The plaque reads:
City of
Westminster
1940 - 1945
This
building housed the
Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile
Military
Intelligence Service
Operation Anthropoid
was planned
here in October 1941, which led
to the assassination of the
Nazi
leader Reinhard Heydrich in
Prague on 27 May 1942
Embassies of the
Czech and the Slovak Republics
Free Czechoslovak Air Force Association :
Jan Kaplan Archive
Wikipedia tells us of Operation Anthropoid:
"Operation Anthropoid was the code
name for the assassination attempt on SS-Obergruppenführer and General der
Polizei Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Germany acting Reichsprotektor of the
Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The operation was carried out in Prague on
27 May 1942 after having been prepared by the British Special Operations
Executive with the approval of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Although
only wounded in the attack, Heydrich died of his injuries on 4 June 1942. His
death led to a wave of merciless reprisals by German troops, including the
destruction of villages and the killing of civilians.
Heydrich, who was head of all
security agencies of the Nazi State, had been a key player in the rise of Adolf
Hitler. As a Nazi potentate, he was given overall charge of the Final Solution
and the Holocaust of the Jews in Europe. Despite the risks, the primary purpose
of Anthropoid, from the Czech perspective, was to confer legitimacy on Edvard
Beneš's government-in-exile in London.
The operation was given the
codename "Anthropoid". With the British Special Operations Executive (SOE),
preparation began on 20 October 1941. Warrant Officer Jozef Gabcík and Staff
Sergeant Karel Svoboda were chosen to carry out the operation on 28 October 1941
(Czechoslovakia's Independence Day). Svoboda was replaced with Jan Kubiš after a
head injury during training, causing delays in the mission, as Kubiš had not
completed training nor had the necessary false documents been prepared for
him.
Jozef Gabcík and Jan Kubiš were
airlifted along with seven soldiers from Czechoslovakia’s army-in-exile in the
United Kingdom and two other groups named Silver A and Silver B (who had
different missions) by a Royal Air Force Halifax of No. 138 Squadron into
Czechoslovakia at 10 pm on 28 December 1941. Gabcík and Kubiš landed near
Nehvizdy east of Prague; although the plan was to land near Pilsen, the pilots
had problems with orientation. The soldiers then moved to Pilsen to contact
their allies, and from there on to Prague, where the attack was
planned.
In Prague, they contacted several
families and anti-Nazi organisations who helped them during the preparations for
the targeted kill. Gabcík and Kubiš initially planned to kill Heydrich on a
train, but after examination of the logistics, they realised that this was not
possible. The second plan was to kill him on the road in the forest on the way
from Heydrich’s seat to Prague. They planned to pull a cable across the road
that would stop Heydrich’s car but, after waiting several hours, their
commander, Lt. Adolf Opálka (from the group Out Distance), came to bring them
back to Prague. The third plan was to kill Heydrich in Prague.
On 27 May 1942, at 10:30, Heydrich
proceeded on his daily commute from his home in Panenské Brežany to Prague
Castle. Gabcík and Kubiš waited at the tram stop at a tight curve near Bulovka
Hospital in Prague 8-Liben. The spot was chosen because the curve would force
the car to slow down. Valcik was positioned about 100 metres north of Gabcík and
Kubiš as lookout for the approaching car. As Heydrich’s open-topped Mercedes 320
Convertible B reached the curve, Gabcík stepped in front of the vehicle, trying
to open fire, but his Sten submachine gun jammed. Heydrich ordered his driver,
SS-Oberscharführer Klein, to stop the car. When Heydrich stood up to try to
shoot Gabcík, Kubiš threw a modified anti-tank grenade at the vehicle, and its
fragments ripped through the car’s right-rear bumper, embedding shrapnel and
fibres from the upholstery into Heydrich’s body, even though the grenade failed
to enter the car. Kubiš was also injured by the shrapnel. Heydrich, apparently
unaware of his shrapnel injuries, got out of the car, returned fire and tried to
chase Gabcík but soon collapsed. Klein returned from his abortive attempt to
chase Kubiš, and Heydrich ordered him to chase Gabcík. Gabcík shot Klein twice
(using his revolver) and wounded him. The soldiers were initially convinced that
the attack had failed.
Heydrich was rushed to Bulovka
Hospital, 250 metres away, where he was operated on by Professor Hollbaum, a
Silesian German who was chairman of surgery at Charles University in Prague,
assisted by Dr. W. Dick, the Sudeten German chief of surgery at the hospital.
The surgeons reinflated the collapsed left lung, removed the tip of the
fractured eleventh rib, sutured the torn diaphragm, inserted several catheters
and removed the spleen, which contained a grenade fragment and upholstery
material. The surgery lasted an hour and went uneventfully. Heydrich’s direct
superior, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, sent his personal physician, Karl
Gebhardt, who arrived that evening. After 29 May, Heydrich was entirely in the
care of SS physicians. Postoperative care included administration of large
amounts of morphine. There are contradictory accounts concerning whether
sulfanilamides were given, but Gebhardt testified at his 1947 war crimes trial
that they were not.[13] The patient developed a high fever of 38–39 °C
(100.4–102.2 ºF) and wound drainage. After seven days, his condition appeared to
be improving when, while sitting up eating a noon meal, he collapsed and went
into shock, dying the next morning. Himmler’s physicians officially described
the cause of death as septicemia, meaning infection of the bloodstream. One of
the theories was that some of the horsehair used in the upholstery of Heydrich’s
car was forced into his body by the blast of the grenade, causing a systemic
infection. It has also been suggested that he died of a cerebral or pulmonary
embolism.