Who was the highest ranking German officer to be assassinated in WWII?

When head of Nazi security police and governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, died on June 4, 1942, due to wounds inflicted by Czech parachutists during an assassination attempt, it became one of the highlights in the history of the Czech resistance group. This event provided a great blow to the Nazi war effort. Heydrich became the highest ranking German officer to be assassinated in WWII. The death of the man nicknamed “The Butcher” provided clear proof that top-level, very high ranking German officials were not invincible to becoming casualties of war.

One of the architects of the Final Solution, the ruthless Heydrich had engineered the 1942 Wannsee Conference that planned the extermination of all Jews in Nazi occupied territories. During 1938, he had helped prepare Kristallnacht, pogroms against Jews throughout Germany and Austria. Within three days of becoming the Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in September 1941, he had 92 people executed.

As a child, Heydrich had been taunted for his alleged Jewish ancestry. However, when he was an adult, an official Nazi investigation stated he was truly a pure Aryan. Also, his love of music was obviously no impediment to the brutality that he often caused.