Society

• Article by Robert Mueller
• Published on

Czech resistance and the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

Starting at dawn on June 10, 1942, shots rang out over the emptied village of Lidice, Czechoslovakia as groups of ten inhabitants were taken from a farm building cellar into an orchard and executed by Nazi firing squad. The process continued all day with short breaks for the executioners to buck up their courage with schnapps. The entire male population of the village was eliminated. Innocent Lidice was paying the butcher’s bill for the assassination of the Third Reich’s third most powerful man – SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich.