Operation anthropoid

Czech soldier who killed Reinhard Heydrich

This article is about the Czechoslovakian resistance fighter. For the politician, see Ján Kubiš.

Jan Kubiš (24 June – 18 June ) was a Czech soldier, one of a team of Czechoslovak British-trained paratroopers sent to eliminate acting Reichsprotektor (Realm-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia, SS-ObergruppenführerReinhard Heydrich, in as part of Operation Anthropoid.^[1] During the assassination attempt, Kubiš threw a makeshiftgrenade that mortally wounded Heydrich.

Biography

Jan Kubiš was born in in Dolní Vilémovice, Moravia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Czech Republic).

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Gabcik kubis heydrich biography photos

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Jan was a Boy Scout.^[3][4]

Jan Kubiš, having previously been an active member of Orel, started his military career as a Czechoslovak army conscript on 1 November by 31st Infantry Regiment "Arco" in Jihlava. After passing petty officer course and promotion to corporal, Kubiš served some time in Znojmo before being transferred to 34th infantry regiment "Marksman Jan Čapek" in Opava, where he served at guard battalion stationed in Jakartovice.

Here, Kubiš reached promotion to platoon sergeant.

During the Czechoslovak mobilisation of , Kubiš served as deputy commander of a platoon in Czechoslovak border fortifications in the Opava area. Following the Munich Agreement and demobilisation, Kubiš was discharged from army on 19 October and returned to his civilian life, working at a brick factory.

At the eve of World War II, on 16 June , Kubiš fled Czechoslovakia and joined a forming Czechoslovak unit in Kraków, Poland. Soon he was transferred to Algiers, where he entered the French Foreign Legion. He fought in France during the early stage of World War II and received his Croix de Guerre there.

Gabcik kubis heydrich biography book: But he died in Prague's Bulovka hospital eight days later, reportedly from septicaemia from the shrapnel, or possibly fragments of upholstery. For 3 weeks following the assassination, the parachutists were kept hidden in the crypt of The Church of Saint Cyril and Methodius , as Nazi forces lead a zealous manhunt to track them down. On June 10 th , all men living in the village of Lidice were shot. For the assumption of a specifically chemical poisoning from the explosive charge there is not the slightest basis.

A month after the German victory in the Battle of France, Kubiš fled to Great Britain, where he received training as a paratrooper. The Free Czechoslovaks, as he and other self-exiled Czechoslovaks were called, were stationed at Cholmondeley Castle near Malpas in Cheshire. He and his best friend, Jozef Gabčík, both befriended the Ellison family, from Ightfield, Shropshire, whom they met while in Whitchurch, Shropshire.

In , Kubiš was dropped into Czechoslovakia as part of Operation Anthropoid, where he died following the successful assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. His remains were buried secretly in a mass grave at the Ďáblice cemetery in Prague. Since this was unknown after World War II, Karel Čurda, the member of their squad who betrayed them to the Nazis, was coincidentally also buried at the cemetery.

However, in mass graves were excavated and a memorial site with symbolic gravestones was established instead.^[5] In , a memorial was built at the place of the attack on Heydrich.

The elimination of Heydrich in Prague

Main article: Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

Jozef Gabčík 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 ForceHalifax of No.

Squadron into Czechoslovakia at 10&#;pm on 28 December In Prague, they contacted several families and anti-Nazi organisations who helped them during the preparations for the assassination.

On 27 May , Heydrich had planned to meet Hitler in Berlin. German documents suggest that Hitler intended to transfer Heydrich to German occupied France, where the French resistance was gaining ground.

Heydrich would have to pass a section where the Dresden-Prague road merged with a road to the Troja Bridge. The junction, in the Prague suburb of Libeň, was well-suited for the attack because motorists have to slow for a hairpin bend. At &#;am, Heydrich proceeded on his daily commute from his home in Panenské Břežany to Prague Castle.

Gabčík and Kubiš waited at the tram stop on the curve near Bulovka Hospital in Prague 8-Libeň. As Heydrich's open-topped Mercedes-Benz arrived, Gabčík tried to shoot Heydrich, but his Sten gun jammed. Heydrich ordered his driver, SS-Oberscharführer Klein, to stop the car. As the car braked in front of him, Kubiš threw a modified anti-tank grenade^[8] (concealed in a briefcase) at the vehicle; he misjudged his throw.

Instead of landing inside the car, it landed against the rear wheel. Nonetheless, the bomb severely wounded Heydrich when it detonated, its fragments ripping through the right rear fender and embedding shrapnel from the upholstery of the car into Heydrich, causing serious injuries to his left side, with major damage to his diaphragm, spleen and lung, as well as a fractured rib.

Gabcik kubis heydrich biography Ludwig Stumpfegger also joined Gebhardt and Sauerbruch. Men of importance like Heydrich should know that they are being eternally stalked like game, and that there are any number of people just waiting for the chance to kill them. Czechoslovakia United Kingdom. The breakup of the Czechoslovak Republic and the subsequent emergence on 14 March of the clero-fascist and anti-Czech Slovak State he did not accept — when German Wehrmacht took over the military depot he sabotaged it.

Kubiš received a minor wound to his face from the shrapnel. As Kubiš staggered against the railings, Klein leapt out of the shattered limousine with a drawn pistol; Kubiš recovered and jumped on his bicycle and pedaled away, scattering passengers spilling from the tram, by firing in the air with his Colt M pistol. Klein tried to shoot at him but dazed by the explosion, pressed the magazine release catch and the gun jammed.^[11] Heydrich died of his injuries on 4 June.

Attempted capture of the parachutists

Kubiš and his group were found on 18 June in the Church of St Cyril and St Methodius in Resslova Street in Prague.

In a bloody battle that lasted for six hours, Kubiš was seriously wounded by a grenade and was found unconscious.

Gabcik kubis heydrich biography death Blood poisoning would set in. Main article: Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The surgical treatment of all these injuries had to take into account that these wounds were contaminated with simultaneously introduced germs, and therefore it was decided to conduct the expected inflammatory build-up of exudation to the outside. Memorial to the children of Lidice.

He died of his wounds shortly after arrival at the hospital. Heinz Pannwitz, the German detective charged with capturing at least one of the perpetrators alive, later stated:

He had tried to use poison on himself but apparently lost consciousness before he could do so. Although he was immediately transferred to the hospital none of the doctors’ attempts to keep him alive succeeded.

He died within twenty minutes.^[13]

The other parachutists committed suicide to avoid capture after an additional four-hour battle with the SS.^[14]

In revenge, the Nazis murdered 24 family members and close relatives of Jan Kubiš in the concentration camp, Mauthausen: his father, both full and half-siblings, including their wives and husbands, cousins, aunts and uncles.^[15]

Recognition

Shortly after his successful mission, Kubiš (as well as Gabčík) was promoted to the rank of second lieutenantin memoriam.

After the liberation of Czechoslovakia he was further promoted to the rank of staff captainin memoriam. During the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Heydrich in , Kubiš was again promoted in memoriam, to the rank of colonel.^{[16][17][18][19]}

Apart from the Czechoslovak Military Cross and Croix de Guerre (both he received in ), Kubiš was posthumously decorated with the Commemorative Medal of the Czechoslovak Army, F, GB (), another two Czechoslovak Military Crosses (, ), King's Commendation for Brave Conduct (), Czechoslovak Military Order for Liberty (), Military Order of the White Lion "For Victory" 1st Class (), Order of Milan Rastislav Štefánik () and Cross of Defence of the Minister of Defence of the Czech Republic ().^[16][17][18]

There are streets named after Jan Kubiš in the cities of Prague (close to the Operation Anthropoid Memorial), Pardubice, Tábor, Třebíč and other places.^[20][21] In (th anniversary of Kubiš's birth) a small memorial and museum was open in the house where Jan Kubiš was born.

Since a National memorial and museum dedicated to all heroes related to the assassination of Heydrich is open in the crypt of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Prague.^[22][23]

Coinciding with the release of the film Anthropoid, campaigners called for Kubiš's and Gabčík's bodies to be identified and exhumed from the mass-grave at the Ďáblice Cemetery, Prague, and to be given a dignified burial fitting "the heroes of anti-Nazi resistance".^[24][25]

A memorial stone for Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík can be found in the grounds of St John the Baptist Church in Ightfield (ref W9VR+FJ Whitchurch) on Google Maps.

Kubiš in film and fiction

Kubiš is portrayed by:

See also

References

• MacDonald, Callum () [].

  The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich: The SS 'Butcher of Prague'. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN&#;.

Bibliography

External links