71 years ago, this day…

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Hello everyone,

this is not something that has anything to do with tanks, more like with WW2 history.

71 years ago, on 18.6.1942, Czechoslovak paratroopers, trained in Great Britain, lost their lives in the Orthodox Cyril and Methodius Church in Resslova street after a firefight with Waffen SS in Prague, after assassinating the notorious cruel nazi monster, Reinhard Heydrich (operation Anthropoid). This act firmly formally estabilished Czechoslovakia as one of the allied countries, fighting against nazi oppression.

If you are interested, you can read more about the operation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Reinhard_Heydrich

It might not be the most important day in WW2 history, but I do believe these people, who fought for their country, should never be forgotten.

PS: Yea, I screwed the dates first. That’s what you get for trusting your friends and not doublechecking stuff :) Either way, still good to remember those people I think.

62 thoughts on “71 years ago, this day…”

  1. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad that my country never took any active part in WWII.

    Either way, I’m glad there were brave people willing to do what was necessary.

    07

    • You should be happy. The aftermath of this operation was mass murder of civilian alleged resistance sympathizers by good germans from ss. Immediately after assassination attempt all male inhabitants of village Lidice older than 16 were executed by ss, all womens was sent to concentration camps and all kids was redistributed between german families. Overall more than 1 thousand males and around 200 womens were executed by good peace loving germans after assassination of one of their war-criminals.

    • You should be happy you didn’t take part in war. Wars do no good, they only destroy.

      • Be that as it may, since the Nazis started it anyway a fair bit of fighting was needed to put them down.

  2. that’s a nice story (not nice as in death is nice) I think if I get enough info on the battle I might make a 1/35 diorama on the thing.

    thanks for the idea.

  4. To this day I still remember the comic strip about this, Zamach (Assassination, original title: Atentát, as far as I can tell) by Saudek brothers, reprinted in Polish magazine named Relax, back in 1976. Weird, but brilliant mix of camp and pathos.

    Pity that not much else by Saudek has been published here in Poland.

  5. The heroes shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s also sad that the Polish forces fighting with the Allied forces didn’t get to see their freedom untill the fall of the Berlin wall. Alot of them didn’t even get their retirement and had to work in coal mines or factories.

  6. Czech and slovaks were wiser than poles. Our brave suicidal fight was punished with total destruction of danzig/gdansk and warsaw, and mass civil murders, making our country exhausted while you decided to fight when it can make significant difference, and does not put civil people in danger. We uselessly lost Great amount of our cultural heritage – it is not worth to exchange for glory

    • Are you stupid or just indoctrinated by post-communist? Almost every nation in German-occupatied Europe fought against German – for example French had uprising in same time as we, but they won with help of western allies. In our case Soviets count on Polish uprising against German to not to help us and destroy remmants of Polish Underground State. Tragedy of Warsaw was made by the both occupants – Germans and Russians. What HQ of Home Amry should do in August 1944? Wait for Soviet “freedom” or fight until liberation or loose? And last but not least – do you know when German done first war mass murders? Already in September 1st 1939. Plan of Third Reich was simple: mass genocide of Poles, so we had two choices – let them kill us all or fight with them. What would you do?
      Czechs and Slovaks weren’t wiser – they just weren’t main target of Hitler and Stalin.

      PS. When Gdańsk was total destructed? In 1939 during fight of Westerplatte and Post Office or during nazi-soviet fight in 1945?

  7. Kudos to the war heroes!

    Never heard of this event, but now I will be aware.

    Thanks SS!

    • For those not aware of the short form of Silentstalker, this must have felt horribly wrong… I think, under circumstances like this, you should clarify which SS you thank…

  8. Almost at the same time in former Yugoslavia ended Battle of Sutjeska where 20k partizans had a fight with 120k Germans and other Nazi supporters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Black). We had many battles like that, liberated territories and cities during whole war, many atrocities over civilians and no one in the world knows that, no one care, no one remember.

    • Communist Partizans weren’t all nice and dandy, liberating territories and cities(lol at that, it was only one city and small region around it) and stuff, their actions caused mass executions(no it wasn’t the other way around, Nazis declared that for every German soldier killed there will be 50 civilians shot)…

      Anyway whole ex Yugoslavia knows about the heroic deeds and immeasurable sufferings of young and brave Partizans etc etc etc(insert more communist propaganda) cause victors write history(same reason why remnants of Kingdom’s army or widely known as Chetniks are known today as Nazi collaborationists and war criminals).

      • According to you, if I declare that I will kill you if you reply to this comment it would be legitimate action in the eyes of the law?

        Chetniks are known as Nazi collaborators because there are German documents that speak of their mutual cooperation.

    • I seem to recall there being all manner of funny ethnic cleansing going on regardless of *what* the Commie partisans did, so eh. Also THEY were not the ones summarily massacring civilians as collective retribution for guerilla attacks – which was a pretty SOP German occupation policy BTW, as it was also done eg. in France (where the systematic extinction of most of the populace was NOT in the agenda).

      Also by all accounts the Chetniks were a load of murdering assholes so cry me a river, apologist.

  10. Those who studied Heydrich would know just how important his death was. He was the most efficient National Socialist, and the poster boy of the “Aryan”. This drive towards perfect, which hindered by his arrogance, made him superhumanly clever to seduce most of the Czech into working for the regime. In fact, his depth of “scholarly” research allowed him to manipulate history to portray a Czech people who would be eternally linked to Germany, using ties going back to the Holy Roman Empire.

    His death was a great blow to National Socialism, and that is certainly significant in the war.

    • Yah Heydrich was and exceptional person and was a real expert at getting things done. I find it hard to say if killing Heydrich, due to the repercussions, was a good thing at the time or not. Hitler had some major butt hurt over the incident and Hitler then made his butt hurt Czechoslovakia’s butt hurt. I know that with Heydrich Czechoslovakia was not nearly in as bad a position as other country’s under German occupation, at the time, but I know it was anything but enjoyable due to all of the changes and suppression of culture.

      For positives it distracted a large chunk of the German forces. It caused the Germans to armour plate a series (about 50 in total iirc) 540k special saloons. It caused an increase in occupation forces. The only negative is that it sped up the long term plan for butt hurt in the country that Heydrich had already planned out. I suppose getting rid of the smart people makes sense as it usually means that someone less capable will take his place.

      ==Wiki 540k cars==
      Special Saloons
      On top of the normal and roadster cars, 12 special cars were developed on an extended chassis length with a 3,880 mm (153 in) wheelbase. All of these cars were developed for the Nazi hierarchy, as six seater convertible saloons. To allow for armour plate, these cars had developed De Dion rear suspension. Due to their higher weight, their maximum speed was 140 km/h (87 mph).

      After the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich in Prague at the end of May 1942, the Reich Chancellery would only use armoured cars for ministers and leaders of friendly powers. Beside 20 large Mercedes-Benz 770s, in 1942 they ordered an additional 20 540Ks developed as two door armoured saloons. These were delivered during 1942 and 1943. A further order for 17 armored saloons was placed in late 1943, and these were delivered in April 1944. One of these cars was given as a gift from Adolf Hitler to Ante Pavelić, leader of the Independent State of Croatia. After the war this car was captured and used first by Ivan Krajacic, and then by Josip Broz Tito.
      == end wiki 540k==

      • History is writen by the victors. Therefore it is in some sense political, and never fully objective.

        I do not mean the Nazi’s were good guys, but there is a lot said about the atrocities of the Nazi’s and those of the allied powers are rarely ever mentioned.

        Perhaps something to think about……

        • Such as? And the Soviets don’t count btw, given that under Stalin the whole state had regressed into the 1500s as far as ethics went.

        • The Allies committed war crimes. The nazis committed crimes so horrible that a whole new category of crimes had to be created: Crimes Against Humanity. There’s a good reason why those are talked about so much, and it’s because they are literally some of the cruelest acts in history. There is no secret Allied conspiracy.

          • Such as:

            - Japanese people who had lived for many generations in the US were interned (same for Germans in Englans).
            - Racism whas abundent against them (and against Jews). (Henry Ford got a medal from Hitler who based his boos loosely and to some extent on Ford’s The international jew.)
            - Firebombing was undertaken on Japanese and German cities. Much more effective than the German “total war”.
            - These Targets where often selected to saw fear, not for their military importance.
            - The atomic bomb, made to deter Germany from using it (they didn’t even make it). But used against a different nation that did not even have something that came close to that technology.

            I do not say the allies committed genocide (because I think and assume they did not). But I do say that the too did many horrible things we nowadays rarely hear about.

            In time of war ethics are often forgotten or used in the wrong way. Often it is a utilism with a different value for someone elses life than your own. This both parties are guilty of!

            It is the price of propaganda, seeing your opponent as less of a human then yourself….

          • Racist prejudice wasn’t a war crime the last I checked; it was the norm of the day if you didn’t happen to know. And the Allies took it exactly as far as rather habitable and well-run internement camps whereas the Axis conversely indulged in systematic genocide…

            Oh, and didja know that a Nisei volunteer unit was just about the single most decorated US combat formation of the war?

            The Allied “bomber barons” were stuck trying to prove correct the rather optimistic (or pessimistic, depending on how you look at it) interwar theories about strategic bombing; this led them down many a terribly unproductive rabbit hole, most notably a near obsession with razing the enemy cities. They tended not be very cooperative about suggestions concerning “changing tack” or putting their terribly expensive airfleets into other uses, such as ground support missions and whatnot.
            So they wasted an awful lot of both bomber-crew (whose casualty rates rivaled those of combat infantry) an enemy civilian lives alike in largely pointless terror bombings that really didn’t achieve much beyond wrecking cities.
            So?
            Bombing raids on civilian targets were nothing new, they’d been pioneered already in the Great War; the strategy of trying to undermine your enemy’s position by targeting his civilian subjects is FAR older. The Axis merrily did it to the best of their ability too, they merely lacked the requisite airfleets (but went a fair ways to trying to come up with creative substitutes, such as now early cruise and ballistic missiles to make up for it).
            Also by no period law a war crime.

            As for nukes, meh. The only reason the Germans didn’t earn the dubious honor of having the things field-tested on them was simply that they collapsed before they were operational. As the Japanese were being delusionally obstinate in the peace-feeler negotiations (not to mention having their country de facto governed by a batshit insane military junta with a major death fetish and a most disturbing willingness to see the whole nation perish rather than surrender) they became the obvious practice target – didn’t hurt that the bombs also HAD their desired effect, namely that of convincing most halfway sane people in the regime of further resistance being a futile waste of lives.
            Didja know there was nevertheless a rather half-assed but symptomatic coup attempt against Hirohito after he’d decided enough was enough and it was time to hoist the white flag?
            If anything the nukes *saved* lives by bringing Japan to heel without further fighting; even the moat conservative of the Allied casualty projections (not to speak of collateral damage, doubly so given the quite serious though probaly not very realistic Japanese plans to mobilise the whole nation to fight to the last man, woman and child) for Operation Olympic – the amphibious invasion of the Home Isles – were pretty hair-raising. And IIRC there were rather serious suggestions to liberally employ poison gases to help overcome the Japanese defenses…

          • Agree with much what you say.

            But I do think it is hard to say that a party in war is the good party. In war there are nog good parties, no winners and most of the time (as in WW2) no ethical parties.

            As of genocide, yes probably one of the worst things that happened during WW2, and one of the worst things to ever happen.

            But, Germans were not the only ones to commit genocide ever. Therefore I think it is not fair to call Nazi’s devils and forget about many other examples of genocide in history very easily.

            Not saying it wasn’t terrible. Just saying is happened more and those other people are to be regarded as equal terrible as the Nazi’s just as their actions.

            That’s all…

    • Hmm… they might have left some surgical instruments in your head during your last brain surgery, and its not doing you good. You should probably check it out.

  13. My home town has a monument to those brave lads as they were trained here for the Operation. And where I work has a square called Lidice Place. RIP brave souls.

  14. “This act firmly formally estabilished Czechoslovakia as one of the allied countries, fighting against nazi oppression.” –

    - that’s a little bit too rich,
    considering that through the whole war Czechoslovakia was producing weapons and supporting military effort of the IIIrd Reich’s without ever peeping a squeak.

    Czechoslovaks were sheepishly working in their factories, supplying Wehrmacht with guns and armour – so that even more Germans had their hands untied and could go to the frontline to wage their criminal war.

    so much for you “resistance”

    • “This act firmly formally estabilished Czechoslovakia as one of the allied countries, fighting against nazi oppression.”
      this is not a personal opinion, but a historic fact; without this action and the following events Czechoslovakia might very well have disappeared from the map, as the allies would possibly not have seen it as a independent nation anymore.

      don´t try to read something into that and get upset over nothing…

      Been in the crypt last summer when I visited Prague, very impressing and informative little exposition there – otherwise check Wikipedia.

  15. Alos to remember that the 18 June is also famous for another reason: the 18 June 1940 corresponds to the origin of the French Resistance against the German occupation. To be exact it corresponds to a (a posteriori) famous speech of Charles De Gaulle on the BBC.

  16. In Serbia, we were even more retarded. Some retards have killed a dozen of German soldiers which were of no importance to or for anything. Retribution was cruel, thousands were shot in a massive action in town of Kragujevac. Even school children were executed.

    A word about Pollacks, as much as I know, Pollacks were much smarter and much much more useful during the WWII. Polish pilots were in UK fighting nazis they were NOT eating shit like people of former Yugoslavia did :(

    • That was possible because of the Polish gold reserve which was transported to UK. That funded the resistance movement.

    • If people like you had their way in 1941, Yugoslavia would have been remembered as an Axis country. Luckily those “retards” didn’t let it happen, and due to them, your name today is Zoran and not Fritz. I guess that makes you sad though…

      • SO you and your filthy communist likes had their way, and that way resulted in over 1 million lives lost in Yugoslavia, and the worst of all-communist dominance and dictatorship of an Croatian machinist that fought for Austria-Hungary against the same people he led 30 years after 1st WW.

        Your comment is full of typical communist propaganda( the part with names is funny and very pathetic, cause his name would still be Zoran cause Germany lost the war, therefore your comment is full red idiotic).

      • “Worst” my ass. Yugoslavia had a reputation as one of the more palatable Communist Block states (largely going its own way from the Soviet-dominated mainstream didn’t hurt ofc), all the more so compared to patent shitholes in the enighbourhood like Romania or, God forbid, *Albania*.

  18. Any remember the Sino-Japanese war? 1937 – 1946, it was arguably the most violent conflict of WW2 where the highest death toll happened.

    • You mean besides everyone who’s actually read proper WW2 history? Thing is it’s part of the World War largely by coincidence and to a degree can be argued to be a facet of the long-running Chinese civil war (invading countries busy fighting themselves has a very long and distinguished pedigree). Doesn’t really help that by that time the Kuomintang were only marginally less tyrannical assholes than the Japanese as far as a lot of the common Chinese were concerned…

      • Still doesn’t give the Japanese any just cause to invade China to “liberate” them from KMT with rape, torture and mass genocide.

  20. Il y a 73 ans, le 18/06/1940, le général Charles de Gaulle, avec la BBC de Grande-Bretagne, il appelle à ne pas cesser le combat contre l’Allemagne nazie après capitulation de la France du maréchal Pétain.

    • Given that Heydrich was pretty much the German Beria, cry me a river. Apologist tears are DELICIOUS.

  22. Of course not tank related but something like this once in a while is nice. Thanks.

    • That rumor was never substantiated you know. Heydrich himself had, unsurprisingly perhaps, people looking into the matter.

  25. Another interesting part of this event is that bishop of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Orthodox Cathedral, Matěj Pavlík allowed the paratroopers to stay in his church. When they were found he realized that his entire congregation may be executed for helping the Czech patriots. Not wanting to put such a burden on his followers so he wrote a letter directly to Hitler himself taking all the blame. He and his lay clergymen were taken to Kobylisy Shooting Range and executed. For his actions to help shelter the paratroopers and giving his life to protect his congregation he was made a saint of the Serbian Orthodox church in 1987.

  26. SS i think this article is nice and helps people remember great deeds but i don’t think it was a smart move…just look at all these comments. Some people are still indoctrinated…

    • Looking at SOME of these comments it seems more like “some people are still Nazi and butthurt Poster Boy got whacked”.

      Two can play this game you know.