The movie I watched was about a man who was running from the Gestapo in occupied Czechoslovakia because he shot Heydrich "The Hangman of Prague". I then researched the real events surronding the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. My research revealed that the events in real life were very romanticized and oversimplified in the movie 'Hangmen Also Die!'. This, of course, led to many differences but still some similarities between the real and movie events. [bracket links indicate artifacts/citations]
There were lots of differences between the real and the Hollywood versions of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. For one, while the movie chose to focus on the assassin's evasion of authority the real assassins did more than evade the Gestapo, they ran many miles out of Prague and even fought what was close to a full out battle at their last place of refuge, a small town's church[the church]. Before the SS troops present blew into the church's crypt, the two men who really attacked Heydrich committed suicide where they had barricaded themselves. The movie shows nothing of this. The main character of 'Hangmen also Die!', Dr. Franticek Svoboda played by Brian Donlevy, was said to be the sole assailant, he was a doctor of Prague with no real training, and used just a pistol in assassin of Heydrich. In real life there were many more than just one man and the team was equipped with much more than just a pistol all with extensive military training from both a British paratrooping course and a Special SOE Course under the Scottish guard [the men] [their weapons], the movie instead creates a high-tension love story and shows the new couple framing a Gestapo informant for the crime rather than the real assailants being found out. The movie does show that Heydrich's attempted assassination angering other influential members of the Reich and connects the deaths of almost 300 'hostages' to the Gestapo's anger at the crime, however the murder attempt angered even Hitler himself, he told the SS and the Gestapo to "wade in blood" to find the killers and only held back on his near extermination of all Czech people because SS military supplies and other materials supplies for Nazi Germany came largely from occupied Czech factories. This widespread Reich anger befell on the unfortunate village of Lidice in what was later referred to as "the Lidice massacre"[a very detailed article on the event]. 173 men were shot, in groups of ten while other groups of SS men went through petrol firing the buildings, later that night the village was sealed off. In two days time the village had been completely flattened and a mass grave filled with the dead residents of the town. However the 'hostage' situation depicted in the movie was most likely a simplified Hollywood version of the massacre that conveniently fit into the plot.
Although there were so many differences the movie 'Hangmen Also Die!' did get some things correct from real life. One of these similarities being the obvious, an assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich. The movie also was accurate that the attack occurred as Heydrich's car slowed for a sharp turn[the turn][the car]. An important true part of the movie was that Reinhard Heydrich was initially saved by surgeons, but the film fails to mention that he later dies from an infection caused by the shrapnel that tore through his torso[the attack]. A final similarity between the movie and real life is the extensive lengths the SS and Gestapo went to to locate and persecute any people invovled in the attempted assassination including huge monetary rewards for any information leading to people involve[the reward][the report].
My research did show me that the movie romanticized and simplified the events of real life but key points were kept fairly intact. However after watching 'Hangmen Also Die!' and researching the events the film was based on, not only did I find how much liberty Hollywood may take with history but also that history can be just, if not more, as emotional and inspirational as a silver screen movie.
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