The Assassination of Heydrich: Hitler's Hangman and the Czech Resistance

by Jan G Wiener, William L Shirer (Introduction), Gerald Hausman (Epilogue by)

Overview

"Jan Wiener's fascinating, well-documented book tells of the heroic exploits of various Czech men and women, most of whom paid for their resistance with their lives. Above all it gives a detailed, documented account of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the most gruesome of the Nazi murderers, by Czech resisters parachuted from London but aided in their task by the Czech underground." William L. Shirer, author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich If you only read one book about what it felt like to be present during the worst time in modern human history, a time when your life could be snuffed out for having the mere thought of opposition against the Nazi regime, this should be the book because it is told by survivors and by one of the greatest survivors of them all, Jan Wiener.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617203725
Publisher:	Irie Books
Publication date:	07/11/2012
Pages:	174
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

While Jan Wiener was attached to Czechoslovak Number 311Bomber Squadron in Wales, he flew twenty-four missions overGermany, France, and Holland as a navigator. Since he spoke fluentGerman, he was frequently asked to act as interpreter for GeneralJosef Bartik, one of the leading officers of the CzechoslovakIntelligence in Great Britain and chief organizer of the plot toassassinate Reinhard Heydrich.For a period of four months after the war, Wiener's squadron flewofficials and their families from London to Prague. In September1945, Mr. Wiener returned to Prague and found a position at theLanguage Institute teaching English. He remained at the institutefrom 1945 until 1948. By the time of the Communist coup d'etat in1948 he was head of the English department, but he refused to jointhe Communist Party.Consequently he was removed from his teaching position forinvolving himself in anti-state activities and for holding anti-peoples'attitudes. For more than three years he worked as a slag worker in theblast furnace at the Kladno steel mills near Prague. After Stalin'sdeath in 1953, he was sent to work as a lumberjack in the Bohemianforests.He was not allowed to return to the teaching profession until 1956,when he became an instructor in the language department of theResearch Institute for Technical High Schools in Prague. The Czechgovernment granted Mr. Wiener and his wife permission to visit theUnited States in 1965. He found a teaching position at the WindsorMountain School in Lenox, Massachusetts, where for many years hetaught modern European history and Sokol.