Jozef Gabčík

Jozef Gabčik was a Slovak member of the Czechoslovak armed forces who trained in Great Britain and parachuted into German-occupied Czech territory to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich. As Heydrich traveled on a familiar route to the airport to fly to Hitler's headquarters for a meeting, two agents succeeded in rolling a modified British anti-tank grenade under his car. The blast itself did not cause immediate death. Heydrich died a little over a week later. The official autopsy report determined that the cause of death was blood poisoning due to bacterial infections affecting the liver, kidney, and heart tissue. In retaliation for the attack, the Germans unleashed a wave of terror against the Czechs. For example, they destroyed the Czech village of Lidice, shooting all the men in the village and deporting most of the women and children to camps in Germany.