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The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
A “gripping” account of the killing of the high-level Nazi widely considered Hitler’s likely successor (The New York Times). On June 4, 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, they committed suicide rather than face the certainty of torture and execution at the hands of the S.S. Based on original archive material, interviews with surviving members of the Special Operations Executive who trained the Czech assassins in the United Kingdom, 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. “Aided by previously unpublished files of the British Foreign Office, English author MacDonald provides the most complete account yet of the assassination of Heydrich.” —Kirkus Reviews
- GenresWorld War IIBiography
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 6, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 14, 2018
Picked up and read very quickly whilst on a trip to Prague which is where the assassination took place . The bones of the story themselves make for an absolutely unputdownable and terrifying episode in Nazi history ; 2 young parachutists trained in England dropped into Czechoslovakia,
Staying at safe houses, then strike , wounding then killing Heydrich . The reprisals which follow are ... there is not a word to describe them they are so wide ranging and horrendous . Eventually a traitor emerges and nearly everyone who helped the parachutists is executed along with their families. The parachutists are hiding in the crypt of a church and “800” SS take 9 hours trying to get them out alive. Only when the men have run out of ammunition do they kill themselves .
It is a breathtaking story .
Unfortunately the author is very longwinded.
Staying at safe houses, then strike , wounding then killing Heydrich . The reprisals which follow are ... there is not a word to describe them they are so wide ranging and horrendous . Eventually a traitor emerges and nearly everyone who helped the parachutists is executed along with their families. The parachutists are hiding in the crypt of a church and “800” SS take 9 hours trying to get them out alive. Only when the men have run out of ammunition do they kill themselves .
It is a breathtaking story .
Unfortunately the author is very longwinded.
June 11, 2018
After a good start, little less coherent in middle. The actual assassination is described shortly interspersed by long seemingly not relevant details in text. Good read related to history but narration needs improvement.
November 2, 2019
Really good book which provides insight into the assassination of Reinhard heydrich - setting the politcal nazi climate, reinhard's character & the actual plan. The book is broken into three segments 1) The Target, 2) The Plan, 3) The Operation.
First part of the book starts with a character potrayal of Reinhard Heydrich himself, explores his early life, personal outlook, life philosophy and really characterizes the man who is considered one of the most ruthless Nazi officials. That part is my favourite as it's essentially a psychological perspective into his life and really outlines his way of thinking. By no means is the author trying to make you sympathize and justify his atrocities but more on the line of understanding how he perceived his world. It's interesting how so many of the circumstances which led him to his power of position are a result of circumstantial situations and things could have gone differently had previous things in his life worked out. It also outlays his situation and why he was stationed in Prague at the time. Essentially this part sets out the scene for the events to follow.
The second part of the book which details the plan is where the book is at its weakest in my opinion. After a very captivating and intriguing start, the pace of the book slows down and it starts to drag. At this point we are shown more about the political players. Who set the plan in motion, the role of the different alliances and how each country had its impact on the political situation. Of course, it highlights the Nazi occupation and details over Hitler's plan for Germinisation and the spread of the Aryan race. This part is really sad as it just highlights the terrible oppression that faced any race who didn't fit the description. We get a really good understanding of the different agents and players who worked together to set up the plan too. The plan is beginning to be highlighted and it is literally something out of a spy novel. Very captivating and crazy to think this actually happened. This is when the book picks up its space again.
The final part of the book is very captivating as it goes into exactly how the assassination plan unfolded. It really is remarkable to see how so many people risked their lives by taking actions which would have led them to a very painful death if caught by the Nazi. Without giving too much away from how the operation was executed, it was a very intense mission and so many times the plan could have been derailed due to various difficulties they encountered. But literally, in the end, the assassins who parachuted their way into the country and from there on executed the operation is remarkable. Also, explores the whole secret service element of nobody trusts anyone and the length you have to go to protect yourself. Also unravels the aftermath of the assassination and the terrible revenge killings which Nazis carried out to get payback. Brings into the picture the numerous war crimes the nazis carried out and to what extent they would go to in asserting they were the dominant force in Europe. The author explores also the benefits which the assassination bought and the costs, he shares his own outlook onto the topic based on the facts.
Overall, if you are looking into a good book about world war 2 about one of the most notorious nazi officials - I would recommend this book. The only thing which stops me from giving this book five stars is that there is a chunk in the middle where things slow down and it goes into excessive detail which gets tedious. Definitely a worthwhile read taking into account everything.
First part of the book starts with a character potrayal of Reinhard Heydrich himself, explores his early life, personal outlook, life philosophy and really characterizes the man who is considered one of the most ruthless Nazi officials. That part is my favourite as it's essentially a psychological perspective into his life and really outlines his way of thinking. By no means is the author trying to make you sympathize and justify his atrocities but more on the line of understanding how he perceived his world. It's interesting how so many of the circumstances which led him to his power of position are a result of circumstantial situations and things could have gone differently had previous things in his life worked out. It also outlays his situation and why he was stationed in Prague at the time. Essentially this part sets out the scene for the events to follow.
The second part of the book which details the plan is where the book is at its weakest in my opinion. After a very captivating and intriguing start, the pace of the book slows down and it starts to drag. At this point we are shown more about the political players. Who set the plan in motion, the role of the different alliances and how each country had its impact on the political situation. Of course, it highlights the Nazi occupation and details over Hitler's plan for Germinisation and the spread of the Aryan race. This part is really sad as it just highlights the terrible oppression that faced any race who didn't fit the description. We get a really good understanding of the different agents and players who worked together to set up the plan too. The plan is beginning to be highlighted and it is literally something out of a spy novel. Very captivating and crazy to think this actually happened. This is when the book picks up its space again.
The final part of the book is very captivating as it goes into exactly how the assassination plan unfolded. It really is remarkable to see how so many people risked their lives by taking actions which would have led them to a very painful death if caught by the Nazi. Without giving too much away from how the operation was executed, it was a very intense mission and so many times the plan could have been derailed due to various difficulties they encountered. But literally, in the end, the assassins who parachuted their way into the country and from there on executed the operation is remarkable. Also, explores the whole secret service element of nobody trusts anyone and the length you have to go to protect yourself. Also unravels the aftermath of the assassination and the terrible revenge killings which Nazis carried out to get payback. Brings into the picture the numerous war crimes the nazis carried out and to what extent they would go to in asserting they were the dominant force in Europe. The author explores also the benefits which the assassination bought and the costs, he shares his own outlook onto the topic based on the facts.
Overall, if you are looking into a good book about world war 2 about one of the most notorious nazi officials - I would recommend this book. The only thing which stops me from giving this book five stars is that there is a chunk in the middle where things slow down and it goes into excessive detail which gets tedious. Definitely a worthwhile read taking into account everything.
October 22, 2024
I had decided to read, 'The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich' (TAORH), because of the subject matter in my last book, 'Prague Fatale', the eighth instalment of the wonderful Bernie Gunther series by Philip Kerr.
TAORH was excellent and for the most part, it read like a gripping fictional novel and it really sucked you in from the get go, giving you a real sense of just who Reinhard Heydrich was and how he came to be such a bitter, twisted and resentment filled psychopathic mass murderer, while seemingly remaining cultured and all together level headed and highly intelligent. An enthusiastic musician, sportsman and fully qualified pilot, who despite his rank and status, as head of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo, Gestapo, Kripo, SD, Security Police) and deputy Reichsführer-SS, actually volunteered and partook in active combat duty with German bombers on flying missions, on the face of it, showing somewhat remarkable bravery, but underneath all the outward bravado, it highlights the risks he was prepared to take to satisfy his bloodlust.
The book was chock-a-block with people that featured in Prague Fatale, from the high ranking Nazis, including Czech spy and Abwehr agent, Paul Thümmel, where even his gold party badge gets a mention in both books, Heydrich's number two, the duplicitous intriguer, and perennial loser, Karl Hermann Frank, and the extremely egregious Sudetenland Gauleiter, Konrad Henlein, to name just a few, right through to the estate, just twelve miles outside Prague, which was used by Heydrich, after being confiscated from a Jewish sugar magnate in 1939, Panenské Břežany.
So, TAORH covers a lot more than just the actual assassination, giving a highly detailed background of events in the years before and after the high profile hit. Indeed, the book's only flaw in my opinion, is that it does get somewhat bogged down for a part, with the myriad of different parachute drops by Czech agents in the years prior to and even after the actual drop of the ANTHROPOID (the code name given to the assassination operation) agents, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš.
The book finishes by covering the Nazi reprisals to the assassination.
After the assassin team and the Czech home army were betrayed by fellow parachutist, Karel Čurda, whom was executed for collaboration after the war, over five thousand people were murdered by the Nazis, in reprisals, or indeed, like the actual agents, whom had been holed up in the crypt of a church, had committed suicide, to escape the inevitable torture, that would have surely came their way.
These reprisals included the entire village of Lidice, where all males over the age of fifteen, were summarily shot, the women sent to concentration camps and the children, either sent away for Germanisation, or just disappeared. The village was then burned to the ground and bulldozed into dust, wiping it off the face of the map.
For a more rounded view of the Lidice atrocity, watch the excellent 2011 Petr Nikolaev movie, ’The Butcher of Prague’, starring Karel Roden.
The pick of the bunch however, for movies about the assassination itself, are 1975’s Lewis Gilbert effort Operation Daybreak, starring, Martin Shaw, a bit dated, but nonetheless still worth a watch. Then we have, Sean Ellis’s 2016, edge of your seat thriller, ’Anthropoid’, starring, Cillian Murphy, and last but not least, there is Cédric Jimenez’s, 2017 epic, ’The Man With the Iron Heart’, starring, Jason Clarke, Jack O'Connell and Rosamund Pike, which follows Heydrich right through from his beginnings at the Naval Accadamy, to his eventual, and wholly deserving death. A play list of movies that would brighten any weekend!
These Nazi atrocities did have the desired effect for the assassination operation's chief architects, Czechoslovakian president, Edvard Beneš, although he denied any knowledge of the operation, until well after the war’s end, and the head of the Czech, State Security, František Moravec, both of whom were exiled in London for the duration of the war. It saw the hated Munich agreement ripped up and not recognised, by both Britain and the Russians and an agreement was reached, that in post war Czechoslovakia, it had the right to expel all Germans from a retained Sudetenland.
But the big moral question, ‘was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, worth the lives of over five thousand people?' Is still to be answered.
TAORH was excellent and for the most part, it read like a gripping fictional novel and it really sucked you in from the get go, giving you a real sense of just who Reinhard Heydrich was and how he came to be such a bitter, twisted and resentment filled psychopathic mass murderer, while seemingly remaining cultured and all together level headed and highly intelligent. An enthusiastic musician, sportsman and fully qualified pilot, who despite his rank and status, as head of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo, Gestapo, Kripo, SD, Security Police) and deputy Reichsführer-SS, actually volunteered and partook in active combat duty with German bombers on flying missions, on the face of it, showing somewhat remarkable bravery, but underneath all the outward bravado, it highlights the risks he was prepared to take to satisfy his bloodlust.
The book was chock-a-block with people that featured in Prague Fatale, from the high ranking Nazis, including Czech spy and Abwehr agent, Paul Thümmel, where even his gold party badge gets a mention in both books, Heydrich's number two, the duplicitous intriguer, and perennial loser, Karl Hermann Frank, and the extremely egregious Sudetenland Gauleiter, Konrad Henlein, to name just a few, right through to the estate, just twelve miles outside Prague, which was used by Heydrich, after being confiscated from a Jewish sugar magnate in 1939, Panenské Břežany.
So, TAORH covers a lot more than just the actual assassination, giving a highly detailed background of events in the years before and after the high profile hit. Indeed, the book's only flaw in my opinion, is that it does get somewhat bogged down for a part, with the myriad of different parachute drops by Czech agents in the years prior to and even after the actual drop of the ANTHROPOID (the code name given to the assassination operation) agents, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš.
The book finishes by covering the Nazi reprisals to the assassination.
After the assassin team and the Czech home army were betrayed by fellow parachutist, Karel Čurda, whom was executed for collaboration after the war, over five thousand people were murdered by the Nazis, in reprisals, or indeed, like the actual agents, whom had been holed up in the crypt of a church, had committed suicide, to escape the inevitable torture, that would have surely came their way.
These reprisals included the entire village of Lidice, where all males over the age of fifteen, were summarily shot, the women sent to concentration camps and the children, either sent away for Germanisation, or just disappeared. The village was then burned to the ground and bulldozed into dust, wiping it off the face of the map.
For a more rounded view of the Lidice atrocity, watch the excellent 2011 Petr Nikolaev movie, ’The Butcher of Prague’, starring Karel Roden.
The pick of the bunch however, for movies about the assassination itself, are 1975’s Lewis Gilbert effort Operation Daybreak, starring, Martin Shaw, a bit dated, but nonetheless still worth a watch. Then we have, Sean Ellis’s 2016, edge of your seat thriller, ’Anthropoid’, starring, Cillian Murphy, and last but not least, there is Cédric Jimenez’s, 2017 epic, ’The Man With the Iron Heart’, starring, Jason Clarke, Jack O'Connell and Rosamund Pike, which follows Heydrich right through from his beginnings at the Naval Accadamy, to his eventual, and wholly deserving death. A play list of movies that would brighten any weekend!
These Nazi atrocities did have the desired effect for the assassination operation's chief architects, Czechoslovakian president, Edvard Beneš, although he denied any knowledge of the operation, until well after the war’s end, and the head of the Czech, State Security, František Moravec, both of whom were exiled in London for the duration of the war. It saw the hated Munich agreement ripped up and not recognised, by both Britain and the Russians and an agreement was reached, that in post war Czechoslovakia, it had the right to expel all Germans from a retained Sudetenland.
But the big moral question, ‘was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, worth the lives of over five thousand people?' Is still to be answered.
July 3, 2019
Well written and thorough account of the Czechs patriots returning to killing Heydrich. And convincing. Before reading this book, I was one of the people who thought that the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on 27th May 1942-leading to him dying of wounds on 4th June 1942 as a brave and symbolic act: Yet probably hard to justify in the sense that the German retribution against the Czech people was so high, and his loss did not prevent the Holocaust.
However, the writer shows that Heydrich was certainly one of the most capable of of the Nazi organisers.When becoming the leading German commander in Bohemia and Moravia, he was a master of psychology. Rewarding the Czech workers in the armaments factories with pay increases and treats to increase production, wrecking the black market, and ruthlessly dealing with any opposition to Nazi rule. If moved to another country such as France, he might be just as successful against the Resistance. In the long term, Hedyrich despised the Czechs and was probably going to subject all those who could not be Germanised to mass deportation eastwards to forced settlement and even mass murder. The early Summer of 1942 was a tough time for the Allies, North Africa and Malta were threatened, losses in the North Atlantic shipping lanes were horrific, defeats in Asia.....yes the attack on Heydrich genuinely disturbed the Nazi elite . Seemed to be one irreversible setback
The author is also helpful in looking at the splits in the Czech opposition with Eduard Benes' government in exile in London fearing a successful pro-Soviet underground forming in Czechoslovakia.
The massacre of civilians arising from the destruction of the village of Lidice on 10th June 1942 does not take up many pages of this book, but still helpful. The writer shows that the German's callous boasting of the atrocity helped to galvanise support for the War effort amongst the Allies particular in the USA. Overall an invaluable book.
However, the writer shows that Heydrich was certainly one of the most capable of of the Nazi organisers.When becoming the leading German commander in Bohemia and Moravia, he was a master of psychology. Rewarding the Czech workers in the armaments factories with pay increases and treats to increase production, wrecking the black market, and ruthlessly dealing with any opposition to Nazi rule. If moved to another country such as France, he might be just as successful against the Resistance. In the long term, Hedyrich despised the Czechs and was probably going to subject all those who could not be Germanised to mass deportation eastwards to forced settlement and even mass murder. The early Summer of 1942 was a tough time for the Allies, North Africa and Malta were threatened, losses in the North Atlantic shipping lanes were horrific, defeats in Asia.....yes the attack on Heydrich genuinely disturbed the Nazi elite . Seemed to be one irreversible setback
The author is also helpful in looking at the splits in the Czech opposition with Eduard Benes' government in exile in London fearing a successful pro-Soviet underground forming in Czechoslovakia.
The massacre of civilians arising from the destruction of the village of Lidice on 10th June 1942 does not take up many pages of this book, but still helpful. The writer shows that the German's callous boasting of the atrocity helped to galvanise support for the War effort amongst the Allies particular in the USA. Overall an invaluable book.
June 23, 2019
Anthropoid. Great book - very well done. Tells the story of the resilience of the incredibly proud Czech nation against the horrific Nazi war machine. More specifically the dog Reinhard Heydrich.
For all those wanting to know more of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, this book is a must. Great book!!
For all those wanting to know more of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, this book is a must. Great book!!
February 22, 2020
First published before the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, this book is very well researched and is at times a thriller as much as a historian cum biography. The author does not get bogged down in rehashing much of what we know about the rise of the Third Reich but rather focuses rightly on the main characters, the Czech intelligence services and the resistance. Very smooth reading.
January 12, 2018
Fabulous book. Great historical background information. Detailed and exciting at the same time. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about WWII history!!
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews