was allowed to recommend his replacement and chose his friend Jan Kubiš, a decision that would ultimately make both men national heroes.

The pair underwent specialist training in Britain, learning parachuting, explosives, shooting, close combat and sabotage. British instructors prepared them for the possibility of attacking Heydrich while he was travelling in a vehicle. After several delays, Gabčík and Kubiš finally left Britain aboard an RAF Halifax bomber on the night of 28 December 1941. Shortly after two o’clock the following morning, they parachuted into occupied Czechoslovakia.

Even their arrival went wrong. A navigation error meant they were dropped near Nehvizdy rather than exactly where intended, and Gabčík injured his leg after landing on the frozen ground. They had entered a country controlled by the Nazis carrying false documents and equipment intended for assassinating one of the most powerful men in Europe, and one of them was already injured before the operation had properly begun. With help from the Czech resistance, however, they eventually made their way to Prague.

For the next several months, Gabčík and Kubiš studied Heydrich’s movements and looked for an opportunity to attack him. Ironically, Heydrich himself made their task considerably easier. He believed resistance in the Protectorate had largely been defeated and frequently travelled through Prague in an open Mercedes with limited protection. The assassins eventually identified a sharp bend in the road where Heydrich’s driver would be forced to slow down. On the morning of 27 May 1942, they took their positions and waited.

Shortly after 10:30 a.m., Heydrich’s Mercedes appeared and slowed as expected. Gabčík stepped forward, raised his Sten gun and attempted to fire. Nothing happened. The weapon jammed. Months of training, parachuting into an occupied country and waiting for exactly this opportunity had culminated in Gabčík standing only metres from Reinhard Heydrich holding a gun that refused to work.

Heydrich then made an extraordinary decision of his own. Instead of ordering his driver to accelerate and escape, he ordered the car to stop so that he could fight back. This gave Kubiš his opportunity. He threw the modified explosive towards the Mercedes, where it detonated beside the vehicle. The explosion sent fragments into Heydrich’s body and also injured Kubiš, but both assassins managed to escape from the scene.

At first it appeared that the operation might have failed. Heydrich was badly injured but conscious and was taken to hospital, where doctors operated on him. For several days his condition appeared to stabilise. Then it deteriorated rapidly as complications and infection set in. On 4 June 1942, eight days after the attack, Reinhard Heydrich died at the age of 38. Two Czechoslovak soldiers had succeeded in assassinating one of the most powerful and feared figures in Nazi Germany in broad daylight.

The German response was horrific. Hitler was reportedly furious and demanded enormous reprisals against the Czech population. Martial law was imposed and the Gestapo launched a vast search for the assassins and everyone who might have helped them. Thousands of people were arrested and more than a thousand were eventually executed during the period of retaliation that followed Heydrich’s death.

The village of Lidice became the most infamous victim. Despite there being no convincing evidence that its inhabitants had been involved in Operation Anthropoid, the Nazis decided to make an example of the village. During the night of 9 to 10 June 1942, German forces surrounded Lidice. The men and older boys were separated from their families and at least 173 were shot. The women were deported, mainly to Ravensbrück concentration camp, while the children were taken away. A small number considered suitable for Germanisation were selected, while most of the others were eventually murdered.

The Nazis then attempted to erase Lidice completely. Houses and buildings were burned before the ruins were demolished. Even the cemetery was destroyed and the landscape altered in an attempt to remove the village from the map. The plan failed spectacularly. Lidice instead became internationally famous as a symbol of Nazi brutality, inspiring memorials and even towns around the world to adopt its name. This was the point Thomas Mann made when he observed that the Nazis had tried to consign Lidice to oblivion and instead ensured that it would be remembered forever.

Another Czech village, Ležáky, suffered a similar fate later that month. Its adult inhabitants were executed, the settlement was destroyed and most of its children were murdered. The assassination of one man had led the Nazi regime to punish thousands of people who had never met Gabčík or Kubiš. Meanwhile, the men responsible for Heydrich’s death were still hiding in Prague.

Eventually, seven Czechoslovak paratroopers took refuge inside the Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Alongside Gabčík and Kubiš were Adolf Opálka, Josef Bublík, Josef Valčík, Jaroslav Švarc and Jan Hrubý. Members of the Czech resistance and Orthodox Church risked their lives by providing them with food and shelter while plans were considered for getting them out of the city.

Their hiding place remained secure until betrayal ended any chance of escape. Another Czechoslovak paratrooper, Karel Čurda, presented himself to the Gestapo on 16 June and revealed information about resistance contacts. The Gestapo followed the network, carried out brutal interrogations and eventually discovered that the men were hiding inside the church. Before dawn on 18 June 1942, German forces surrounded the building.

Almost 800 SS and Gestapo personnel were involved in the operation. Inside were seven men. Three of the paratroopers, Opálka, Kubiš and Bublík, defended the upper section of the church. Armed mainly with pistols and desperately short of ammunition, they fought the Germans for almost two hours. Kubiš was critically wounded by grenade fragments, while Opálka died during the fighting. Kubiš and Bublík were eventually removed from the church unconscious and mortally wounded. Neither survived.

Four men remained below in the crypt. Gabčík, Valčík, Hrubý and Švarc refused to surrender. The Germans threw grenades and tear gas through the small openings and attempted repeatedly to force their way inside. When this failed, fire hoses were brought forward and water was pumped into the crypt in an effort to flood the remaining defenders out.

The four men continued fighting despite having almost no realistic chance of escape. Their ammunition eventually ran low and German forces were closing in. Knowing what capture by the Gestapo would mean, the remaining paratroopers chose death rather than surrender. After hours of resistance, all seven men hiding in the church were dead. Bullet and grenade damage from the battle can still be seen around the church today.

Operation Anthropoid therefore has a complicated legacy. Militarily, it achieved exactly what it was designed to do. Reinhard Heydrich was dead and the assassination demonstrated that even senior members of the Nazi occupation regime were vulnerable. The operation also strengthened the political standing of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile and helped convince Britain and France to distance themselves from the Munich Agreement that had contributed to the destruction of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

The price, however, was enormous. Lidice was destroyed, Ležáky was destroyed and resistance networks across the country were devastated. Families who had sheltered the paratroopers were arrested and executed. Members of the Orthodox clergy who had helped them were also killed. The seven men in the church died and many of those who had supported them followed.

This has inevitably led to arguments about whether the assassination of Heydrich was worth the consequences. There is no simple answer. What must be remembered, however, is that the decision to murder the inhabitants of Lidice and Ležáky was not made by Gabčík or Kubiš. It was made by the Nazi regime. Heydrich himself had spent his career helping to construct a system in which entire populations could be collectively punished, deported or murdered.

Today, visitors to Prague can stand outside the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius and still see the scars left by German bullets around the crypt window. They are small marks in the stone, but behind them lies one of the most extraordinary stories of the Second World War. Two men parachuted into an occupied country to assassinate one of the most dangerous men in Nazi Germany. Their gun failed, their bomb did not, and their target died eight days later. Their hiding place was eventually betrayed and seven men then faced a force of almost 800 Germans rather than surrender.

Operation Anthropoid succeeded, but almost everyone connected to that success eventually paid for it with their lives.