Operation Anthropoid: Last Stand of Heydrich’s Assassins (No AI Documentary) 

In this Prague church crypt in June 1942, four exhausted men stood waist deep in freezing water, their lungs and eyes burning from tear gas, pistols clenched in numb hands. For six relentless hours, more than 700 SS troops had stormed the building above, ordered to take them dead or alive. Still, the men refused to surrender.

 But who were they? Why did the Nazis unleash such an overwhelming force against them? And what actually happened during that brutal fight? In this video, with the help of Rare Gestapo and SS reports, firsthand testimony, and modern technology, we’ll turn the clock back to uncover the extraordinary final stand of the men who assassinated Reard Hydrish.

By the end of May 1942, the city of Prague was under siege, not by an approaching army, but by its own occupiers. The reason days earlier, rice protector essenti, the blue-eyed proteége of the national socialist movement tipped as Hitler’s successor had been mortally wounded, ambushed by British trained Czech agents as he drove into the city.

 From that moment on, a massive manhunt involving 20,000 troops had been unleashed to hunt down and eliminate those responsible. But it was far easier said than done. They were protected by the people of Prague. men, women, and families who’d already endured years of terror under the Third Reich’s brutal rule. Despite the sweeping clampdown, the public display of evidence from the attack, huge rewards offered for information, and hundreds of arrests, the underground network shielding the assassins held firm. Families like the

Novaks here on Palmovka Street, they’d sheltered Yan Kubish, one of the two assassins immediately after the attack. Their daughter Yindrsa, just 14 years old, had even ventured back into the streets to recover the bloodstained bicycle that Kubish had used to make his escape. And the Modivit’s family, whose apartment stood here on Biscups Street, they had risked everything to help the operatives, sheltering Kubish and his closest friend and fellow agent Ysef Gabch both before and after the attack.

In fact, dozens of civilians were involved, moving the men between safe houses, hiding them from constant raids, and helping them to vanish in a city under lockdown. Everyone understood the stakes. Capture meant torture and execution. As a German broadcast on the 28th of May made chillingly clear, anyone who accommodates or provides assistance to persons involved will be shot dead together with their family members. And they meant it.

 By the time Hydrish had died of his wounds on the 4th of June, hundreds of people had been arrested and executed and ever more desperate attempts to find those responsible. Feeling the noose titan, local resistance member Yan Zalinskysi made a critical decision. All the agents will be moved to a single safe house. He approached the dean of Prague Orthodox Church for help, proposing the crypt of St.

 Siril and Sanodius Church right here on Reslocus Street in the heart of the city. On May the 30th, Yan Kubish was the first to arrive. He was soon joined by Ysef Valic, Adaful Pala, Yaris Levartz, Ysef Bublik, Han Fuby, and finally on the 1st of June, Ysef Gabchi. This was to be their sanctuary. The church, which has stood on this corner since 1730, is largely unchanged to this day.

 Stoutly built with thick walls and ornate windows, it’s typical of the period. Let’s explore it with those Gestapo records. The ground floor is split into several parts with an L-shaped church warders apartment running to north and east around the outside accessed by a single entrance just here of which is a small office. Leading from the north side of the apartment are two doorways, one into the main church nave and a second to the altar.

 As we see here, the majority of the ground floor, 42 ft wide by 90 ft long, is taken up by the nave used by the church’s congregation with an ornate rude screen at one end behind which in a small space stands the altar and the doorway into the attached apartment and office. At the western end, facing the street, but just out of view to us, behind this column and secured by a door and iron gates, is a small spiral staircase leading to the choir above.

This shot taken from the top of the staircase shows one of two small sets of steps leading to a pair of long balconies cut through the thick stone archways stretching the entire length of the church with a view over all entryways on the ground floor below. Below ground lays the crypt, a 50t long, 12t wide space with recesses for coffins on either side.

 By 1942, the original stepped entrance at the far end which led to an exit point near the altar was blocked by a massive stone slab, leaving only a two-t wide exit hatch at the opposite end of the crypt, accessed by use of a ladder which emerged at ground level just to the left of the main church entrance. The only light and ventilation in the crypt comes from a small barred window around this slight turn 9 ft above the floor of the crypt from inside and so reachable only with the help of a ladder.

So it was here that the seven agents lived in near constant tension with three men keeping watch on the balcony at all times while the other four rested in the crypt below. For nearly 2 weeks that vigil continued as Dr. Vladimir Petrek, the resident priest, quietly supplied food and essentials while the men could do little more than whisper and pray for an opportunity to escape the city.

In fact, that was a very real prospect as plans had been made to smuggle the men out of Prague into the countryside on the 19th of June. It was a rendevous they were destined never to make. The reason was this man, Carol Ja, an SOE trained Czech operative who had landed in the country alongside Adolf Palico in March.

 Unlike the other agents, he had fled Prague after the attack on Hydrish and had hidden his mother’s home. for reasons that are still debated to this day. On the 15th of June 1942, he unexpectedly walked into the main entrance of the Gestapo headquarters in Prague’s Pekk Palace. The following comes from an official report written by SS Standard Furer Dr.

 Hans Gishka, chief of the Prague Gestapo. Jord stated that he recognized one of the briefcases left behind at the place of the outrage. Later he admitted that he was a parachutist and he landed in Protectorate territory during the night of the 28th to 29th of March 1942 together with five other agents. He confirmed he had seen the suitcase in the possession of another parachutist and that it contained an English light machine gun with which he was familiar.

His description of the parachutist agreed with the description of one of the criminals, Ysef Gabchic. Cha mentioned his suspicion that the second criminal might be Yan Kubish, Gabchik’s best friend, but he was unable to confirm this. The report goes on to state that Cha eventually named the Schvartosh family as owners of the two briefcases and a Madame Modorova as the owner of the women’s bicycle left at the scene.

 This information combined with the Gestapo surveillance that immediately followed would prove catastrophic for the resistance network. The next day, June the 17th, it collapsed like a row of dominoes. Amongst the first arrested were the Modvets family, who had sheltered Yan Kubish and Joseph Gabchuk. Knowing what awaited them, Mrs.

 Maria Modvetsz at the moment of arrest, asked to use the bathroom and swallowed a hidden cyanide pill, remaining silent to the end. Yanzalinska, living just over the road and likely witnessing the raid from his window, also managed to swallow cyanide as the Gestapo attempted to batter down his door. Not everyone was so lucky. Young Ata Modivitz, Maria’s 21-year-old son, was taken alive, beaten mercilessly for hours and pied with alcohol, he refused to speak.

 But in a horrific act of brutality, he was reportedly shown his mother’s decapitated head in a fish tank. The terror broke him, and by midnight, the Gestapo knew the location of the seven agents hideout. At precisely 4:10 a.m., 757 SS officers and men led by SS Griffin Furer Carisher Fonttoyenfeld descended on the church, setting up a double cordon of roadblocks in these locations, sealing any possible escape routes and trapping the agents within.

The first warning for Opala, Kubish, and Bublik stationed on the balcony came with the sound of hundreds of boots striking the cobblestones outside. Soldiers were surrounding the church. Despite the overwhelming odds, the men were determined to fight. 10 minutes later, when Superintendent Panvitz of the Gestapo and several others entered the warders apartment from the rear and then into the church via this door, they were met with a salvo of pistol shots from this very position on the balcony above the altar, wounding Gestar man

Kirk Carlo, and forcing the intruders to flee back out into the street. Hearing the gunfire, the SS, who’d set up a machine gun in the school opposite, opened up, sending a stream of bullets smashing through the main windows and along the entire length of the church. For the next 2 hours, the men on the balcony, armed only with pistols and a couple of modified grenades, fought on as the SS made successive attacks with their own stick grenades and Bergman submachine guns, attempting to force their way up the spiral staircase to

reach the men above. The situation for those in the crypt at that time must have been agonizing. Their only exit emerged directly where the Germans were now congregating in their attempts to storm the staircase. All they could do was listen on as their comrades fought for their lives, praying to remain undiscovered.

Above them, Opala, positioned here in this small recess at the top of the staircase, fought desperately to hold off anyone trying to climb. Bubble, positioned about where this photograph is taken. And Kubish, likely further back behind him, overlooking the altar, fought on as best they could. But with only pocket pistols and limited ammunition, it was an uneven fight.

 At some point before 7:00 a.m., after well over an hour of resistance, Opela’s right arm was shattered by a grenade fragment and down to his very last bullet, he simultaneously swallowed poison and fired a 6.35 mm Browning round into his left temple. Using these solidly built archways as cover, Kubish and Bublik now began to retreat, fighting from pillar to pillar as the Germans pushed along the corridor, throwing grenades before edging slowly forward.

 With the precise locations of those detonations still etched into the floor to this day. Eventually though, after two hours of fighting, the massively outnumbered pair, cornered right here and attacked on all sides, had reached the end of the line. Bubble, with multiple shrapnel wounds peppering his right leg, saved his last round for himself and died a short time later.

 Only Kubish, badly wounded with his suit and body shredded by shrapnel, was unable to end his own life. carried from the church unconscious just after 7:00 a.m. He died of blood loss on route to hospital. Ysef Sherupski, a Czech interpreter with the Gestapo, recalled the final moments of the men on the balcony. Suddenly, there was silence up there, an agonizing silence throughout the church.

The SS waited a moment and then went up. They found three parachuters covered in blood. They came out of the church carrying one body and two dying men. They took the two to the hospital, but they died without ever having regained consciousness. Unsure of exactly who they faced and perhaps expecting only two men, the Gestapo brought forward the traitor Churo, who was asked to identify the remaining dead man.

 Captured in this photo, the former agent looked down and simply said, “Opca.” Now, with the main floor cleared, the SS began a search of the church. Had it not been for one fateful discovery, just perhaps the men below may have stayed undiscovered. As the official SS afteraction report recounts, there were not only these three criminals in the church.

 A fourth set of clothes was also found there. It was therefore obvious that at least a fourth criminal was hidden somewhere. The cellar under the church, about the size and appearance of which no one knew anything, was a possible hiding place. As those in the church began searching for the crypt entrance outside, a loudspeaker blared out the offer of safe treatment as prisoners of war if those within surrendered.

 No one was falling for that. Reportedly, the Gestapo sent Chur to speak to his former comrades, who perhaps for the first time realized who had betrayed them and sent a burst of fire out in his direction. Let’s just pause for a moment right here. As you can probably tell by now, this is a very intricate story full of incredible detail from all sides, much more than we can normally fit into a short format YouTube dock like this one.

 So, for those wanting to know more, be sure to check out our dedicated weekly Second World War podcast, World War II, Both Sides of the Wire, where I recently joined regular hosts, Professor Matias Stone and Jesse Alexander, in a multi-part series to take a deep dive into Operation Anthropoid, where we cover lots of aspects that we simply couldn’t fit in here.

 Check it out at the link in the description or wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, back to the story. The German returned fire from the building opposite poured from this narrow opening and along the length of the crypt. Aware now that the men inside would not give up without a fight, the besieges up the ante.

 Calling in the mostly reluctant Prague fire brigade, one man was first ordered to smash down the metal bars over the window before further soldiers came up and threw tear gas down into the crypt. But with the help of a ladder, one of those inside climbed to the window and threw all the canisters back out along with at least one Molotov cocktail and handful of pistol shots for good measure.

Throughout this entire time, the other men in the crypt had been busy. Aware that an old sewer passed under the main street outside, they’d begun working feverishly with two spades at their disposable to hack away at the ancient brick work of the crypt in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to reach some kind of safety.

Next came a flood light to dazzle the agents as they appeared at the window. To Gestapo Fury, it was shot out before it had even been turned on. But the stakes kept rising. According to Gestapo and SS Afteraction reports, which pettily disagree with each other on literally everything in terms of who took the credit for what, the Czech fire brigade were now told to insert hoses into the window of the crypt and flood those inside out.

This grainy image exists of that very moment. Here we see that at least one of those hoses has been inserted into the window from which it could discharge 660 gall of water per minute into the crypt below. But there are a few key details. This part of the hose is clearly leaking in several places.

 Evidence that the men inside who climbed the ladder to repeatedly force the hose back out had also sliced its sides to slow the torrent. The caution exercised by the SSmen outside also suggests they’ve already been shot at several times. The stalemate continued within the church. Anger and frustration was rising.

 So far, only one entryway to the crypt had been found. This small hatch, though now a thorough search was underway. Superintendent Panvitz forced the priest to call into the crypt in check for the men to surrender. The legendary response rang back. We are checks. We shall never surrender. Never. Do you hear? The following burst of gunfire made it crystal clear that they meant it.

 That said, the situation was impossible. Surrounded on all sides and low on ammunition, it was only a matter of time. In order to try and break the stalemate, the SS finally decided to assault the crypt. The problem was there was only one access. Volunteers were called for and eventually several men agreed. Here’s the SS version of events.

The assault team penetrated through the cellar, opening into the underground. But despite having flashlights with them, due to the tear gas and thick dust released, they only slowly groped their way forwards. The assault team was attacked by a fire from the shortest distance. They immediately responded with hand grenades and machine guns and drove the criminals back.

 SS Unchar was hit in the thigh and SS Obashinka suffered a corial injury to his right eye. The SS were forced to retreat and still the agents held on. Outside in the street, SS Groom and Furer Carl Herman Frank was furious that a small group armed only with pistols could not be beaten. He apparently called for the fire brigade to reinsert the hoses into the window and flood them out again.

There are a couple of images taken at this time which are worth considering. First, this one which still has a little mystery about it. It captures one of two things. either an exhaust deliberately inserted into the crypt in an attempt to smoke out those inside or possibly and according to German sources a fan inserted to ventilate the crypt so the SS could lead a further result with better visibility and without the need for gas masks.

 Let us know which you think it is of this second image though there’s no doubt it captures the turning point. Presumably, whilst distracted by activity inside the church, a pair of firemen managed to grab hold of the ladder, which the agents had used to reach the window and are in the process of dragging it out through the opening.

From this point on, with hoses reinserted, water poured unchecked into the crypt with no way of being stopped. To make matters worse, the Germans in the church had also now found the main sealed entryway, and smashed the massive slab covering the entrance in two. Interpreter Chalupski saw what happened next.

 An eager, inquisitive Gestapa man pulled away part of the wreckage and peered in to see what was inside. Bullets whipped past his head. There were the steps leading into the crypt. Once again the SS were called upon. They were to go down the steps and this time they were sent in group by group in waves of attack. How I admired those men in the crypt.

 For hours they must have known their struggle was hopeless. That sooner or later they would be killed. But they did not give in. They fought like lions. They did, too. But with each passing minute, their ammunition dwindled and the water rose. And now, with the SS preparing massive explosive charges to end the siege, the crack of four solitary shots rang out from below.

 The defiant last stand was over. In the hours and days that followed, the horrors continued. Entire families like the Norvox and the Modets and dozens of others who’d aided the agents. either executed outright or deported to concentration camps where most met the same grim fate. For the Germans, the siege was a success.

 Photographers and camera crews arrived to document the scene with many of those involved even posing for photographs. Amongst them was the traitor Carol Chura, identifying the fallen, fully aware that his betrayal had sealed their fates. Yet he and many of the other key players would not outlive Kubish Gabchik and their comrades for long.

 Hans Olri Geshka, head of the Prague and responsible for countless Czech deaths, was likely killed in the fighting for Budapest in 1945. Carl Herman Frank, the senior police official in occupied Czechlovakia, was captured by US troops, tried and hanged in Prague before 5,000 spectators in 1946. Carl Fisher Fonttoyenfeld who had commanded the SS troops during the siege was also captured but took his own life in American custody.

And Cha his story is more complex. Recent research suggests that intense pressure on his family may have influenced his betrayal. But when asked at his trial how he could turn on his comrades, he reportedly replied, “I think you would have done the same for 1 million marks.” He was hanged at Pancreage Prison on the 29th of April 1947.

Today, the crypt where the final stand took place is preserved as a permanent memorial to courage in the face of impossible odds. Outside, above the window from which the agents fought, a plaque remembers each of them by name. And inside, bronze reliefs capture their faces, honoring the men who gave everything during those dark days of World War II.

Tragically, the repercussions of Operation Anthropoid did not end there. Even as the seven men hid in the church, a horrific atrocity was unfolding just a few miles away in the village of Leitita. But that’s a story for another day. Thanks for watching. If you enjoy content like this, be sure to check out our dedicated podcast, World War II, Both Sides of the Wire, where each week our hosts, Professor Matias Stone and Jesse Alexander, explore famous episodes from the conflict from both the Allied and Axis perspectives. Finally, a huge

thank you to all our members here on YouTube and on Patreon, whose support makes creating videos like this one possible. That’s all this time. We’ll see you again soon.