Bekanntmachung. / Vyhláška.
Prague: 27 May, 1942. First edition. Large bilingual broadside (German and Czech), printed on the characteristic red paper used for official occupation notices in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Ca. 630 × 960 mm. Folded as issued; otherwise in fine condition.
The earliest known printed response to Operation Anthropoid, announcing the reward for Heydrich’s attackers and inaugurating the emergency measures that marked the beginning of the reprisals.
Issued on the very day of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination attempt on Acting Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich, this large bilingual broadside is the earliest official wanted poster issued in response to the attack. Signed in print by Karl Hermann Frank (1898–1946), Higher SS and Police Leader and Secretary of State in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, it announces a reward of 10,000,000 Czech crowns for information leading to the capture of the perpetrators while simultaneously proclaiming a state of emergency in the Prague district and introducing the emergency measures that marked the beginning of the Nazi reprisals.
The proclamation orders the execution of anyone who shelters or assists the perpetrators or knowingly fails to report their whereabouts, together with the execution of the offender’s entire family. It imposes a night curfew, closes restaurants, theatres, cinemas, and other places of public entertainment, suspends public transport, and authorizes the immediate shooting of anyone found on the streets during curfew who fails to obey police orders.
Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942), head of the Reich Main Security Office and Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, was among the most powerful figures in Nazi Germany and one of the principal architects of the Holocaust. The attack was carried out by Czechoslovak resistance operatives Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, who had been trained by the British Special Operations Executive. Although Heydrich survived the attack, he succumbed to his wounds on 4 June 1942, becoming the highest-ranking Nazi official assassinated during the Second World War. His death triggered some of the most notorious reprisals of the war, including the Lidice and Ležáky massacres and the widespread executions of Czech civilians.
As the first official public response to Operation Anthropoid, issued only hours after the attack, the present broadside inaugurated the succession of wanted posters, emergency decrees, and public notices that accompanied the ensuing manhunt and the escalating campaign of terror. Produced solely for public display and ordinarily removed and destroyed after a short period, surviving originals are uncommon, particularly in such well-preserved condition.
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Price: €8,000.00