The Pittsburgh Press (May 27, 1942)
Reich offers huge reward for assassin
Heydrich out of danger; drastic restrictions ordered by Nazis
Dispatches from enemy countries are based on broadcasts over controlled radio stations which frequently contain false propaganda. Bear this in mind.
Berlin, May 27 (UP) –
Reinhard Heydrich, high Gestapo official in charge of former Czechoslovakian territory, was wounded in an unsuccessful attempt on his life at Prague, where drastic military restrictions have been ordered in the search for the assassins, the official news agency DNB said tonight.
All Czechs were ordered off the streets of Prague tonight.
The dispatch failed to say when the attempt on the life of Heydrich, known as the No. 1 “Nazi hangman,” took place, but indicated that it was on Wednesday. Refugee officials have reported Heydrich had ordered the execution of at least 500 Czechs.
Heydrich is now out of danger, DNB said. A reward of 10 million korun was offered for capture of the persons who plotted the attack.
With the krona, or koruna, quoted in New York at 4¢, the reward offered for Heydrich’s assailants would be approximately $400,000.
The dispatch from Prague said civilians there had been forbidden to leave their homes from 9 p.m. tonight until 6 a.m. tomorrow.
Anyone on the street during that period will be shot if they fail to halt when challenged, it was added.
The British radio reported that a curfew had been ordered for all Czechoslovakia and that the “secret reprisals” were underway.
During the same period, all public houses, cinemas, theaters and places of entertainment will be closed and all public transport suspended, DNB said.
Heydrich was named chief of security and chief Gestapo official in Prague last September.
Recently, however, he had been reported in Holland, aiding Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo chieftain, in attempting to suppress Dutch outbreaks against Nazi rule.
Heydrich entered the German Navy in 1922. He resigned in 1931 and joined the Nazi Party. Now 38, with 11 years of inner party work behind him, the Gestapo official has had a meteoric rise in the Hitler regime.
He played an active role in the 1934 Nazi “blood purge,” and soon afterwards became chief of the Berlin Gestapo.
Heydrich was said to have drafted the laws against the Jews and to have organized the German intelligence network which spread terror throughout the Reich.