Callum Macdonald - The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

In the unlikely setting of a park in a small Midland town, a simple monument commemorates one of the most daring secret operations of the Second World War ANTHROPOID the assassination of SS Obergruppenfhrer Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich, the head of the Nazi security police and governor of occupied BohemiaMoravia, was one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich. An ambitious, ruthless and intelligent personality, he was regarded by some as Hitlers most likely successor. When he was killed in the early summer of 1942, the Fhrer compared his death to a lost battle. Heydrich was buried as a Nazi martyr, his final resting place designed as a shrine to inspire future generations of SS men.

Heydrich was the only prominent Nazi to be assassinated during the war by agents trained in Britain, and the operation has been the subject of speculation and debate ever since. According to one account, he was killed by the British Secret Service because he was about to arrest a prominent German traitor who had been supplying vital intelligence to London. According to another, Heydrich was assassinated to prevent the extermination of the European Jews, the Final Solution for which he had been made responsible in 1941. On the wilder shores of the imagination, it was even claimed that the British had Heydrich removed because he knew too much about the treasonable activities of the Duke of Windsor in the summer of 1940. The real story is different but no less dramatic It is one of heroism and self-sacrifice, but also of political expediency, betrayal and death. In this drama, the British Secret Service was not the principal actor. The operation was rooted in the political requirements of the Czech exile President, Eduard Bene, and planned by Czech military intelligence with the assistance of the British Special Operations Executive, SOE.

This account attempts to set ANTHROPOID in its proper context, using previously unpublished evidence from the files of the Foreign Office and the Special Operations Executive as well as the recollections of former Czechoslovak intelligence officers. Any book on the assassination of Heydrich owes a debt to the memoirs of Colonel Frantiek Moravec and to the research carried out by the Czech journalist Miroslav Ivanov, who, twenty years ago, tracked down many surviving resistance workers involved in the operation. It would also have been impossible to write without the assistance of a series of people, some of whom must remain anonymous. I would particularly like to thank Stanislav Berton, of Roseville, New South Wales, who was more than generous with material from his archive on the wartime occupation of Czechoslovakia, and Mr C. M. Woods, the SOE Adviser at the Foreign Office. I am also grateful to Major M. F. Kapar of the Association of Czechoslovak Legionaries, Josef Ssser, a former radio officer with Czech military intelligence, George enty, a former member of the home resistance, and Sir Peter Wilkinson, the former head of the Czech Section in SOE. Gustav Kay of Warwick supplied background material on the experiences of the Czechoslovak army during the war, while Ron Hockey, formerly of the RAF special duties squadron, provided many details about the ANTHROPOID drop. Professor Edward Tborsk, who served as wartime secretary to President Bene, called my attention to a diary entry relating to the operation. Professor M. R. D. Foot backed the research with good practical advice. Peter Hinchliffe of Brew Technical Translation Services translated the Czech documents. Early drafts of the book benefited from the constructive criticism of my colleague, Robin Okey, and my editor at Macmillan, Adam Sisman. I owe special thanks to my agent, Gill Coleridge, for her encouragement at every stage of the book. The research was facilitated by a grant from the British Academy. I am grateful to the following individuals and organisations for permission to quote: HM Stationery Office, the Public Record Office, the BBC Written Archives Centre, the National Archives of the United States, Stanislav Berton, Ron Hockey, and Professor Tborsk.

Callum MacDonald
Warwick 1988

On 9 June 1942 the body of SS Obergruppenfhrer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Nazi security police, was laid to rest in the most elaborate funeral ceremony ever staged by the Third Reich. His coffin lay in state in the Mosaic Hall of the new Reich Chancellery surrounded by banks of flowers, while a steel-helmeted guard of honour kept a vigil over the bier. The streets of Berlin were draped with black and throughout Germany flags flew at half-mast. At 3 p.m., as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra played the death march from Wagners Gotterdmmerung, the final act began. Before an audience consisting of Hitler and the leading figures of the Third Reich, the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, delivered a long eulogy on Heydrichs life and work, describing him as a Nazi martyr, an ideal always to be emulated, but perhaps never again to be achieved. According to Himmler, Heydrich was one of the battalions of dead SS men who are still fighting for us. It is our holy duty to avenge him and to destroy the enemies of our fatherland. He was followed by Hitler who, visibly moved, gave a brief address which praised Heydrich as the best of Nazis: He was one of the greatest defenders of our greater German concept... one of the bitterest foes of all enemies of the Reich. The Fhrer then laid a wreath on the coffin and pinned to the black velvet cushion displaying Heydrichs decorations the highest grade of the German order, an honour specially created for those who had rendered exceptional service to party and fatherland. He patted the cheeks of Heydrichs small sons absent-mindedly, muttered Heydrich, he was a man with a heart of iron and withdrew from the ceremony. The coffin, covered by a swastika flag, was placed on a gun carriage drawn by six black horses. Preceded by a company of Waffen SS and followed by a retinue of mourners from the Nazi party and the high command, the body was conveyed at a slow march to the Invaliden cemetery, where it was buried with full military honours near the Scharnhorst memorial amongst the heroes of Germanys previous wars.

This spectacle was carefully stage-managed by a commission under the Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels, to portray Heydrich as the ideal Nazi, a heroic martyr whose qualities offered an example to all Germans. The cult of Heydrich was particularly strong in the SS, where it was deliberately encouraged by Himmler. A bronze death-mask was sent to the SS officer school at Bad Tlz with a photo album of the funeral and a copy of Himmlers eulogy to inspire the cadets. As one of them later recalled, Heydrich was venerated at Bad Tlz as a blond god... almost a mystic figure. There was hardly a room in the cadet school without his picture. A similar death-mask adorned Himmlers office and the Reichsfhrer SS spent weeks selecting a suitable design for Heydrichs gravestone. The windy rhetoric in the Mosaic Hall and the splendour of the state funeral, however, concealed the fact that few in the Third Reich really mourned Heydrichs passing. Even Himmler was ambiguous about the removal of a figure who had started as a protg but was developing into a threat. Secret policemen always know too much for the comfort of their colleagues and Heydrich was no exception: The decisive thing for him was always to know more than others, to know everything about everyone, whether it touched on the political, professional, or most intimate personal aspects of their lives... He liked to remain in the background and pull strings. In life his presence was enough to throw a chill into any gathering. It was rumoured that his personal safe contained bulging dossiers on his fellow Nazis whose disclosure could prove embarrassing. When Heydrich died Himmlers first act was to seize the key to this blackmailers hoard, which he appropriated for his own exclusive use.