On May 27, 1942, on the outskirts of Prague, Reinhard Heydrich, Police General, SS Obergruppenführer, Head of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security, was mortally wounded, who at that time was the Imperial Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich was then considered "the third person in the Reich", and Walter Schellenberg (Heydrich's subordinate) in his memoirs even called him "the invisible core around which the Nazi regime revolved."
When Hitler came to power, it was Heydrich and Himmler who, on their own initiative, opened the first concentration camps in Munich - "for the re-education of opponents of the regime." In 1936, Heydrich was appointed head of the SD (internal security service of the NSDAP) and the German security police (which included the criminal police and the Gestapo). Himmler officially stated that beyond suspicion in the Third Reich, only the leader of the party, Adolf Hitler, could come to everyone else at any time from the Gestapo or SD. And therefore the influence of Heydrich and the fear that he instilled in everyone was truly enormous. Since September 1939, after the merger of the German special services into the General Directorate of Imperial Security, Heydrich, who became Himmler's deputy, reached the peak of his power. Moreover, the relationship between them was now far from idyllic. Himmler suspected the subordinate, who had become too independent, of wanting to head the Ministry of the Interior and, just in case, collected dirt on him. It turned out, for example, that one of the organizers of the Holocaust could have been a Jew: about Heydrich's father in the "Riemann Encyclopedia of Music" (1916) it was said: "Bruno Heydrich, real name Suess." The fact is that Heydrich's father was a famous composer, whose operas were staged in Leipzig and Cologne, the founder of a music school in Halle. It is not surprising that his son, Reinhard, played the violin well, but his career as a musician did not work out. SD officer Herman Berends, who once accidentally saw reports in the Himmler archives regarding the presence of Jewish blood in Heydrich, reported this to his boss. He grimly replied that he would be surprised if Himmler did not collect such materials. Another rival of Heydrich was the chief of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris.
Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris
Their first meeting took place on the training cruiser "Berlin", where Canaris served as the chief mate of the captain, and Heydrich was the midshipman. Relations between the officers at that time were quite friendly, Heydrich and Canaris's wife played in the same string quartet. It was Canaris who advised Reinhardt to enter naval intelligence and protected him, which he later regretted when Heydrich headed a rival organization. Outwardly friendly relations of Heydrich with Himmler and Canaris, in fact, were so tense that after his death, rumors began to spread in Berlin about their involvement in the death of the Reich Protector.
But how did an official of such a high rank end up in the post of Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia?
Czech Republic under the Nazi regime
After the occupation of Czechoslovakia (March 14-15, 1939), this country was divided into two parts: Slovakia "gained independence", turning into a puppet state with a pro-fascist regime, the Czech Republic became part of the Reich as a "protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia." At the same time, she retained her own government and even a small army. Czech schools, universities, hospitals and banks continued to work. The first Reich protector was the former German Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath, who practically did not interfere in Czech affairs, exercising only general control. However, there have not yet been any special reasons for intervention. J. Goebbels then left the following entry in his diary:
"The Czechs are working to our complete satisfaction and doing their best under the slogan" Everything for our Fuehrer Adolf Hitler!"
But Neurath's deputy, the Sudeten German Karl Hermann Frank, decided to "hook" the chief. On September 20, 1941, he went to Berlin to convince the top leadership of the Reich that the Czechs could work more efficiently, but Neurath's "excessive softness" prevents him from achieving more impressive results. However, Heydrich, whom Hitler summoned for consultations on this issue, reported to the Fuehrer about the secret ties of the Czech government with Moscow and London. And this was already a "stone in the garden" of Frank himself. Hitler was furious and instructed Heydrich to "restore order in Prague."
Neurath was treated rather mildly: on September 27, 1941, he was "temporarily" dismissed from his post "for health reasons." At the time of his "illness", Heydrich was appointed Reich protector of Bohemia and Moravia, who, upon arriving in Prague, declared that he would "crush those who resist, but reward those who are ready to be useful."
Front page of the Czech newspaper Narodna Politika: announcement of Heydrich's assumption of the position of Reich Protector
Reinhard Heydrich during the ceremonial raising of the national flag in the courtyard of Prague Castle, September 28, 1941
"Soft power" by Reinhard Heydrich
In the first 12 days of Heydrich's reign, 207 people were executed; in total, 5,000 people were arrested during the 7 months of his rule of the Czech Republic. For example, on October 28, a student demonstration dedicated to the 21st anniversary of Czech independence was dispersed. One of the student leaders was wounded and died. On November 15, new unrest broke out during his funeral. As a result, on November 17, nine arrested students were executed, 1800 were sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. However, it must be said that Heydrich's repressions did not last long. Showing the "stick", he immediately took out the "carrot": he increased the supply standards for Czech workers (of which there were about 2 million people), ordered the allocation of 200,000 pairs of shoes for those who were employed in the military industry. The number of cigarettes and products issued by cards to other categories of citizens was also increased. Hotels and boarding houses in Karlovy Vary and other resorts have become holiday homes for workers. In addition, the workers were given free tickets to football, theaters and cinema, and May 1 was declared a holiday.
Heydrich himself explained his policy to his subordinates:
“I need peace of mind here, so that the Czech worker is fully involved in the German military effort, so that the volume of supplies does not decrease, and the local arms industry develops. Needless to say, the Czech workers need to add some food, because they have to do their job."
And here is how A. Hitler spoke about the situation in the Czech Republic:
“The Czechs are the embodiment of slavish obedience. Chekhov can be made fanatical supporters of the Reich if, given that they are food lovers, give them a double ration. They will consider it their moral duty to work twice as much in the military factories."
Heydrich's plans included the complete Germanization of racially appropriate Czechs (for this purpose, a survey of children in Czech schools was carried out). Part of the population that did not meet racial criteria was supposed to be resettled to the occupied territories of the USSR. But this, of course, was not reported in the newspapers. And the popularity of Heydrich in the Czech Republic increased sharply, in Prague he felt very comfortable, even moved around the city in an open car without security. And this idyll made Edward Beneš, the president of Czechoslovakia in exile, who was in London very nervous.
Operation "Anthropoid"
According to Miroslav Kach (leader of the Czech Resistance), “collaboration among (Czech) citizens began to exceed a reasonable measure,” and Beneš's authority in the eyes of the allies was at a critical level. Therefore, it was decided to organize a loud "retaliation action", which, according to the head of the military intelligence of Czechoslovakia, Frantisek Moravec, "firstly, would raise the prestige of Czechoslovakia in the international arena. Secondly, its success has pushed the popular movement, although the pay will be high."
Freely moving around the streets of Prague, Heydrich was an ideal target for the assassination attempt. Moravec continues:
“President Benes, after carefully listening to my arguments, said that he, as the supreme commander-in-chief, agreed with them and believed that although the operation would require sacrifices, it was necessary for the good of the homeland. And he gave the order to develop everything in the strictest secrecy: "Then this act can be regarded as a spontaneous manifestation of the people's despair."
Edward Benes
Frantisek Moravec
Raising the prestige of the Czech government in exile was not the only task of the operation. By killing a high-ranking official, Benes and his employees hoped to provoke retaliatory punitive actions by the Germans, which, in turn, was supposed to disrupt the calm and measured life of the local population and push them to protest and resistance. The problem was that the Czech underground was extremely weak and could not complete the task. Therefore, they began to look for performers among the military personnel of the Czech brigade formed in England. The British Special Operations Directorate was also involved in planning the operation, code-named Anthropoid. Several groups of paratroopers were thrown into the territory of the Czech Republic, where, as it turned out, no one was waiting for them. The survivors later claimed that they were in a completely hostile environment. Here is a story left by Jan Zemeck:
“We only had the last bullet to shoot ourselves in the head … Everywhere hundreds and hundreds of traitors … People did not trust each other. When the Platinum group disembarked, they arrived at an address believed to be reliable. But the landlord kicked them out, and then gave them away …"
The training of the performers turned out to be completely inadequate, almost all the groups did not go where it was planned, some people were injured during an unsuccessful landing, others could not find the equipment and weapons they dropped after them. Radio operator William Gerik, having reached Prague, found out that the money given to him was useless without food ration cards. When he, hungry, appeared at the recommended safe house, the owner suggested that he surrender to the Gestapo - he did so on April 4, 1942. Another member of this group, Ivan Kolarzhik, committed suicide on April 1, 1942, being surrounded by the Germans.
In parallel with the preparations for the assassination attempt on Heydrich, it was decided to carry out another operation - Tin, in which Jaroslav Schwarz and Ludwig Tsupal were to kill the Minister of Education and Propaganda of the Protectorate, Emmanuel Moravec. On April 29, 1942, they were abandoned in the Czech Republic, but were injured upon landing and lost all equipment. As a result, this operation was curtailed.
But back to Operation Anthropoid. The main roles in the assassination attempt on Heydrich were to be played by Jan Kubisch and Josef Gabczyk.
Jan Kubisch and Josef Gabczyk
Kubis previously served in the Czechoslovak army with the rank of sergeant. Later he served in the Czechoslovak Legion of Poland and in the French Foreign Legion. In 1940 he took part in battles with the Germans near the Loire River, was awarded the French Military Cross and was promoted to sergeant. After the surrender of France, he was evacuated to England, where, after training in the basics of sabotage activities, he received the rank of sergeant for the third time. Gabczyk also served in the Czechoslovak Legion of Poland (where he met Kubis) and in the French Foreign Legion. Later he was transferred to the 1st Czechoslovak division, acting as deputy commander of a machine gun platoon. After evacuation to England, he served in the 1st Czechoslovak mixed brigade. At the time of the operation, he had the rank of captain, in 2002 he was posthumously awarded the rank of colonel.
The main group was thrown into the Protectorate territory on the second attempt on the night of December 29, 1941. Due to a pilot error, they landed not near Pilsen, as it was supposed, but in the Negvizdy suburb of Prague. In addition, Gabchik injured his leg during the landing. I had to stay in the house of one of the local residents, who agreed to hide Kubish and Gabchik, and did not betray them. Then, to help them, two more groups of saboteurs were dropped - three and two people, respectively. They were able to begin the task only in May 1942. They did not know that on the day they had chosen, Heydrich was going to go to a meeting with Hitler - to Berlin. Quite possibly, following the results of this meeting, a new appointment awaited him, and the whole operation could break down. The place for the assassination attempt was very suitable: on the road in the Prague suburb of Liben, on the way from the country house chosen by Heydrich to the center of Prague, there was a sharp turn, where the tread car inevitably had to slow down. On May 27, who came here on bicycles, Kubish and Gabchik stood at a tram stop. Another member of their group, Josef Walczek, saw the approaching car of Heydrich, signaled with a mirror. In the car, as usual, except for Heydrich, there was only the driver. At 1032 hours, when the car was right in front of the saboteurs, Gabchik tried to open fire from the Sten submachine gun.
Still from the film "Himmler's Brain is Called Heydrich", 2017
But the cartridge jammed, and it seemed already that for Heydrich everything ended quite well. However, the Reich Protector was either too brave, or not a very smart person: instead of ordering the driver to speed up and leave a dangerous place, he forced him to stop the car, pulled out a pistol and, together with the driver, tried to grab the saboteur.
Still from the film "Himmler's Brain is Called Heydrich"
Jan Kubish threw a grenade - and did not hit the car standing in front of him (!): The grenade rolled under the right rear wheel and exploded there. Everyone got wounds except Gabchek. Heydrich still found the strength to get out of the car, but fell nearby, ordering the driver to pursue the attackers.
Still from the film "Anthropoid", 2016
After that, the driver shoots Kubis, but his pistol also misfires. Kubis, in turn, shot at a Czech policeman who happened to be nearby, missed, and left the scene of the attempt on a bicycle. Gabchik, meanwhile, ran into a butcher's shop of a certain František Brauner. It was not possible to hide there: the butcher obligingly opened the door in front of Heydrich's driver pursuing Gabchik, opening fire, the saboteur twice wounded the German, again jumped out into the street and jumped into the approaching tram, on which he safely disappeared.
Now at this place in Prague you can see a monument: two paratroopers in British military uniforms are Kubish and Gabchik. The third figure symbolizes the Czechs and Slovaks who helped them. The inscription on the bronze slab:
“Here on Friday 27 May 1942 at 10.35 the heroic Czechoslovak paratroopers Jan Kubis and Josef Gabczyk committed one of the most important acts of the Second World War - they killed the imperial protector Reinhard Heydrich. They would not have been able to fulfill this mission without the help of hundreds of Czech patriots, who paid for their bravery with their own lives.
Memorial to Operation Anthropoid
But back in May 1942. The Czech policeman, who was not hit by Kubis, stopped a passing truck, in which Heydrich was taken to the Bulovka hospital. Here it turned out that the Reich protector had a shrapnel wound in the spleen and a fracture of one of the ribs, which led to the development of pneumothorax. The spleen was removed, but on June 4, Heydrich died from a wound infection.
Farewell to the body of Heydrich in Prague
The leaders of the Ukrainian nationalists, among others, expressed their condolences to the Reich and the family of the deceased.
Heydrich was buried in the Berlin cemetery of the Invalids, but after the end of the war the tombstone was destroyed and now the place of his burial is unknown. Hitler posthumously awarded Heydrich the "German Order", calling him an "irreplaceable fighter" and "a man with an iron heart" in his farewell speech. G. Himmler a little later will call his former subordinate "a shining great man" who "made a sacrificial contribution to the struggle for the freedom of the German people."
Consequences of Operation Anthropoid
The post of Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia was given to SS Oberstgruppenführer, Police Colonel General Kurt Dahluge. A state of emergency was declared in the Czech Republic, an award was announced for information about saboteurs, which more than 60 people did not disdain - a total of 20 million crowns were paid. Most of all (5 million kroons) were received by two Czech paratroopers, who voluntarily came to the Germans and told everything they knew. One of them was Karel Churda, abandoned in the Czech Republic in March 1942. The head of the Prague Gestapo reported:
“On June 16, a citizen of the protectorate Karel Churda appeared. The description of the parachutist given by him coincided with the description of a certain Josef Gabchik. Czurda suggested that the second culprit could be Gabchik's best friend, Jan Kubis …"
Seven Czech paratroopers - Josef Gabczyk, Jan Kubis, Jan Hruby, Josef Valchik, Adolf Opalka, Josef Bublik and Jaroslav Schwarz (abandoned in the Czech Republic as part of Operation Tin), tried to hide in the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius - the main Orthodox church in Prague.
Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Prague
On June 18, this temple was surrounded by German soldiers and the Gestapo. After several hours of firefight, six of them shot themselves to avoid being captured. Kubish, seriously wounded, died on the way to the hospital.
Memorial plaque on the wall of the Church of Cyril and Methodius
The Primate of the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church, Gorazd, was executed for helping these people; later he was canonized and recognized as a great martyr.
Saint Gorazd Bohemian and Moravian-Silesian, icon
The last participant in the failed operation Tin, Ludwig Tsupal, was betrayed by the Gestapo by his own father in January 1943, and he shot himself while trying to arrest him.
The massacres of civilians suspected of helping paratroopers went down in history as the Heydrichiada. In particular, two villages were destroyed - Ležáky and Lidice. One of the paratroopers' bases was indeed located in Lezhaky. The last of them managed to convey the message: “The village of Lezhaki, where my base was located, was wiped off the face of the earth. The people who helped us have been arrested. But Lidice was destroyed only because the addresses of two families from this village were found in the belongings of one of the captured paratroopers. As a result, all houses in Lidice were destroyed, men were shot, women were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Memorial in Lidice
Deputy Imperial Protector SS Brigadeführer Karl Hermann Frank said on this occasion that now on this land "corn will grow beautifully." In May 1945 he was arrested and hanged in 1946. In response to the destruction of Liditz, W. Churchill proposed to wipe out three German villages from the face of the earth, but the commander of the British Air Force did not agree with him, saying that this would require one hundred bombers.
Czech President Benes of London congratulated General Moravec on his success, calling Operation Anthropoid "an act of just revenge on the part of the people."But Moravec himself had no illusions about this, noting that the assassination of Heydrich, although it raised the prestige of the government in exile, did not serve as a reason for the rise of the Resistance. Moreover, in July 1942, the government of the Protectorate organized a demonstration on Wenceslas Square in Prague, in which two hundred thousand people took part. The crowd chanted, “Long live Adolf Hitler! Glory to the Reich!"
In December 1943 in Moscow V. M. Molotov asked Benes: what is the resistance of the Czech people to the Germans?
Benes tried to explain the submissiveness of the Czechs by geographic conditions that did not allow for partisan actions.
After the war, the curator of Operation Anthropoid, Frantisek Moravec, was greeted in the Czech Republic with reproaches, being considered guilty of the death of thousands of innocent people. Moreover, when Moravets came to prison to look at Karel Churda, who had betrayed his people, he impudently told him: “Because of me, two people died, because of you five thousand, and which of us should be shot?”
During the trial, Churda asked the prosecutor: "Wouldn't you do the same for a million?"
He was convicted of treason and hanged on April 29, 1947 in Prague's Pankrác prison.
And only after many years the attitude of the Czechs towards Operation Anthropoid changed for the better. The paratroopers who liquidated Heydrich are now considered national heroes, films are made about them, songs are written, and stamps dedicated to their feat are issued.
Czech postal block dedicated to Operation Anthropoid
Poster for the Czechoslovak film "Assassination", 1964
