‎‎Operation Anthropoid was the code name for the assassination attempt on SS-Obergruppenführer and General der Polizei Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Germany acting Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The operation was carried out in Prague on 27 May 1942 after having been prepared by the British Special Operations Executive with the approval of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Although only wounded in the attack, Heydrich died from his injuries on 4 June 1942. His death led to a wave of vicious reprisals, including the destruction of villages and killing of civilians, by German troops.

Heydrich, who was head of all security agencies of the Nazi State, had been a key player in the rise of Adolf Hitler. As a Nazi potentate, he was given overall charge of the Final Solution and the Holocaust of the Jews in Europe. Despite the risks, the primary purpose of Anthropoid, from the Czech perspective, was to confer legitimacy on Edvard Beneš's government-in-exile in London.

 Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (help·info) (7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He was SS-Obergruppenführer (General) and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo, and Kripo) and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (Deputy Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. In August 1940 he was appointed and served as President of Interpol (the international law enforcement agency). Heydrich chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which laid out plans for the final solution to the Jewish Question—the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory.

Historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite; Hitler christened him "the man with the iron heart". He was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), an intelligence organisation tasked with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Party via arrests, deportations, and killings. He helped organize Kristallnacht, a series of co-ordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938. The attacks, which were carried out by SA stormtroopers and civilians, presaged the Holocaust. Upon his arrival in Prague, Heydrich sought to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation by suppressing Czech culture and deporting and executing members of the Czech resistance.