Butcher of Prague: The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's Protégé

‘An absorbing account of the assassination and terrible events that followed.’ — Peter Masters, Australian Defence Magazine

The man even the Nazis feared.

Reinhard Heydrich was one of the most powerful and ruthless figures in Nazi Germany. A ruthless architect of the Holocaust and Hitler’s protégé, he ruled occupied Czechoslovakia with such brutality that he became known as the Butcher of Prague.

In 1941, a daring plan was set in motion to kill him.

Trained in Britain and parachuted into occupied territory, Czechoslovak agents Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabcík were given an extraordinary mission: strike at the heart of the Third Reich and assassinate Heydrich on the streets of Prague. On 27 May 1942, they made their move. Eight days later, Heydrich was dead.

Hitler’s response was merciless. As the Nazis unleashed a campaign of terror and retaliation across Czechoslovakia, entire communities were destroyed and thousands were arrested, deported or killed. Meanwhile, the Gestapo closed in on the men behind Operation Anthropoid. Betrayed and surrounded, the surviving resistance fighters made their final stand against overwhelming German forces inside a Prague church.

From the planning of Operation Anthropoid to its violent aftermath, The Butcher of Prague reconstructs the mission, the manhunt and the reprisals of one of the Second World War’s most audacious resistance operations.

‘One of the Second World War’s boldest resistance operations.’