Операция «Антропоид»: 75 лет спустя

Abstract

The article describes a selfless deed of young Czechoslovak officers-saboteurs who, in May 1942, carried out the elimination of one of the leaders of the Third Reich, the so-called Prague Butcher, Obergruppenführer SS R. Heydrich, the de facto head of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The author emphasizes that this was “an act of retribution” for the atrocities committed by Heydrich in the Protectorate and criticizes publicists and journalists who consider this act unwarranted, resulting in the Nazi’s brutal reprisal against the Czech population. The idea of eliminating Heydrich, the executioner, which was conceived as a landmark event demonstrating the inevitability of punishment for the atrocities committed, was born in the United Kingdom, where some officers of the Czechoslovak army had managed to flee to and where the Czechoslovak government-in-exile was established. No detailed plan was developed in London at the Special Operations Executive. But the absence of an in-depth plan (both basic and backup), assuring the success of the cause of providing weapons and preparing ways of safe escape after the assassination attempt, did not trouble the plotters. They were prepared to sacrifice themselves and go to certain death for the success of the act of retribution. Their determination, courage, a meaningful willingness to give up their lives for the sake of such a just cause, without doubt, turned these young people into heroes of the Second World War, in particular, it turned them into heroes of the Czech Republic, where there was no active militant resistance movement to the Germans.