If you want a look at a true case of “state-sponsored terrorism” and at one approach to counter-terrorism, watch “Anthropoid” (dir. Sean Ellis, 2016). It gives a compelling view of the May 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (the head of the Reich Main Security Office and also “Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia”[1]) and of what followed.
In the movie, the motive for the assassination is the desire on the part of the Czech government-in-exile to inspire more resistance in the Nazi-occupied country. The team of killers (Josef Gabcik, Jan Kubis[2]) is air-dropped at night; overcome difficulties to reach Prague; find that the Germans have wrecked the resistance movement and they must rely upon a small group of locals; eventually, they are joined by some other parachutists who had been dropped later; and they improvise an attack on Heydrich. The German is mortally wounded; a gigantic manhunt begins; the Germans track the parachutists to a Prague church; and one hell of a gunfight ensues. The few surviving parachutists kill themselves rather than be taken alive.
The movie strives for realism: it was filmed in Prague and mostly on the sites where events occurred; the pervasive fear of the Germans among the Czechs is brought out, not minimized; the semi-botched assassination is clearly portrayed; and the ferocious Nazi manhunt should leave anyone squirming.
Still, the movie simplifies or omits some things. First, it begins with Gabcik and Kubis on the ground in a Czech forest. The movie elides the origins of “Operation Anthropoid.” In fact, Eduard Benes, the leader of the Czech government-in-exile, feared that the West would sell out his country after the war if the Czechs didn’t show some fight. The British and French had surrendered the Sudetenland to Hitler at Munich (September 1938) and had shrugged their shoulders when Germany occupied the rest of the country (March 1939). Several thousand Czech soldiers had found their way to the West before the Second World War began (September 1939), but this wasn’t much of a contribution. Internal resistance had mostly been the work of the Czech Communist Party after Germany attacked the Soviet Union (June 1941). If the Germans lost the war, the Communists might claim a moral right to rule as the only true “resisters.” A dramatic act might arouse non-Communist resistance, but it would surely make the government-in-exile appear to be doing something. So, kill Heydrich now for a distant gain.
Second, Heydrich had crushed the resistance by a combination of carrot and stick. He had good material. Few Czechs wanted to run risks for the sake of the Western powers that had betrayed them before. Wages and working conditions in factories were improved at the same time that Gestapo penetration agents combatted the Communist underground.
Third, the Germans unleashed a savage response to the attack on Heydrich. Mass arrests; right to torture in the pursuit of some clue; massacres of villages on the mere rumor that someone had sheltered the killers. In a society where few people actually backed resistance, this worked. Finally, one of the parachutists betrayed someone else to save his own family; and the betrayed finally gave up the hiding place of the other parachutists.
“The Battle of Algiers” openly confronts truths that “Anthropoid” skims over.
[1] Also the driving force behind the implementation of the Holocaust. On this, see: “Conspiracy” (dir. Frank Pierson, 2001), with Kenneth Branagh as Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Adolf Eichmann.
[2] Played by Cillian Murphy and Jamie Dornan respectively.
waroftheworldblog 