Operation Heads was a real Polish resistance headhunt against German criminals of the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) of the SS and other services in occupied Poland in 1943-44. The operation was the Polish response to German atrocities. Every day in Poland, during this period at least 400 Poles per day were arrested by the German occupiers.
Of those arrested, thousands were summarily murdered, such as the 37,000 executed in Paviak prison. So the main Polish resistance organization AK (Home Army) decided to respond. Targets would be German SS, SA, Gestapo agents and administrative staff. The Poles hit and killed Paviak prison warden Franz Birlk on September 7, 1943. The Poles ambushed Birlk in broad daylight on a main street in Warsaw.
Five AK men armed with Sten submachine guns and hand grenades attacked Birlk and the seven men accompanying him. The whole operation lasted only 90 seconds and all the Germans were killed with no Polish casualties. In retaliation, the Germans executed 20 Polish hostages.
On September 24 they killed the commandant of the Gesiovka concentration camp, SS Captain Kretschmann. This was followed by the execution of a series of SS officers in key positions, the most important being that of SS Lieutenant General Franz Kucera , on February 1, 1944. The "Parasol" Battalion of the AK, one of the special "Agat" (anti-Gestapo) units of the Polish resistance, undertook the extermination of this Austrian prisoner.
The Poles attempted to kill Kucera on January 28, 1944, but the operation failed because the "target" did not leave his house that day. On February 1, however, everything went according to plan. A group of 12 men and women of the 1st Platoon of the "Parasol" Battalion under Bronislav Pietrazevic, waited for the executioner to come out of his house.
A woman in the group stood nearby and watched. As soon as Kucera came out, she gave the signal that the operation could begin. Kucera got into his limousine and headed for SS headquarters. But before he arrived a car blocked his way. Two Poles got out of it and from a short distance emptied the magazines of their submachine guns at Kuceras and his driver. They even fired a free shot at the target and grabbed documents from his briefcase.
The German SS guards also started shooting at the two Poles. The other members of the Polish team returned fire. Although three Poles were injured the group managed to escape. However, two of the wounded, including Pietrazevic, died a few days later.
Two other members of the group were pursued and killed as they jumped from a bridge into the Vistula River in an attempt to escape. The Germans also executed members of the family of one of the dead whom they recognized. The Germans murdered 300 Polish hostages in retaliation for Kucera's execution.
Other Germans exterminated were SS officer Ernst Weffels, notorious executioner of women at Paviak prison , the Abwher agent Albrecht Eitner, Willi Liebert, responsible for forcibly sending Poles as laborers in German factories, or Karl Fredenthal responsible for deportations and murders of Poles and Jews. The Poles had created a list of about 100 names of Germans to be executed. At the same time, the joint attacks against the conquerors continued. At least 10 Germans died daily, on average, in the Warsaw area alone