The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich: Heroism, Terror and the Price of Resistance
Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse examine one of the most dramatic episodes of the Second World War: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi official known as the "Butcher of Prague" and one of the principal architects of the Holocaust.
In May 1942, Czech and Slovak agents trained by Britain's Special Operations Executive launched Operation Anthropoid, a daring mission to kill one of Hitler's most feared lieutenants. The attack succeeded—but at a terrible cost. The Nazi reprisals that followed destroyed villages, killed thousands, and crushed much of the Czech resistance.
Was the operation worth it? Did it advance the Allied cause, or was the human price simply too high? Antonia and Roger explore the difficult moral questions that continue to divide historians today.
Along the way they discuss:
- Who Reinhard Heydrich really was
- How he rose to become one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany
- The planning and execution of Operation Anthropoid
- The role of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE)
- The destruction of Lidice and the wider Nazi reprisals
- The fate of the assassins Josef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš
- Whether political assassination can ever be justified
- How historians assess resistance movements in occupied Europe
- The difficult question of whether the operation ultimately achieved its aims
📚 Resistance: The Underground War in Europe 1939–1945 — Halik Kochanski
📚 The Killing of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich — Callum MacDonald
📚 Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich — Robert Gerwarth
📚 HHhH (novel) — Laurent Binet
🎬 Anthropoid (2016), starring Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan
History Book Buffs is the podcast where Antonia Senior and Roger Moorhouse explore the most fascinating events in history through the books that bring them to life. Each episode combines historical debate, book recommendations and lively discussion about the people, ideas and decisions that shaped our world.
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