Operation Anthropoid

Abstract

In 1941, the very concept of a Czechoslovakian state was a parlous one: the provisions of the 1938 Munich Agreement, which had dismembered the pre-war state, had not yet been annulled. The position of the Czechoslovakian government-in-exile among the Allies was weak. The exiled president, Eduard Benes, therefore proposed a bold plan to assassinate a key Nazi leader and challenge a perception of Czech passivity under occupation. While the plan did succeed, it came at a terrible human cost. But, for Benes, it secured the pre-1938 borders of Czechoslovakia.