In 1942, two British-trained Czech commandos assassinated SS Obergruppenführer (General) Reinhard Heydrich.

A tall, blond-haired former naval officer, he was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.

Reinhard Heycrich

In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.

Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.

In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”  

At the now-infamous Wannsee conference, Heydrich decreed that, henceforth, all Jews in Reich-occupied territories would be shipped to extermination camps. No exceptions would be made for women, children or the infirm.  

An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.

Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.  

The Czech government-in-exile, headquartered in London, feared that Heydrich’s incentives might lead the Czechs to passively accept domination. They decided to assassinate Heydrich.  

Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague. 

Unexpectedly, they got help from Heydrich himself. Supremely arrogant, he traveled the same route every day from home to his downtown office and refused to be escorted by armed guards, claiming no one would dare attack him.

On May 27, 1942, Kubis and Gabcik waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun–which jammed.

Rising in his seat, Heydrich aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.

Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38. 

The assassination sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Third Reich. No one had dared assault—much less assassinate—a high-ranking Nazi official.

Nazis had slaughtered tens of thousands without hesitation—or fear that the same might happen to them. 

Suddenly they realized that the fury they had aroused could be turned against themselves.

Members of the Nazi government

Which brings us to the leaders of America’s own Right-wing.

The names of infamous Nazis were widely known:

• Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering;
• Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels;
• Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess;
• Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl;
• SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler;
• “Hanging Judge” Roland Freisler;
• Architect Albert Speer;
• Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop;
• SS Obergruoppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich; and
• The most infamous Nazi of all: Adolf Hitler.

And so are the names of the infamous leaders of the American Right: 

• Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell;
• Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett;
• Texas Senator Ted Cruz; 
• Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas;
• Commentator Tucker Carlson;
• Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch;
• Evangelist Franklin Graham;
• Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh;
• Florida Senator Marco Rubio;
• Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito; 
• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; and
• The most infamous Right-winger of all: Former President Donald Trump.

The difference between these two infamous groups is this:

In Nazi Germany, ordinary Germans could not learn about the personal lives of their dictators—including their home addresses—and to conspire against them.

In the United States, ordinary citizens have an array of means to do this. They can turn to newspapers, TV and magazines. And if that isn’t enough, “people finder” websites, for a modest price, provide addresses and names of relatives of potential targets.

In Nazi Germany, firearms were tightly controlled. In the United States, the Right’s National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied to put lethal firepower into the hands of virtually anyone who wants it.

Which brings us to the firestorm now erupting over the publication of an initial draft majority opinion of the Supreme Court. Backed by the Court’s five Right-wing Justices, it overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The Supreme Court

In one to two months, millions of women will likely become victims of Right-wing anti-abortion fanaticism.

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, 23 states will institute bans, with trigger laws on the books in 13 of them. These are bans designed to take effect if Roe is overturned.

Republicans boast that they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” Yet since 1973 they have furiously tried to re-insert it into the vagina of every American woman.

Interfering with the right to obtain medical care—especially when it applies to sexually-involved matters—is an act guaranteed to arouse fury in even the most pacifistic men and women. 

This is especially true when a political party—such as that of the Nazis and Republicans—makes clear its intention to rule by force, rather than by public consent.

Reinhard Heydrich believed himself invulnerable from the hatred of the enemies he had made. That arrogance cost him his life.

The day may soon come when America’s own Right-wingers start learning the same lesson.