Operation Anthropoid, as the code name for the planned attack on the representative of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich, took place on May 27, 1942 in Prague. Czechoslovak paratroopers Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, members of the Czechoslovak army in exile, were trained in Scotland.
The mission, which could at any time be a suicide mission, was intended to be demonstrative in nature. It was supposed to show the world, and especially the Allies, the determination to defeat Nazi Germany and disprove considerations of a possible reconciliation with the occupation of Bohemia and violent political changes in Czechoslovakia. The attack on the cabriolet in which Heydrich was riding took place on Kirchmayerova Street, today Zenklova Street. Heydrich, the highest-ranking representative of Nazi Germany in the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, died of injuries after a bomb explosion a few days later, on June 4, 1942. On the side of the occupiers, a "heydrichiad" was unleashed - extensive investigations, arrests and executions. The reaction to the attack was the killing of several thousand Czechs and the burning of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. Their inhabitants, including children, were executed or sent to concentration camps. After the disclosure of the hiding place by Karl Čurd, on June 18, 1942, Jan Kubiš died with a handful of other paratroopers in the Prague church of St. Cyril and Methodius as a result of injuries sustained in a fight against multiple odds. After being surrounded in the crypt of the church, Jozef Gabčík and others took their own lives. In 2009, a monument dedicated to "Operation Anthropoid" was unveiled on Zenklova Street. At the same time, he also remembers almost three hundred Czechs who helped the paratroopers.
The author of the designs is Adrian Ferda.
Both motifs are composed in such a way as to describe the assassination of Heyndrich as best as possible, which is shown as a dark silhouette in the left part. The central motif is two heroes who parachuted into the territory of the Czech Republic as paratroopers, depicted according to period photographs from 1941. Behind the central portrait of Ján Kubiš is Jozef Gabčík firing a Sten submachine gun. Otherwise, behind the portrait of Jozef Gabčík in a no less action scene is Jan Kubiš, shooting a pistol. As a symbol of the successful action, a destroyed German limousine Mercedez-Benz 320 is in the foreground. Unfortunately, the whole action ended fatally even for the bombers themselves, who were hiding in the temple of St. Cyril and Methodius, shown in the right part of the motif.
OPERATION ANTHROPOID
Quantity: 5000 pcs
Price: CZK 80
Sale date: 5/27/2022
Place of sale: Prague Castle - Antechamber of the Old Royal Palace
III. Prague Castle courtyard
119 00 Prague 1 - Prague Castle
OPERATION ANTHROPOID
Quantity: 5000 pcs
Price: €3
Sale date: 5/27/2022
Place of sale: Bratislava Castle - Museum Shop, Bratislava
