On 27 May 1942 in Prague, Reinhard Heydrich – the commander of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), acting governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and a principal architect of the Holocaust – was attacked and wounded in an assassination attempt by Czechoslovak resistance operatives Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. Heydrich died of his wounds on 4 June 1942. He was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and an important figure in the rise of Adolf Hitler.

The assassination, codenamed Operation Anthropoid, was carried out by soldiers of the Czechoslovak Army after preparation and training by the British Special Operations Executive and with the approval of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile, led by Edvard Beneš. The Czechoslovaks undertook the operation to help confer legitimacy on the government-in-exile, and to exact retribution for Heydrich's brutal rule. The operation was the only government-sponsored assassination of a senior Nazi leader during the Second World War. Heydrich's death led to a wave of reprisals by SS troops, including the destruction of villages and mass killings of civilians.