Operation Anthropoid - The Moment that rewrote History
- infoglobalslovakia
- May 26
- 5 min read
Updated: May 27
By: Nina
It is 27th May 1942. At a sharply curved street in Prague 8, there stand two men. One of them carries a raincoat thrown over his arm despite it not raining that day. Beneath it he hides a machine gun. The other holds a briefcase. In it is a modified bomb. One must imagine that anxiety permeates the air.
They are Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík and the man they are supposed to kill is late.
Let us leave them there for a while now, to provide some context for what brought them to Prague on that warm day in May.
After the Munich Conference in the autumn of 1938, Czechoslovakia was effectively abandoned by its Western allies and forced to cede the regions inhabited by ethnic Germans to Hitler. This act of appeasement opened the door for further disintegration. In March 1939, Nazi Germany fully occupied the Czech lands, while Slovakia declared independence under the protection of Hitler, becoming a puppet state aligned with the Third Reich.
In this moment of national collapse, Jozef Gabčík makes a definitive choice. Rather than accept the new regime, he leaves behind his home, family, and everything familiar, determined to resist. Escaping through Poland, he joins the Czechoslovak army in exile. This is where he meets Kubiš, a Czech ( or a Moravian to be precise), a fellow self-exiled freedom fighter.
Together, they travel to France, join the Foreign Legion, and fight Germany when it attacks. When the battle is lost, they flee to England, where they trained as paratroopers. Their specialty is espionage and sabotage on foreign lands.
When the time comes, Gabčík and Kubiš they are chosen for a top secret operation with the code name Anthropoid. The objective: Assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.
So much so that he gained a reputation for being untouchable. It was said that the Czechs were too scared to even look his way. As hated as he way, Heydrich felt safe driving around Prague in an open-top Mercedes, without a convoy of bodyguards.
To the government in exile, he is the perfect target and an opportunity to send a strong message to their allies - they are a force to be reckoned with in the fight against Hitler. Operation Anthropoid is born.
Gabčík and Kubiš are flown all the way back to the heart of Europe and parachuted onto the occupied Czech territory in the dead of the night in December 1941. In the months that follow, they gather intelligence and plan the assassination, relying on the help of dozens of dissident families and individuals in and around Prague.
Which brings us back to that bright day in late May and the narrow curve of a street of the ancient city.
Heydrich is supposed to drive through there, the bend in the road forcing the driver to slow down enough for the two conspirators to make their move.
Sure enough, the Mercedes arrives and Gabčík moves to his position.
He pulls out the machine gun from underneath the raincoat, aims, and fires. But nothing happens. The gun is jammed.
For a few seconds, time stands still.
It is time for Kubiš to step in.
He takes a bomb out of the briefcase and throws it at the car, but misses. The bomb lands next to the right front wheel and explodes. Heydrich is wounded, but still alive. He picks up his gun and shoots at Gabčík, who makes his escape uphill on foot. The driver pursues Kubiš, who manages to escape on a bicycle and through a crowd emerging from a nearby tram.
Heydrich is taken to a nearby hospital.
At first, it seems that he will make a full recovery, but a few days later, he dies from a wound infection.
The entire world stands to watch as the Nazis search for the assassins.
Meanwhile, Gabčík and Kubiš find a refuge in a crypt of a church, awaiting their fate. But the final reckoning will take a while.
Reprisals last for several weeks.
Eventually, the investigators led to Lidice, birthplace of two RAF pilots who are possibly connected to the assassins. That is reason enough.
The raid begins at night. Homes are ransacked and citizens rounded up in the town square, divided into two groups. Men and boys over the age of 15 are shot on the spot. Women are sent to the concentration camp in Ravensbrück. 17 children are dispatched to Germany for 're-education'. The rest are gassed. The town is bulldozed to the ground and around the world a wave of outrage spreads.
Hitler realizes too late that this is something he cannot justify.
But let us return to Gabčík, who has been hiding in the church for three weeks. There is a reward of 1 million reichsmarks on his and Kubiš's head. A reward too seductive to resist. The heroes are betrayed.
Around 800 troops of the elite SS unit descend upon the church to catch them alive. They fail. Kubiš dies on his way to the hospital as a result of the wounds he sustained in the offensive. Gabčík commits suicide by cyanide rather than falling into the Nazi hands.
Heydrich is buried in Berlin with all the pathos that was deemed suitable for such a high ranking Nazi.
This could be the end of the story. But it isn't. Aside from Lidice, the village of Ležáky is also destroyed in a similar way after an illegal radio transmitter is found there. As a final 'honor' to the 'great' man, the Germans name the mass murder of Jews in the camps of Sobibor, Treblinka and Belzec after him, Aktion Reinhard.
What became of Gabčík and Kubiš?
The parachutists will be remembered and celebrated, but only once Czechoslovakia is liberated. Each receives a street named after him in the close vicinity of the assassination site. Gabčík even gets his own town named after him - Gabčíkovo. The man who betrayed them is tried and sentenced to death.
Why tell this story at all?
It continues to be a controversial one. Perceptions of the operation Anthropoid are mixed.
Some deem the cost of Heydrich's death too high to justify it. Others argue that without his death, millions more would perish.
One thing is certain.
The relentless dedication and courage of the two parachutists as well as their comrades and all those who helped them in face of the penalty of death echoes through the murky waters of history to inspire people even today.
In their actions we see the true nature of the Czechoslovak spirit, brave and devoted to the very end, brothers in arms and in struggle. Is important is that we remember and that we celebrate their bravery, for they dared to pay the ultimate price for the freedom of their homeland and their people.
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