Reinhard Heydrich
From Open Encyclopedia
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (March 7, 1904 – June 4, 1942) was an SS-Obergruppenführer, chief of the Reich Main Security Office, and Reich governor of Bohemia and Moravia. By Hitler he was considered his possible successor. He was nicknamed The Butcher of Prague, The Blond Beast and Der Henker (German for the hangman).
Heydrich was one of the architects of the Holocaust, chairing the 1942 Wannsee conference, which laid out the plans for the extermination of all European Jews. Heydrich was assassinated by Czechoslovakian soldiers (trained in England) during the Operation Anthropoid.
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Early life
Heydrich was born in Halle an der Saale. His father and mother were both very heavily musically involved (his father was a composer), and Heydrich developed a passion for the violin, which was to continue throughout his life. Although Heydrich was a shy boy, he excelled physically and grew up to be handsome and fit. He was an impressive athlete, excelling in fencing and swimming.
Heydrich participated in the Freikorps Maerker in 1919. In 1922 he joined the navy; however, he was later dismissed when he had a brief liaison with a shipyard director's daughter and subsequently became engaged to a young woman, Lina von Osten. The daughter told her father of her anger over the incident, and he was subsequently charged with "conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman". His behavior in court was apparently so disdainful that the court also rebuked him for insubordination. Heydrich was left with no career prospects. However, he remained engaged to von Osten, whom he married in 1931.
Nazi Party and the SS
Image:RHeydrich.jpgIn 1931, Himmler began to set up a counter-intelligence division of the SS. Acting on a friend's advice, he interviewed Heydrich, and after a twenty minute test whereby Heydrich had to outline plans for the new division, Himmler hired him on the spot. In doing so Himmler also effectively recruited Heydrich into the Nazi Party. He would later receive a Totenkopfring from Himmler, for his service.
At this time he was relatively insignificant within the Nazi intelligence apparatus. He and his staff spent their time building up a card-file system on all persons who were considered a threat to the Party, often including party officials themselves. Heydrich supported his family on a meagre salary and worked in a tiny office.
American journalist John Gunther, during his trip to Germany in 1934, while collecting research materials for his famed book "Inside Europe", showed considerable knowledge of Nazi intrigues and backgrounds when he said Himmler was actually only a bimbo compared to a man like Heydrich, who was far more cruel. At this time, the latter was regarded as an obscure and bureaucratic medium-ranked officer.
In July 1932 Heydrich's division took on the title of Sicherheitsdienst (SD). He then built up a mutually beneficial partnership with Himmler. Later he became the head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), of which the SD, the Gestapo and the Einsatzgruppen were parts.
Image:Himmler Heydrich.jpgUpon the establishment of the Third Reich, Heydrich helped Adolf Hitler 'dig up dirt' on many political opponents, keeping an impressive filing system listing individuals and organizations opposing the party and the regime. He is believed to be the creator of the forged documents of Russian correspondence with the German high command that sparked the Great Purge. He was also instrumental in establishing the false 'attack' by Poland on German national radio at Gleiwitz, which was to be the beginning of World War II.
Heydrich also served briefly in the war as a Luftwaffe pilot and won several decorations for bravery: Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, the Front-Line Combat Badge, and the Wound Badge. His flying career came to an abrupt end when he was shot down by Russian AA fire in late 1941, and he had to swim across a river to safety. This was too much for Himmler and he was grounded.
Heydrich was one of the main architects of the Holocaust during the first years of World War II and chaired the Wannsee Conference, at which plans for the deportation of the Jews to extermination camps were discussed.
Assassination in Prague
On September 27, 1941 Heydrich was appointed acting Reichsprotektor ('Imperial Protector', the nazi representative) in the Czech puppet-state called the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. He replaced Konstantin von Neurath whom Hitler considered insufficiently harsh (but who remained titulary protector till 20 August 1943).
While virtual military governor of Bohemia and Moravia, exercising real executive power above the Czech President and Prime Minister, Heydrich often drove alone in a car with an open roof — a show of confidence in the occupation forces and the effectiveness of their repressive measures against the local population (See Czech resistance to Nazi occupation).
Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík were Czechoslovakian partisans who had fled the country earlier in 1941. After receiving training from the British they parachuted back into the region that December and on May 27, 1942 ambushed Heydrich while he rode in his open car.
- For detailed information about the assassination see main article Operation Anthropoid.
Despite Himmler sending his best doctors, Heydrich died in agony in a Prague hospital at the age of 38. Although the exact cause of death has not been definitively established, the autopsy states that Heydrich's death was most likely septicemia caused by bacteria and toxins from grenade splinters. A highly elaborate funeral was staged for him in Berlin, with Hitler attending (and placing on Heydrich's funeral pillow his decorations, the highest grade of the German Order and the Blood Order Medal). Hitler himself perhaps best encapsulated Heydrich's general attitude in his acknowledgment that Heydrich was partly to blame for his own death through arrogance and a blasé attitude:
- "Since it is opportunity which makes not only the thief but also the assassin, such heroic gestures as driving in an open, unarmoured vehicle or walking about the streets unguarded are just damned stupidity, which serves the Fatherland not one whit. That a man as irreplaceable as Heydrich should expose himself to unnecessary danger, I can only condemn as stupid and idiotic."
Lina Heydrich later stated that she believed Heydrich had expected an early death, saying that she saw his frequent unnecessary risk-taking (such as his valiant adventures in his Luftwaffe Me 109) as an attempt to ensure that, should he die, his would be a dramatic death.
The Nazi retaliation was savage and a brutal warning against further armed resistance. On June 10 all males over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice, 22 km north-west of Prague, were murdered a day after the town was burned. It has been reported that over 15,000 Czechs were killed in reprisals.
Heydrich's eventual replacements were Ernst Kaltenbrunner as the chief of RSHA and Karl Hermann Frank 27 - 28 May 1942 and Kurt Daluege as 28 May 1942 - 14 October 1943 the new acting Reichsprotektors.
After Heydrich's death, the first three "trial" death camps were constructed and put into operation at Treblinka, Sobibór, and Belzec. The project was named Operation Reinhard in Heydrich's honor.
Claims of Jewish ancestry
Since Heydrich's death, historical evidence has come to light that Heydrich may very well have had a Jewish grandparent and that this fact was known to high Nazi leaders including Hitler and Himmler. Under the Nuremberg Laws, Heydrich would have been classified as "a person of mixed Jewish blood in the second degree", meaning he had one pure German and one half Jewish parent. Heydrich would not have been subject to anti-Semitic laws, but would have been expelled from the SS as being non-Aryan.
The most compelling evidence of Heydrich's Jewish ancestry is the testimony of Walter Schellenberg who stated, in the 1950s, that Heinrich Himmler had held a private meeting with Heydrich in 1935, after learning that one of Heydrich's relatives had held the surname of "Süss", a common Jewish name. According to Schellenberg, Heydrich admitted that one of his grandparents was Jewish and Himmler had reportedly informed Hitler. Hitler, however, stated Heydrich was a special case since "his Aryan blood far suppressed his Jewish heritage". Shortly thereafter, Gestapo personnel were dispatched to Halle, where Heydrich had been born, to erase certain records of Heydrich's past. Rumours arose that this included the destruction of tombstones, but this is unconfirmed.
It was not long before other Nazis had heard insinuations that Heydrich might have had a Jewish relative in his background. Dr. Achim Gercke, the Nazi Party's leading genealogist, was commissioned by Gregor Strasser after a Nazi official, Rudolf Jordan, revealed the grandfather to Party Headquarters in 1932. Gercke claimed research that not only was the Süss in question, a locksmith, not even a Jew, but that he wasn't even Heydrich's genetic grandfather, whose name was Reinhold Heydrich. Also of note is that the investigation was concluded in the summer of 1932, rather than 1935.
The accuracy of both Schellenberg's and Gercke's testimonies are today still debated among historians. Some works on Heydrich have thus far dispelled the story as a rumour. The assertion is also routinely denied by neo-Nazis. However, it is widely accepted that Heydrich did believe the claims at least enough to try and make up for it by even greater devotion to the Nazi cause.
Crown jewels legend
A wholly unsupported legend asserts that less than twelve months before his death Heydrich entered the treasury of Prague Castle where the crown jewels of Bohemia are kept and placed the crown on his own head, while another legend supposedly relates that whoever puts on the crown without lawful right will die within a year.[citation needed]
Summary of SS career
Dates of rank
- SS-Mann: 14 July 1931
- SS-Sturmführer: 10 August 1931
- SS-Sturmhauptführer: 1 December 1931
- SS-Sturmbannführer: 25 December 1931
- SS-Standartenführer: 29 July 1932
- SS-Oberführer: 21 March 1933
- SS-Brigadeführer: 9 November 1933
- SS-Gruppenführer: 30 June 1934
- SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei: 27 September 1941
Service history
- July 1931: Appointed as an SS member under SS Number 10120
- August 1931: Appointed as SS officer and tasked with forming the SS Security Service
- July 1932: Founded the Sicherheitsdienst
- June 1934: Appointed Commander of the Sicherheitspolizei
- September 1939: Founder and first Commander of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt
- September 1941: Appointed as Deputy Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia
- January 1942: Chairman of the Wannsee Conference
- May 1942: Attacked by British supported Czechoslovak partisans in Prague
- June 1942: Died from wounds received in partisan attack
Notable decorations
- German Order (Posthumous)
- Blood Order (Posthumous)
- Golden Nazi Party Badge
- Iron Cross First (1941) and Second (1940) Classes
- Luftwaffe Pilot's Badge
- Luftwaffe Reconnaissance Flying Clasp
- Danzig Cross (First Class)
- Anschluss Medal
- Sudetenland Medal with Prague Castle Bar
- Memel Medal
- Olympic Games Decoration (First Class)
- Social Welfare Decoration (First Class)
- NSDAP Long Service Ribbon for 10 years service
- Police Service Ribbon for 18 years service
Additional service
Reinhard Heydrich also served as Reserve Hauptmann, then Major in the Luftwaffe. Some sources claim, that he served in the Polish September Campaign as a bomber gunner, but it is not confirmed. Then, despite his advanced age, he completed a fighter pilot course in 1940, probably due to ambitious reasons. In April 1940 he flew a ME Bf 109 in the combat unit II/JG 77 in Norway. On May 13 1940 he crashed his plane during take-off and was injured. For a short time in May he served in the Netherlands, then returned to Berlin. In mid-July 1941, after a German attack on the USSR, he resumed flying, ignoring Himmler's ban. He flew his personal plane Bf 109E-7 with the II/JG 77 from Balti on the southern Eastern Front, which put the unit commander under pressure due to Heydrich's position and lack of experience. On July 22 1941, his plane was damaged by AA artillery. Heydrich managed to land in no-man's land, and run back to the German lines. He was forbidden to fly once again, as it was realized that Heydrich's capture as a POW would be a major security breach for Germany. However, several months later he flew once more with II/JG 52. He was too old and inexperienced for a fighter pilot, and was kept out of action as much as possible. Despite his lack of combat success, he was awarded the Iron Cross First (1941) and Second (1940) Classes.
Fiction
The events of the Wannsee conference are recreated in the 1984 TV Movie Wannseekonferenz (The Wannsee Conference)[1] directed by Heinz Schirk, and remade in 2001 under the title Conspiracy [2], with Kenneth Branagh playing Reinhard Heydrich. The Conference was also the subject of a 1992 English language documentary film entitled The Wannsee Conference directed by Dutch director Willy Lindwer [3].
The plan to kill Heydrich is central to the plot of the 1998 novel As Time Goes By, a sequel to the movie Casablanca, written by Michael Walsh. (ISBN 0446519006). The assassination itself has been dramatised in the 1943 Fritz Lang film Hangmen Also Die (written by Bertolt Brecht) [4], the 1964 Czechoslovak film Atentát [5] and the 1975 film Operation Daybreak, starring Anthony Andrews (Jozef Gabcik), Timothy Bottoms (Jan Kubis), Martin Shaw (Karel Curda) and Anton Diffring (Heydrich) [6].
Heydrich plays a leading role in March Violets and The Pale Criminal, the first two novels in Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy (ISBN 0140231706), in which Bernie Gunther, a Berlin private eye in the tradition of Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe who left the Berlin police when the Nazis came to power, finds his investigations embroil him in the internal feuding of the Nazi high command.
Heydrich and the events of the Wannsee conference are also the subject of Robert Harris's novel Fatherland. The novel also portrays an alternate history where Heydrich was promoted to the rank of Reichsfuhrer after the death of Heinrich Himmler.
The Man in the High Castle an alternative history novel by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick set in the 1960s describes Heydrich as head of the SS and challenging to become Reichs Chancellor after Hitler and his immediate sucessor, Martin Bormann, are dead.
Heydrich in popular culture
- The assasination inspired rock group British Sea Power to write the song "A Lovely Day Tommorrow". Originally a b-side, the song was re-recorded with the Czech band The Ecstasy of St. Theresa in both English and Czech for a limited edition release in 2004.
- The story of Operation Anthropoid was the basis for the play and film Hangmen Also Die and the 1975 film Operation Daybreak
References
- SS Service Record of Reinhard Heydrich, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
- The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich: The SS "Butcher of Prague", by Callum McDonald. ISBN 0306808609
- Assassination : Operation Anthropoid 1941-1942, by Michael Burian. Prague: Avis, 2002.
- The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership, by Joachim Fest, Da Capo Presscs:Reinhard Heydrich
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