Operation Anthropoid

The 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague

Overview

Operation Anthropoid was the killing of Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office and acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, by Czechoslovak soldiers trained by the British Special Operations Executive and parachuted in from England. On 27 May 1942 Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis ambushed his car on a bend in Prague, and Heydrich died of his wounds on 4 June. The parachutists were betrayed and died after a siege at the Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Nazi reprisals included the destruction of the villages of Lidice and Lezaky and the murder of their inhabitants.