The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich rose through the ranks from relative obscurity in the 1920s to the pinnacle of power in the Third Reich by 1936. He was considered the most dangerous man in Nazi Germany after Hitler himself. He was Himmler's deputy, yet even Himmler feared him. He operated in secret, quietly devoting his time to organising the Holocaust. On 27 May 1942 a Czech agent, part of a team of parachutists trained by SOE, threw a bomb at a passing Mercedes Heydrich was travelling in. Eight days later he died in agony from his wounds. The assassination sent a shock wave through the Nazi leadership and provoked ferocious reprisals against Czechs and Jews, the most notorious of which was the total obliteration of Lidice and the massacre of its inhabitants. Based on original archive material and interviews with surviving members of SOE and Czech military intelligence, this story of danger and tragedy is as exciting and strange as a spy thriller.

Auteur

Before his death in 1996, Callum MacDonald was an historian at the University of Warwick. His publications include The Lost Battle: Crete, 1941, The United States, Britain and Appeasement and Korea: The War Before Vietnam, as well as numerous articles on appeasement and the origins of the Second World War.

Résumé
On 4 June 1942 one of the most powerful figures of the Nazi regime died in agony from wounds sustained during an assassination attempt in Prague. This is the story of the killing of Reinhard Heydrich, a man of extraordinary intelligence, ruthlessness and ambition who had risen from obscurity to become head of the Nazi security police and Governor of Bohemia-Moravia. Regarded by many as Hitler's most likely successor, he was feared and hated even by other high-ranking Nazi officials. Heydrich's death caused shockwaves throughout the Nazi leadership, provoking ferocious reprisals against Czechs and Jews. Those who carried out the assassination were hunted down, and, trapped like rats in the cellar of a Prague church, committed suicide rather than face the certainty of torture and execution at the hands of the SS. Based on original archive material, interviews with surviving members of the Special Operations Executive, who trained the Czech assassins in the UK, and Czech military intelligence, Callum MacDonald's book is a well-researched and gripping account of one of the most audacious assassinations of the Second World War.