Resistance to Nazi Occupation: The Heydrich Assassination

Hitler’s motivations while ruling the Nazi regime were to start war and to prove the power of the Nazi regime and its people. To do this, he believed conquering all of Europe, as well as implementing a racial ideology focused on the growth of the Aryan race and extermination of European Jews, was a necessity. As the Nazis began moving further and further across Europe invading countries with little to no response from the rest of Europe, resistance groups began developing in each country that was occupied. Although these resistance groups were small, groups like the Czech resistance saw the rule of the Nazis not just as a negative thing for their countries, but for Europe as a whole. This resistance accomplished the only assassination of a high ranking Nazi official, Reinhard Heydrich, but the response by the Nazis proved that the assassination was not worth the lives lost afterwards.