data about previously exposed agents. It revealed a favored technique
of the Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA)—disguising its opera-
tives as actual people who had earlier emigrated from the FRG and
presumably wanted to return. In 1979, after a meticulous examination
of all resettlements and visits from abroad, the BfV recommended the
investigation of more than 100 individuals and the immediate arrest
of 17 (15 were successfully exfiltrated to the German Democratic
Republic). For HVA chief Markus Wolf, Operation Anmeldung
represented a significant setback, causing “years of confusion” be-
fore its tactics were ascertained and new methods devised.ANTHROPOID. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE)
code name for the plan to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich during
World War II, Operation Anthropoid was originally conceived by
Edvard Beneš, the former president of Czechoslovakia and head of
the London-based government in exile. By removing Heydrich, who
had been appointed Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia on 27
September 1941, Beneš hoped to show that Czech defiance of Nazi
rule had not been completely extinguished. The technical details of
the operation were left to his intelligence chief, Frantisˇek Moravec,
who assembled an assassination team of Czech soldiers trained by
the SOE. After two postponements, a new date was set for 27 May
- As Heydrich was being driven to work from his country estate
outside Prague in an open-topped Mercedes, two Czechs—Jan Kubiš
and Josef Gabcˇik—attempted to ambush him at a sharp bend in the
road. When Gabcˇik’s sten gun failed to fire, Kubiš threw a grenade at
the rear of the limousine, fatally wounding Heydrich. Although both
attackers escaped, they were later reported to the Gestapo by Karel
Curda, a member of a second SOE team called Out Distance.
Acting on orders from Adolf Hitler, harsh Nazi reprisals for
Heydrich’s death began on 9 June, when 1,000 Czech Jews were
transported from Prague to SS extermination camps in a special train
marked “AaH” (Attentat auf Heydrich, or Assassination of Hey-
drich). Other transports followed, and the entire Bohemian village
of Lidice was razed to the ground and its male population killed as
a symbolic gesture. (The term Heydrichiade was coined to describe
the terror that ensued.) Because of the thousands ultimately arrested
or put to death by Nazi occupation forces, the widespread resistance
ANTHROPOID • 13