More than 60 years ago, a group of Czech and Slovak exiles parachuted into their Nazi-occupied homeland and assassinated SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich.

For the first time since the end of the World War Two, a German museum is offering a close look at "Operation Anthropoid", the codename for the only successful assassination of a member of Adolf Hitler's inner circle.

Michal Burian of the Military Institute of Prague, which presented the exhibition in the Czech capital before it moved to Berlin, says the assassination ranks among the most important moments of the last century and is far more than a footnote.

"The assassination is an ancient tragedy. You can find everything in this story -- bravery, love, betrayal, death. In my opinion, it is one of the most interesting stories of the 20th century," he said.

The Heydrich assassination took place on May 27, 1942 on a quiet street in the Prague suburb of Kobylisy. Two young men -- a Czech and a Slovak -- ambushed Heydrich's black Mercedes-Benz convertible as he was on his way to Prague's Hradcany Castle.

Slovak Josef Gabcik wanted to shoot Heydrich, but his Sten submachinegun jammed at the crucial moment. Heydrich was about to shoot Gabcik with his pistol when 29-year-old Czech Jan Kubis lobbed a modified anti-tank grenade at the vehicle.

The bomb exploded. Heydrich died of his wounds a week later.

But it was not Nazi sleuthing that discovered the assassins' hideout in the basement of a Prague church. It was the betrayal of one of the paratroopers who wanted to save himself.  Kubis, Gabcik and five others died in fierce fighting at the church or took their own lives to avoid capture by the Nazis.

The centre-piece of the exhibition, which opened at Berlin's German Technical Museum last month, is the Mercedes-Benz convertible with the licence plate "SS-3" that Heydrich was riding in at the time of the assassination.

Ulrich Kubisch, curator at the museum, went to Prague to see the original exhibition because of the car and vowed to bring it to Berlin.

The car is a stark symbol of how succesful the Nazis in the Czech Repubic had been. The top is down because Heydrich, the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, believed – correctly - he had successfully pacified the whole Czech nation and could safely ride in an open, unarmored vehicle. He was correct: the assasination attempt came from outside the country.

The decision to assassinate Heydrich was in fact taken because the Czech population had warmed to Nazi rule, and the Allies were aware that the Germans would take reprisals in retaliation for the murder. Everything played out as the Allied commanders hoped: the Germans did take reprisals (against the village of Lidice where a resistance group had stored a munitions dump) and Czech support for the Nazis ebbed.

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