Page "Reinhard Heydrich" Paragraph 67

Infuriated by Heydrich's death, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10, 000 randomly selected Czechs.

But after consultations with Karl Hermann Frank, he tempered his response.

The Czech lands were an important industrial zone for the German military, and indiscriminate killing could reduce the region's productivity.

Hitler ordered a quick investigation.

Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky.

A Gestapo report stated that Lidice was suspected as the hiding place of the assailants as it was known that several Czech army officers, then in England, had come from there.

Further, the Gestapo had found a resistance radio transmitter in Ležáky.

On 9 June, after discussions with Himmler and Karl Hermann Frank, Hitler ordered brutal reprisals.

Over 13, 000 people were arrested, deported, and imprisoned.

Beginning on 10 June, all males over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice, 22 km north-west of Prague, and the village of Ležáky, were murdered.

All the women in Ležáky were also murdered.

All but four of the women from Lidice were deported immediately to Ravensbrück concentration camp ( four were pregnant – they were forcibly aborted at the same hospital where Heydrich had died and then sent to the concentration camp ).

A number of children were chosen for Germanization, but 81 were killed in gas vans at the Chełmno extermination camp.

Both towns were burned and the ruins of Lidice were levelled.

At least 1, 300 people were massacred after Heydrich's death.