The Brutal Reprisal After the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich скачать в хорошем качестве

The Brutal Reprisal After the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

The Brutal Reprisal After the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich On May 27, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich—one of the most feared figures of the Nazi regime and architect of the Final Solution—was severely wounded in Prague by Czech resistance fighters. Eight days later, he died from his injuries, triggering an unprecedented wave of violence. Hitler demanded immediate retaliation. Within hours, hundreds of Czechs were arrested, many executed without trial. The small village of Lidice was completely destroyed: all the men were shot, the women deported to Ravensbrück, and the children sent to the Chełmno extermination camp. Soon after, the village of Ležáky suffered the same fate. The SS executed all the adults in retaliation for sheltering a resistance radio transmitter. Only two children survived; the rest were killed. At the same time, thousands of citizens were arrested, interrogated, and deported to camps like Mauthausen, where more than 230 Czech prisoners were executed en masse. The Gestapo employed systematic torture, arbitrary executions, and collective punishment. Mass graves multiplied. This period became known as the “Heydrichiada.” During that month, even the slightest expression of sympathy for the assassins was enough to warrant execution. The story of Cyril Kopecký, a forestry engineer with no ties to the resistance, illustrates the climate of terror: he was arrested and executed for a single comment made at the family dinner table. His family lost everything. Heydrich’s death was not the end of a man, but the beginning of a massacre that silenced entire cities, wiped villages off the map, and turned Czechoslovakia into a laboratory of total repression. #ww2 #history #documentary