Berlin relives assassination of top Nazi

BERLIN – More than 60 years ago, a group of Czech and Slovak exiles parachuted into their Nazi-occupied homeland and assassinated SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, the man known as the “Butcher of Prague”.

For the first time since the end of the World War Two, a German museum is offering a close look at “Operation Anthropoid”, the codename for the only successful assassination of a member of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle. Michal Burian of the Military Institute of Prague, which presented the exhibition in the Czech capital before it moved to Berlin, says the assassination ranks among the most important moments of the last century and is far more than a footnote.”The assassination is an ancient tragedy.You can find everything in this story – bravery, love, betrayal, death.In my opinion, it is one of the most interesting stories of the 20th century,” he said.The Heydrich assassination took place on May 27, 1942 on a quiet street in the Prague suburb of Kobylisy.Two young men – a Czech and a Slovak – ambushed Heydrich’s black Mercedes-Benz convertible as he was on his way to Prague’s Hradcany Castle.Slovak Josef Gabcik wanted to shoot Heydrich, but his Sten submachinegun jammed at the crucial moment.Heydrich was about to shoot Gabcik with his pistol when 29-year-old Czech Jan Kubis lobbed a modified anti-tank grenade at the vehicle.The bomb exploded.Heydrich died of his wounds a week later.This sealed the fate of both men and thousands of Czechs who were imprisoned, tortured or murdered after Hitler ordered the SS and Gestapo to “wade in blood” to find Heydrich’s killers.But it was not Nazi sleuthing that discovered the assassins’ hideout in the basement of a Prague church.It was the betrayal of one of the paratroopers who wanted to save himself.Kubis, Gabcik and five others died in fierce fighting at the church or took their own lives to avoid capture by the Nazis.The centre-piece of the exhibition, which opened at Berlin’s German Technical Museum last month, is the Mercedes-Benz convertible with the licence plate “SS-3” that Heydrich was riding in at the time of the assassination.Ulrich Kubisch, curator at the museum, went to Prague to see the original exhibition because of the car and vowed to bring it to Berlin, the seat of Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich” that lasted only 12 years – from 1933 to 1945.The car is a stark symbol of Nazi hubris.The top is down because Heydrich, the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, believed he had successfully pacified the whole Czech nation and could safely ride in an open, unarmoured vehicle.The exhibition also features a replica of the spectacular jewelled crown of Bohemia’s King Wenceslas.Legend has it that Heydrich was doomed the moment he placed it on his head after arriving in Prague to rule over the “Protectorate”.Heydrich was more than the “butcher of Prague”.A few months before his death, he chaired the Wannsee Conference, where top Nazis began planning the “Final Solution” – the extermination of Europe’s Jews.”For us Czechs it was very important that Heydrich be killed, because he was one of the worst people for us.After he came to Prague in 1941, he began immediately with his bloody reign of terror,” Burian said.Two years after Heydrich was killed, an attempt to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb failed.”Operation Anthropoid” remained the only successful assassination of a top-ranking Nazi.But cruel reprisals by the Nazis, who razed two Czech villages to avenge Heydrich’s death, prompted some historians to question whether it was worth the carnage that followed.After Heydrich died, Nazi police surrounded the village of Lidice, which was believed to be harbouring resistance fighters.The population was rounded up.Most were shot and the remaining women and most of the children were sent to concentration camps.Around 340 people died in Lidice.Two weeks later, the village of Lezaky received similar treatment.The decision of Czechoslovakia’s President-in-exile, Edvard Benes, to assassinate Heydrich while aware the people back home could face brutal reprisals remains a topic of debate.”Benes wanted something big.He was aware of the concerns that there was not much resistance in the Protectorate, concerns voiced by Stalin, but also heard from the British,” said Brad Abrams, a history professor at Columbia University.Accounts of the horrible Nazi reprisals at Lidice were published on front pages of the New York Times and other key allied newspapers, raising the profile of the Czech resistance and the Benes government-in-exile in London.According to recently released government documents, Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill even suggested levelling three German villages for every Czech village the Nazis destroyed.Abrams said to make a final judgment whether or not the assassination was worth it “requires a certain moral calculus that places historians in serious peril.”But he added: “Other things could have been done.”Despite the reprisals, Jachym Topol, a prominent Czech novelist, agreed that Heydrich’s death had a positive impact.He said it showed Czechs were not all beer-swilling buffoons like Josef Svejk, the absurdly obedient hero of Jaroslav Hasek’s classic novel, “The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the (First) World War”.”Heydrich was evil.He had to be killed and his death sent a message that the Czechs, too, were ready to fight.It showed that you didn’t have to just keep your head down and try to survive.You could be a hero,” Topol said.- Nampa-ReutersMichal Burian of the Military Institute of Prague, which presented the exhibition in the Czech capital before it moved to Berlin, says the assassination ranks among the most important moments of the last century and is far more than a footnote.”The assassination is an ancient tragedy.You can find everything in this story – bravery, love, betrayal, death.In my opinion, it is one of the most interesting stories of the 20th century,” he said.The Heydrich assassination took place on May 27, 1942 on a quiet street in the Prague suburb of Kobylisy.Two young men – a Czech and a Slovak – ambushed Heydrich’s black Mercedes-Benz convertible as he was on his way to Prague’s Hradcany Castle.Slovak Josef Gabcik wanted to shoot Heydrich, but his Sten submachinegun jammed at the crucial moment.Heydrich was about to shoot Gabcik with his pistol when 29-year-old Czech Jan Kubis lobbed a modified anti-tank grenade at the vehicle.The bomb exploded.Heydrich died of his wounds a week later.This sealed the fate of both men and thousands of Czechs who were imprisoned, tortured or murdered after Hitler ordered the SS and Gestapo to “wade in blood” to find Heydrich’s killers.But it was not Nazi sleuthing that discovered the assassins’ hideout in the basement of a Prague church.It was the betrayal of one of the paratroopers who wanted to save himself.Kubis, Gabcik and five others died in fierce fighting at the church or took their own lives to avoid capture by the Nazis.The centre-piece of the exhibition, which opened at Berlin’s German Technical Museum last month, is the Mercedes-Benz convertible with the licence plate “SS-3” that Heydrich was riding in at the time of the assassination.Ulrich Kubisch, curator at the museum, went to Prague to see the original exhibition because of the car and vowed to bring it to Berlin, the seat of Hitler’s “Thousand Year Reich” that lasted only 12 years – from 1933 to 1945.The car is a stark symbol of Nazi hubris.The top is down because Heydrich, the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, believed he had successfully pacified the whole Czech nation and could safely ride in an open, unarmoured vehicle.The exhibition also features a replica of the spectacular jewelled crown of Bohemia’s King Wenceslas.Legend has it that Heydrich was doomed the moment he placed it on his head after arriving in Prague to rule over the “Protectorate”.Heydrich was more than the “butcher of Prague”.A few months before his death, he chaired the Wannsee Conference, where top Nazis began planning the “Final Solution” – the extermination of Europe’s Jews.”For us Czechs it was very imp
ortant that Heydrich be killed, because he was one of the worst people for us.After he came to Prague in 1941, he began immediately with his bloody reign of terror,” Burian said.Two years after Heydrich was killed, an attempt to kill Hitler with a briefcase bomb failed.”Operation Anthropoid” remained the only successful assassination of a top-ranking Nazi.But cruel reprisals by the Nazis, who razed two Czech villages to avenge Heydrich’s death, prompted some historians to question whether it was worth the carnage that followed.After Heydrich died, Nazi police surrounded the village of Lidice, which was believed to be harbouring resistance fighters.The population was rounded up.Most were shot and the remaining women and most of the children were sent to concentration camps.Around 340 people died in Lidice.Two weeks later, the village of Lezaky received similar treatment.The decision of Czechoslovakia’s President-in-exile, Edvard Benes, to assassinate Heydrich while aware the people back home could face brutal reprisals remains a topic of debate.”Benes wanted something big.He was aware of the concerns that there was not much resistance in the Protectorate, concerns voiced by Stalin, but also heard from the British,” said Brad Abrams, a history professor at Columbia University.Accounts of the horrible Nazi reprisals at Lidice were published on front pages of the New York Times and other key allied newspapers, raising the profile of the Czech resistance and the Benes government-in-exile in London.According to recently released government documents, Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill even suggested levelling three German villages for every Czech village the Nazis destroyed.Abrams said to make a final judgment whether or not the assassination was worth it “requires a certain moral calculus that places historians in serious peril.”But he added: “Other things could have been done.”Despite the reprisals, Jachym Topol, a prominent Czech novelist, agreed that Heydrich’s death had a positive impact.He said it showed Czechs were not all beer-swilling buffoons like Josef Svejk, the absurdly obedient hero of Jaroslav Hasek’s classic novel, “The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the (First) World War”.”Heydrich was evil.He had to be killed and his death sent a message that the Czechs, too, were ready to fight.It showed that you didn’t have to just keep your head down and try to survive.You could be a hero,” Topol said.- Nampa-Reuters