Jozef Gabčík
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Jozef Gabčík (8 April 1912 - 18 June 1942) was a Slovak soldier involved in Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (one of the most important men in Nazi Germany).
Gabčík was a Slovak paratrooper of a rotmistr (rittmeister) rank. At the end of 1941, he and Jan Kubiš secretly landed in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to plan the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, which they carried out on May 27, 1942. Heydrich was mortally wounded and died in the hospital several days later. The Nazi officials in the Protectorate carried out an extensive search for the two men in the subsequent days. Eventually, they found them together with other paratroopers in an Orthodox Church in Prague. However, Gabčík, Kubiš, and the others committed suicide before the Gestapo could reach them in the Church catacombs.
The village of Gabčíkovo in southern Slovakia is named after him, and one of the biggest dams on the Danube next to the village is named after the village. Jozef Gabčík also gave name to the "5th special forces regiment of Jozef Gabčík" of the Slovak Army, dislocated in Žilina.
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