Assassins die, but did they? (6-19-42)

The Pittsburgh Press (June 19, 1942)

More massacres –
Assassins die; but did they?

Berlin says yes; Czechs doubt it

London, June 19 (UP) –
Czech nationalist quarters doubted today that the assassins of Reinhard (The Hangman) Heydrich had been captured and executed in Prague.

Radio Prague announced last night, two hours after Germany’s time-limit for the surrender of the slayers of the Gestapo’s Hangman expired, that the patriot killers had been trapped in a church and shot while resisting arrest.

The broadcast said several accomplices had been arrested by the secret police, who:

…established beyond doubt that the two assailants were parachutists dropped from a British plane.

Heydrich was fatally wounded by two gunmen who shot him as his limousine sped along a Prague street. They escaped on bicycles.

The announcement said:

The entire surroundings with which the assailants had been connected were wiped out.

…indicating that the Gestapo was continuing its wanton policy of mass annihilation of individuals and their property.

Czechs here believed that the German claim was a matter of face-saving. The Gestapo’s offers of huge rewards for information has brought no clues previously from civilians in Czechoslovakia, they said, and it was unlikely that the assassins had been exposed to the Germans.

In Norway, occupation authorities forbade further printings of the Bible, notifying the Norwegian Bible Society that it could no longer purchase paper.

In Danzig and western Poland, German officials decreed that only the German language would be permitted after Sept. 1, the third anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s march into Poland.

Reports from Vichy said patriots had sent a timebomb through the mails which wounded the prosecuting attorney of a court in the occupied territory.

1 Like