Killing of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich

by Callum A. MacDonald

Book Overview

Recounts the assassination of the feared Reichsprotektor of Czechoslovakia by two Czech resistance fighters aided by British Secret Service and others, examining the ruthlessness and brutality for which Heydrich was known.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029195616
• ISBN13: 9780029195611
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A fine book on the the Heydrich Affair

The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich by Callum MacDonald is the best account in English of the assassination of Heydrich that I'm aware of. It presents background on Heydrich's life before he became the "Reichsprotector" of Bohemia and Moravia in late 1941. It continues with fine chapters on the development of the Czech plans to assassinate Heydrich, the assassination, and the German reprisals. For me, it communicates very well the harsh drama of these events. One matter I would like to understand better is the apparent lack of an escape plan on the part of the two parachutists who carried out the assassination. A chapter in Prague in Danger by Peter Demetz, to be published in early 2008, may provide new information on this matter. The comment of a Czech friend may be a suitable ending to this brief review: "The question as to whether the assassination was justified, given the brutal German reprisals, may never be settled. What remains is the courage of the parachutists and those who helped them, and the murderous folly of men."

Multi-layered account of a killer's killing

True war stories are not a genre I especially seek out. I read this account of the complex web of intrigue and decisions behind Nazi Heydrich's assassination because a relative of mine was actually involved in the plot. I can't say it was spellbinding since it's hard to build much suspense about a case with so well known an outcome. But this book is not just about or even, I would say, primarily about, the halting, fascinating and nearly abortive ground operation that ended the life of one of Nazi Germany's most determined mass murderers. The opening several chapters are about Heydrich's rise to power after a checkered sometimes-disgraced early career in the military. Callum MacDonald clearly has a penchant for dissecting the meticulous planning and thirst for raw power that lay behind this ascent, and the frigidly cold-blooded maneuvers rising stars of the Nazi regime used, including against each other. MacDonald then maps in detail the even more complicated political terrain navigated by Czech president in absentia Eduard Benes. Ever since the May 1942 killing of Heydrich and the predictable gory aftermath of reprisals -- including the systematic and total destruction of the Czech village of Lidice -- the wisdom a plot to kill such a high ranking Nazi and bring on excessive retaliation, has been doubted. The author depicts the rationale in terms of tragic choices Benes faced in trying to shore up the very limited and shaky international support for his government-in-exile. In a nutshell, the very existence of Czechoslovakia seemed, at that time, to be in question, as German military success against Russia led the latter to call for uprisings behind Nazi lines. From Benes' point of view, had his exiled government accomplished nothing dramatic in the war effort, Russia would have turned to the Czech communist party and thereby ensured their eventual rule in post-war Czechoslovakia. Thus sprang Operation Anthropoid, and the parachuting of assassins into occupied Eastern Europe.MacDonald has been painstaking in his research into and use of primary once top-secret files. He has then brilliantly boiled it down to just the right amount of detail to both educate and tell a good story. At the end he devotes what seems to be a bit of an afterthought to the question of whether, in sum, the assassination was worth it. I hungered for MacDonald's last word and opinion on something he spent such obvious care researching. But in the end his balanced answers and the way he weighs the complexities may have real bearing on the difficult questions the free world now faces today confronting the new century's brutes and monsters.

Eisernes Herz und eine Handgranate.

The above caption means "Iron heart and a grenade." It captures the essence of this book. SS General Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) had been called the reflection of National Socialism because he epitomized every ideological ideal that the Nazis considered revered - he was blond-haired and blue-eyed, tall, calculating, organizational and ruthless. In his lifetime, he was head of the Nazi SD (Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence branch of the elite SS), the creator of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and the Security Police (SIPO - a branch of the RSHA), the de facto governor of Nazi-annexed Bohemia-Moravia and the chairman of the Wannsee Conference, where the `Final Solution to the Jewish Question' was intimately planned. In each of these positions that he held, the outlined qualities and ideals resurfaced and certainly were put into practice. Consequently, Heydrich became one of the most hated and reviled Nazis in occupied Europe. Even within the Nazi hierarchy, he used espionage and blackmail to secure his hard-won position: many believed that he would be Adolf Hitler's eventual successor. On the morning of May 27, 1942, he was being chauffeured in an open-roofed Mercedes in a suburb of Prague, intending to reach the airport where he would fly to Berlin and meet with Hitler to discuss Nazi foreign policy. But then, at a bend in the road, he was assassinated. Hitler would call him "the man with a heart of iron," but he expired from his wounds nine days after the incident, on June 9, because shrapnel and pieces of his car got lodged in his spleen and gangrene set in. So much for iron...Callum MacDonald first wrote this book in 1989 under the title "The Killing of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich" (New York: Free Press, 1989), and it is this edition that was consulted by the reviewer. His work is the first in several years to address the full story of Heydrich's assassination, significant in itself because it was the only successful assassination of a high-ranking Nazi during the Second World War. Using the existing literature on the topic (MacDonald has cited works in English, German and Czech) as well as several primary archival sources, he vividly re-creates a full account of the whole phenomenon of Heydrich. His life is discussed in some detail, as are the details of his assassination, from its implementation, planning, involved personnel and a valuation of it, in the context of its aftermath. It is a very well written book; readers are lucky that the book has now been reissued. Stunning are MacDonald's revelations and assessment of the exiled Czech president, Eduard Benes, who remained in England during the war and sponsored the assassination. His motives certainly bear question, as he wanted the assassination of Heydrich to prove that Czechs would not blindly accept their fate at the hands of the Germans and had "contributed" to the war, even though he had inklings and knowledge of how the Nazis would wreak their revenge on Czechs

Well done!

This book is about one the lesser known, yet most dramatic events of WWII. On September 27, 1941, after more than two years of occupation on the Czech lands by fascist Germany, SS Obergruppenfuhrer and General of Police Reinhard Heidrich, one of the most feared men in the Third Reich, was appointed Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia. He came to Prague with the aim of establishing the first Nazi "protectorate" which would be solely under the jurisdiction of the SS. MacDonanald tells the story of the Czech nationalists and parachutists - Major Valcik, Major Gabcik, and Major Kubis - who were trained in Britain before being flown and dropped into Czechoslovakia to carry out the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. After their dramatic assassination of Heydrich, Hitler ordered brutal suppression and mass executions in Prague while an intense, house to house search for the assassins took place. The parachutists hid within the catacombs of a cathedral in Prague, and were killed after a dramatic and hopeless battle with the SS. (after the parachutists were betrayed by a comrade)To anyone going to Prague, I recommend that they visit the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius (the author refers to this same cathedral as Karel Boromajsky church) which is located at Resslova Street 9, Prague 2. There, you can go into the catacombs where the parachutists hid, and where the final and tragic battle took place (which has not been altered since the battle - bullet holes still in the walls, a partial tunnel where the parachutists attempted to make their way to the Prague sewers). I also recommend visiting the museum in the town of Lidice, which was destroyed in reprisal for Heydrich's assassination - all men over the age of 15 executed, all women shipped off to concentration camps, and 5 children deemed worthy of "Germanization" sent to Germany to be raised by SS families

Fantastic!

This book is undoubtedly the definitive work on Reinhard Heydrich. As can be seen from the title, it focuses on both the brutal career of this so-called "Nazi Martyr" as well as his assassination, which has been hidden behind inaccuracy ever since it occured over fifty years ago. The book sheds very informing light on Exiled Czech President Eduard Benes and his government exiled in London, who sponsored the assassination, codenamed ANTHROPOID, for the main purpose of showing post-war world powers that the Czechs had attempted to strike out against the seemingly invincible Nazis that combined brutal measures and their seemingly immortal power to Germanize Czech soil and incorporate it into the Greater German Reich. Yet, Benes seemed to be pig-headed enough to continue the operation, despite his knowledge of the brutality of Nazi reprisals, especially when it came to killing a high-ranking official of grand importance. And then there is Heydrich himself, the ideal Nordic Man, a cold, calculating manipulator that worked his way up to the top in the SS. He had created the SD, or "Sicherheitsdienst" (Intelligence Service), the RSHA, or "Reichsicherheitshauptampt" (Reich Main Security Office), and had organised the infamous Wannsee Conference, in which the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was planned to the finest detail. He was also in charge of the "Einsatzgruppen," or the Mobile Killing Units which operated in Nazi-Occupied territories in the East. In late 1941, he was appointed by Hitler to be Reichsprotektor of Bohemia-Moravia. In this he excelled and was determined in smothering the remnats of the Czech Resistance. His successes grew, and so did his reputation within the Nazi regime. During this time, two young members of the Czech Brigade, Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik, were trained for the sole purpose of killing Heydrich who had now come to be known as the "Butcher of Prague." On the morning of May 27, 1942, at a suburban corner in Prague, Heydrich was being driven by his chauffeur, Klein, in his open Mercedes to the airport where he was to fly to Berlin to meet with Hitler and discuss Nazi occupation policy, the two assassins managed to mortally wound the Nazi--by a whisker. What followed was a brutal rampage: thousands of Jews and Czechs deported, the relatives of Kubis and the ANTHROPOID team's lookout man, Josef Valcik, killed, and the destruction of the two Czech villages of Lidice and Lezaky, in which the majority of the population was killed. The three team members, along with other parachutists, fought with the SS in the Karel Boromejsky Church where they had been hiding from the Gestapo for days in a crypt beneath the church. They fought for six hours and at the last minute, all of them used their last bullets to commit suicide rather than be taken alive. A captured Czech parachutist, Seargeant Karel Curda, had been caught a while before and had led the Gestapo to discover where the assassin