An Agonizing Death
An off-duty policeman and a local woman came to Heydrich’s aid and stopped a passing baker’s van which was used to transport the injured Nazi to Bulovka Hospital. The doctors found that he had a ruptured diaphragm, and shrapnel fragments and horsehair from the vehicle’s upholstery were lodged in his spleen. It appeared as if the emergency surgery performed on Heydrich was successful and from May 29 onwards; he was placed under the care of SS physicians.
Heydrich seemed to be improving, but on June 3, he collapsed suddenly while eating his lunch and went into shock. He spent the rest of his brief life in a coma and died at approximately 4:30 am on June 4. The cause of death was officially septicemia, but there are several alternative theories. One suggests that the horsehair in his body caused a systemic infection while another theory says he died from a pulmonary embolism. Whatever killed him, the most important thing was that Operation Anthropoid was a success after all. Unfortunately, the aftermath was a brutal and cruel as Heydrich himself.
Nazi Reprisals
The state funeral of Heydrich on June 9 was one of the largest and more ostentatious in the history of the Third Reich. Tens of thousands of Czech and German citizens had filed past his coffin in Prague Castle over the previous couple of days to pay their respects; many of these people were coerced into doing so. The Nazis commemorated the first anniversary of Heydrich’s death by issuing a stamp with his death mask on it.
Hitler and Himmler gave the eulogies at the funeral which was attended by a litany of high ranking Nazi officials. The British press sneered at the entire process and referred to it as “a gangster funeral in the pompous Chicago style.” As soon as Heydrich was in the ground, the Nazis began their reprisals, and thousands of innocent people would suffer the consequences.
None more so than the inhabitants of the small village of Lidice which was wiped off the face of the Earth. Every man between the ages of 14 and 84 were executed, and every house was burned with the ruins blown up or bulldozed into the ground. The Nazis announced that they would take drastic measures against all Czechs if the assassins were not caught by June 18.
On June 16, a man named Karel Curda volunteered information on the location of people who provided safe houses – which led the Nazis in the right direction. Eventually, the Gestapo tortured a teenage boy named Vlastimil into betraying the location of Kubis and Gabcik. On June 18, 800 SS men surrounded the Orthodox Church of St Cyril and Methodius in Prague. After a two-hour gun battle, Kubis was captured but fell unconscious and died from his wounds. Gabcik and three parachutists were hiding in the catacombs and committed suicide after the SS failed to take them alive during a four-hour attack.
Despite the death of the assassins, the Nazi atrocities continued as hundreds of resistance members and those who provided safe houses were executed over the next few weeks. After the death of Heydrich, the Allies dissolved the Munich Agreement. The UK and France agreed that once the Nazis were defeated, the annexed territory would be returned to Czechoslovakia. Incidentally, Karel Curda was hanged for high treason in 1947 after a failed suicide attempt.