Reinhard Heidrich

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (Halle del Saale, March 7, 1904-Prague, June 4, 1942) was a high-ranking German officer in the SS during World War II., responsible for numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity, having been one of the main architects of the Holocaust.

At the height of his career he held the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei and was head of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) —the body that grouped the Gestapo (Secret State Police), the Criminal Police, and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). He was also the stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (acting Reich protector) of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia — the present-day Czech Republic —. Heydrich was also president of the International Criminal Police Organization (later known as Interpol) and head of the Gestapo in the period before World War II. Heydrich was one of the main organizers of Nazi repression in the occupied Europe.

Many historians consider him the most obscure figure within the Nazi elite. Adolf Hitler described him as "the man with an iron heart". As a consequence of his repressive actions, throughout his career he was known by different nicknames: The Executioner, the Butcher of Prague and the Blonde Beast. He was the founding leader of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), an intelligence organization tasked with seeking resistance to the Party Nazi so that the Gestapo and then also members of the SD could combat it through arrests, deportations and assassinations. He was also one of the organizers of the night of broken glass,^{[citation needed]} a series of coordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on the night of November 9–10, 1938. The attacks were carried out by the Assault Section (SA), the Protection Squads (SS), the Hitler Youth and by civilians, and were a harbinger of what would happen during the subsequent war: the Holocaust. In Eastern Europe he was directly responsible for the Einsatzgruppen, the special commandos that accompanied the German Armies in their advance and proceeded to the murder of one million three hundred thousand people —including communists, intellectuals and Jews— for mass murder by firing squad or gassed. In late 1941, following his arrival in Prague as Reichsprotektor, Heydrich tried to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation by suppressing Czech culture, as well as deporting and executing members of the Czech resistance.

Heydrich was attacked and seriously wounded near Prague on 27 May 1942 by a Czechoslovak commando as part of Operation Anthropoid. The commando had received special training from the British and was sent to the Czechoslovak capital by the Czechoslovakian government in exile to assassinate the Reichsprotektor. Heydrich died as a result of sepsis caused by his wounds a week later. Nazi intelligence falsely linked the members of this commando to the towns of Lídice and Ležáky. As revenge for Heydrich's murder, Lidice was completely razed to the ground; all men and adolescents over the age of 16 were executed, and the remaining inhabitants (women and children) were deported and later murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

Early Years

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born in 1904 in Halle an der Saale, the son of composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Heydrich and his wife Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia Krantz. His first two names had deep musical and patriotic connotations: &# 34;Reinhard" referred to the tragic hero of one of his father's operas, and & # 34;Tristan & # 34; it was for one of Richard Wagner's best-known works, Tristan und Isolde. Heydrich's third name, 'Eugen', was the name of his maternal grandfather (Professor Eugen Krantz had been director of the Dresden Royal Conservatory).

Heydrich was born into a family of high social standards and considerable financial means. Music was part of Heydrich's day-to-day life; His father founded the Halle Conservatory for Music and Theater and his mother taught piano there.Heydrich developed a passion for the violin and maintained that interest into adulthood; he used to impress listeners with his musical talent.

His father was a zealous German nationalist who instilled patriotic ideas in his three children, though he was not affiliated with any political party until after World War I. The Heydrich household was strict. In his youth he and his younger brother, Heinz, engaged in numerous mock fencing duels. Heydrich turned out to be a very intelligent student and excelled during his studies - especially in science - at the "Reformgymnasium". He was also revealed as a talented athlete, becoming an expert swimmer and fencer. Despite everything, he was also a shy boy, and was frequently bullied at school for his high-pitched voice and his alleged Jewish background. The latter claim earned him the nickname "Moses Handel".

In 1918 World War I ended with the defeat of Germany. In late February 1919, numerous riots—including numerous strikes and clashes between communists and anti-communist groups—took place in Heydrich's hometown. Under the directives of the then defense minister, Gustav Noske, a right-wing paramilitary unit was created with the mission of "recapturing" Halle. Heydrich, then fifteen years old, joined the "Maercker Volunteer Riflemen" (which in fact constituted the first Freikorps unit). When the skirmishes ended, Heydrich was part of the forces assigned to protect private property.Little is known about his true role at the time, but the events left a strong impression on him; that constituted a "political awakening" for him. He joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund , a nationalist and deeply anti-Semitic organization.

As a result of the conditions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, profound hyperinflation ensued in Germany, and many lost their life savings. Halle was not spared from this economic crisis. In 1921, few city dwellers could afford a musical education at Bruno Heydrich's Conservatory. This led the Heydrich family into a financial crisis.

Naval Career

In 1922 Heydrich joined the Reichsmarine, taking advantage of the security, the rigid military structure, and the future pension that the position offered him. He became a naval cadet at Kiel, Germany's largest naval base. On 1 April 1924 he was promoted to senior midshipman (Oberfähnrich zur See) and sent to the officer school of the Mürwik Naval Academy in Flensburg-Mürwik. In 1926 he was promoted to the rank of ensign. (Leutnant zur See) and was assigned as signal officer to the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, then the flagship of the German North Sea Fleet. With the promotion also came greater recognition. He received good reviews from his superiors and had few problems with other crew members. On July 1, 1928 he was promoted to the rank of frigate lieutenant ( Oberleutnant zur See ). The rise in rank fed him greater ambition and arrogance.

Heydrich in 1922 with naval uniform.

Heydrich however became famous for his innumerable love affairs. In December 1930 he attended a rowing club ball where he met Lina von Osten. They both quickly fell in love and soon publicly announced their engagement. By then Lina was already an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi Party; she had attended a party meeting in 1929. In 1931 Heydrich was charged with "conduct unbecoming to an officer and gentleman"; for having broken an earlier engagement promise he had made to another woman, whom he had met six months before his engagement to Lina von Osten. Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Reichsmarine, expelled Heydrich from the Navy in April of that same year. The dismissal left Heydrich completely devastated, as he found himself with no future career prospects.Despite what happened, he kept the promise of marriage and married Lina in December 1931.

Career in the SS and Gestapo

In 1931 the leader of the Schutzstaffel (SS), Heinrich Himmler, established a counterintelligence division within the SS. At that time the SS was in full expansion and needed qualified personnel. On the advice of an acquaintance of his, Karl von Eberstein, who was also a friend of Lina von Osten, Himmler agreed to interview Heydrich for a possible job, but at the last minute decided to cancel the meeting. Lina ignored the advice. message, packed Heydrich's suitcase and sent him to Munich. Eberstein met Heydrich at the central railway station and took him to Himmler. The latter asked him for his ideas for a hypothetical development of the SS intelligence service, and was so impressed that Heydrich was hired immediately. Despite the low starting salary of 180 Reichsmarks, Heydrich decided to take the job, partly because his wife's family enthusiastically supported the Nazi movement, and partly because he was drawn to the quasi-military character of the job. and revolutionary of the post. At first he had to share an office and secretary with a fellow SS member, but by 1932 he was already earning 290 Reichsmarks a month, a salary he himself described as "comfortable". 34;. As his power and influence increased during the 1930s, his salary increased considerably: by 1938 his salary had increased to 17,371.53 Reichsmarks per year (the current equivalent of more than €75,000). Heydrich joined the Nazi Party under number 544,916 and the SS under number 10,120. He would later receive the Totenkopfring from Himmler for his services.

On August 1, 1931, Heydrich began his job as head of the new intelligence service. He established his office in the Brown House, the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich. By October, he had already created a network of spies and informers for the purpose of collecting intelligence and obtaining information that could later be used as blackmail to achieve political objectives. The information on thousands of people was recorded on files and stored in the Casa Parda. On the occasion of Heydrich's wedding in December, Himmler promoted him to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major).

In 1932 Heydrich's enemies began spreading rumors about his alleged Jewish background. Wilhelm Canaris said he had obtained photocopies proving Heydrich had Jewish ancestry, although these photocopies never came to light. Nazi Gauleiter Rudolf Jordan was also among those who claimed that Heydrich was not a pure Aryan. Within the Nazi organization insinuations of this kind could be very damaging, even to someone like the head of the party's counterintelligence service. Gregor Strasser referred these allegations to the Nazi Party's racial expert, Dr. Achim Gercke, who researched Heydrich's genealogy. Gercke reported that Heydrich was "of German origin and free of any trace of Jewish blood." He insisted that these rumors were unfounded. But even with this report, Heydrich privately ordered SD member Ernst Hoffman to continue to investigate and dispel all these rumors.

Gestapo and SD

Gestapo headquarters at the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in Berlin, 1933.

In mid-1932, Himmler appointed Heydrich head of the renowned Security Service—the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Heydrich's counterintelligence service grew into an effective machine of terror and intimidation.

In January 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, eventually becoming Führer und Reichskanzler (Leader and Chancellor of the Reich) through a series of decrees. concentration camps—which had originally been created to intern political opponents—were established in 1933, shortly after Hitler was appointed chancellor. By the end of the year more than fifty camps had been established.As Hitler consolidated his absolute power in Germany, Himmler and Heydrich wanted to control the police forces of all seventeen German states. First they did it in Bavaria: in 1933, Heydrich rounded up some of his SD men and together they stormed police headquarters in Munich, taking over the police through intimidation tactics. Himmler became the head of the Munich police and Heydrich became the commander of Department IV, the political police. After Bavaria, they took over the police forces of other federal states.

Hermann Göring had founded the Gestapo in 1933 as a strictly Prussian police force. When Göring transferred all his authority over the Gestapo to Himmler in April 1934, it immediately became an instrument of terror under SS control. Himmler appointed Heydrich as Gestapo leader on 22 April 1934. On 9 On June 1934, Rudolf Hess officially declared the SD a Nazi intelligence service.

Crush of the SA

SS-Brigadeführer Heydrich, head of the Bavarian police and the SD, in Munich (1934).

In early April 1934, and at Hitler's request, Heydrich and Himmler began writing a dossier on Sturmabteilung (SA) leader Ernst Röhm in an effort to eliminate a rival to the political leadership of the National Socialist movement. At this point, the SS was still part of the SA, which was the first paramilitary organization to be created and by then had around three million members. The SA had long since become a threat to the leadership. nazis. Under Hitler's leadership, Heydrich, Himmler, Göring and Viktor Lutze draw up lists of those to be liquidated, starting with seven top SA leaders and many more. On the night of June 30, 1934, the SS and the Gestapo acted in coordination, carrying out mass arrests that lasted for the next two days. Röhm was executed without trial, as were most of the other SA leaders. The purge would later be known as the "Night of the Long Knives". Lutze would be named the new leader of the SA and the former militia was turned into a mere sports and training organization.

With the SA crushed, Heydrich began to reorganize the Gestapo into an instrument of terror. He improved his personal file system, creating color-coded card categories of criminals.The Gestapo had the authority to arrest any citizen on suspicion of committing a crime, and the definition of crime was at the discretion of the Gestapo. The Gestapo Law, passed in 1936, gave the police the right to act extrajudicially. This led to the use of the term Schutzhaft—"protective custody"—, a euphemism for being able to imprison people without any legal proceedings. Courts were allowed to investigate or interfere with police investigative work. From then on the Gestapo was considered to be acting legally as long as it led police operations. People were arbitrarily arrested and the victims could later be sent to concentration camps or even killed.

Himmler began to develop the concept of a Germanic religion and wanted members of the SS to leave the Church. At the beginning of 1936, Heydrich left the Catholic Church. His wife, Lina, had already done it a year before. Heydrich not only felt that he could no longer be a member; he even came to consider the Church's political power and influence a danger to the State.

Consolidation of police forces

Seyß-Inquart, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Heydrich in -Vienna, after the Anschluss (March 1938).

On June 17, 1936, all police forces in Germany were reorganized and unified after Himmler was appointed chief of the German police. With their appointment by the Führer, Himmler and his deputy, Heydrich, became two of the most powerful men within Germany's internal administration. Himmler immediately reorganized the police into two groups: the Ordnungspolizei (OrPo), made up of all nationally uniformed police forces and municipal police, and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), made up of the Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo) and the Kriminalpolizei (KriPo). At the time, Heydrich was the head of SiPo and the SD. Heinrich Müller became chief of operations for the Gestapo.

Heydrich was assigned to help organize the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Berlin in 1936. The games were used by the Nazis to further the propaganda purposes of the National Socialist regime. Ambassadors of "goodwill" to those countries that were considering a boycott of the games. Anti-Semitic violence from the past was banned during the games, and copies of the famous anti-Semitic newspaper Der Stürmer were even prevented from being distributed. For their part in the success of the games, Heydrich was awarded the Deutsches Olympiaehrenzeichen or Badge of the Olympic Games.

In January 1937 Heydrich led the SD in secretly collecting and analyzing public opinion and writing reports on their investigations. The Gestapo then carried out house searches, arrests and interrogations to, in effect, check the exercise of control over public opinion. In February 1938, when Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg resisted Hitler's proposal that Austria join Germany, Heydrich intensified pressure on Austria by organizing Nazi demonstrations and the distribution in Vienna of propaganda emphasizing the common Germanic blood of the two countries. The ensuing tension left the Austrian government impotent, and created a climate favorable to the Nazis. During the so-called Anschluss, on March 12, 1938, Hitler declared the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany.

In mid-1939 Heydrich created the so-called Stiftung Nordhav, a foundation whose mission was to obtain real estate for the SS and the Security Police, and use it either as housing or as vacation spots. The Villa Wannsee, which had been acquired by the Stiftung Nordhav in November 1940, would be the site chosen to host the Wannsee Conference (January 20, 1942). During this conference, some of the main Nazi officials discussed and formalized the plans for the deportation and extermination of all the Jews who lived in the territories under German occupation, and also of those Jews who lived in neutral countries or countries not yet conquered by Germany. This action had to be coordinated by all the representatives of the Nazi State who attended the meeting.

On September 27, 1939, the SD and the SiPo (which in turn consisted of the Gestapo and the KriPo) were integrated into the new Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA), which immediately came under the control of Heydrich as its first director. On 1 October he was awarded the title Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (CSSD) or "Head of the Security Police and the SD". Heydrich was also appointed president of the ICPC (later known as Interpol) on August 24, 1940, and its former headquarters were moved from Vienna to Berlin. At the height of his professional career, he was promoted to the rank of SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei on September 24, 1941.

Red Army purges

In 1936, Heydrich learned that a high-ranking Soviet officer was plotting to bring down Joseph Stalin. Sensing an opportunity to strike a blow at both the Soviet Army and Admiral Wilhelm Canaris of the German intelligence service, Heydrich decided to expose the Soviet officers involved. He discussed the matter with Himmler and both in turn discussed the matter with Hitler, who showed interest. The Führer immediately approved Heydrich's plan. Forged letters and documents by Heydrich's SD, implicating Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other Red Army commanders, were handed over to the NKVD. The so-called "Great Purge" of the Red Army ensued, on Stalin's orders. While Heydrich himself believed for the rest of his life that he had successfully deceived Stalin and led him to execute or dismiss more than 35,000 members of the officer corps, in recent times the significance of Heydrich's action has been qualified by some historians.. Some have suggested that in reality the documentation that Heydrich would have received was disinformation planted by Stalin himself to legitimize his purges of the Soviet High Command. Others maintain that Soviet military prosecutors did not use the forged Nazi documents against the accused generals during their secret trial, but instead relied on false confessions extracted from the defendants.

Decree «Night and fog»

Commemorative plaque to the French victims of Decree Noche and fog at the Hinzert concentration camp (1942-1943).

By the late 1940s, German armies had conquered most of Western Europe. The following year, the Heydrich SD was given the responsibility of carrying out the decree nacht und nebel (night and fog). According to the decree, “the people who endangered the security of Germany "would be arrested in the most discreet way," under the protection of the night and fog. "For each prisoner, the SD had to fill in a questionnaire in which personal information, the country of origin and the details of its crimes against the Reich. This questionnaire was placed in an envelope with a stamp with the registration « nacht und nebel» and presented to the Central Office of Security of the Reich (RSHA). In the Central Archive of inmates (WVHA), as in many other archives of the concentration camps, these prisoners would be given a special code of "undercover prisoner", unlike the code used with the prisoners of war, felons, Jews, gypsies, etc. The decree remained in force after Heydrich's death. The exact number of people who disappeared while it was in force has never been established precisely, but is estimated at about 7000.

New posts

Start of the fight

Heydrich with Heinrich Müller and Heinrich Fehlis during the Norwegian Occupation in September 1941

When Hitler asked for a pretext to justify the invasion of Poland in 1939, Himmler, Heydrich and Heinrich Müller planned a false flag operation codenamed Operation Himmler. According to his plans, the operation involved a fake attack on the German radio station at Gleiwitz on August 31, 1939. Heydrich devised the plan and toured the site, which was just a short distance from the Polish border. Carrying Polish military uniforms, 150 German troops also carried out numerous attacks along the border. Hitler used this deception as an excuse to carry out his invasion.

Despite his SS service, Heydrich enlisted and trained as a pilot, rising to the rank of major in the Luftwaffe. Until July 22, 1941, he had participated in around 100 combat missions, participating in the campaigns in Norway and the Soviet Union. Just one month after the invasion of the USSR, on July 22, 1941, his plane was hit by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Heydrich was forced to make an emergency landing behind enemy lines. He managed to escape a Soviet patrol and contact the German avant -garde. After this, Hitler ordered him to return to Berlin to resume his functions in the SS.

Role in the Holocaust

1938 telegram relative to the Kristallnacht, signed by Heydrich

Letter from Göring to Heydrich concerning the Final Solution of the Jewish Question

Historians consider Reinhard Heydrich the most fearsome member of the Nazi elite. Hitler went so far as to call him "the man with the iron heart". main architects of the Holocaust during the first years of the war, responding solely to the orders of Hitler, Göring, and Himmler in relation to all matters related to the deportation, imprisonment, and extermination of the Jews.

Heydrich was also one of the organizers of the Kristallnacht , a pogrome against the Jews from all over Germany who took place on the night of November 9 to 10, 1938. That night, Heydrich He sent a telegram to several important departments of the SD and the Gestapo, helping to coordinate the pogrom to different groups and organizations: SS, SD, Gestapo, Uniformed Police (Orpo), SA, members of the Nazi party, and even the fire departments. In the text there was talk of allowing the fire and destruction of Jewish companies and synagogues, and the confiscation of the entire " file material &#34 was ordered; from all centers and synagogues of Jewish communities. The telegram ordered that " in all districts as many Jews should be arrested - especially the rich - as possible, as long as they could be relocated to the detention centers... immediately after the arrests have taken to Cabo, certain concentration camps must be consulted to retire these Jews as fast as possible " as the beginning of the Holocaust.

At the beginning of the Second World War, under the instructions of Himmler, Heydrich formed the Einsatzgruppen («operational groups») that would accompany the vanguards of the German Army in its advance through the battlefront On September 21, 1939, Heydrich sent a teletype on the "Jewish question" in the occupied territories to the heads of all the Einsatzgruppen with instructions to round up the Jews for later resettlement in ghettos., the formation of Judenräte (Jewish councils), ordered a census, and promoted Aryanization plans for Jewish-owned businesses and farms, among other measures. The Einsatzgruppen followed the Army as it advanced through Poland to implement your plans. Two years later they would do it again during the invasion of the Soviet Union, in charge of concentrating the Jews and assassinating them either by firing squads or by gassing trucks. By the end of the war, the Einsatzgruppen had killed more than a million people, of whom 700,000 had been killed on Soviet soil. Heydrich, however, guaranteed the safety and well-being of certain Jews, such as Paul Sommer, the former German fencing champion Heydrich had met in his pre-SS days. He also protected the Polish Olympic fencing team that had competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics.

On November 29, 1939, he issued a cable on the "Evacuation of the New Eastern Provinces," detailing the deportation of people by rail to concentration camps, and giving instructions on the December census of 1939, which would be the basis on which these deportations would take place. In May 1941 Heydrich drew up various regulations with Quartermaster General Eduard Wagner for the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union that ensured that the Einsatzgruppen and the Army would cooperate in the murder of Soviet Jews, as well as intellectuals, political commissars, and Communist Party cadres.

On 10 October 1941, Heydrich was the senior officer at a Prague meeting of the RHSA on the "Final Solution," during which the deportation of 50,000 Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the ghettos of Minsk and Riga. Given his position, Heydrich was instrumental in bringing these plans to fruition as his Gestapo was already ready to organize deportations in the West and his Einsatzgruppen were already carrying out mass murder in the East. The officers who were present also discussed the possibility of picking up 5,000 Jews from Prague over "the next several weeks" and hand them over to the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen Arthur Nebe and Otto Rasch. The establishment of ghettos in the Protectorate was also planned, which would ultimately lead to the construction of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where 33,000 people would later be murdered. Tens of thousands more passed through this camp on their way to death in the Eastern European Death Camps. In 1941 Himmler appointed Heydrich "responsible for implementing" the forced transfer of 60,000 Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia to the Litzmannstadt Ghetto (Łódź) in occupied Poland.

Already on July 31, 1941, Hermann Göring had given Heydrich written authorization to ensure the cooperation of the administrative heads of various government departments in the implementation of the Endlösung der Judenfrage (Final Solution to the Jewish Question) in the territories under German control. On January 20, 1942, Heydrich chaired a meeting—later called the Wannsee Conference—at which the implementation of the plan was discussed. According to historian Donald Bloxham, throughout discussion of the development of the Final Solution, Heydrich "barely spared a thought of hatred for the Jews" and instead concentrated his efforts on the scale of his "supranational task."

Reichsprotector of Bohemia and Moravia

Heydrich (Left) next to Karl Hermann Frank at the Prague Castle in 1941.

On September 27, 1941, Heydrich was appointed acting Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the part of Czechoslovakia incorporated into the Reich on March 15, 1939) and assumed control of the territory. The previous Reichsprotektor, Konstantin von Neurath, continued as titular head of the territory, but was sent "on leave" because Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich thought their "soft approach" he had promoted anti-German sentiment among the Czechs and encouraged anti-German resistance through strikes and sabotage.After his appointment, Heydrich confessed to his aides: "We are going to Germanize the Czech vermin.".

Heydrich came to Prague with a mission to enforce the law, fight resistance to the Nazi regime, and maintain production quotas for Czech engines and weapons, the manufacture of which was critical to the German war effort. Heydrich considered the area as a bulwark of the German people and condemned the Czech resistance as a "stab in the back." To carry out his objectives, Heydrich demanded a racial classification of those who could and could not be Germanized. He would later explain: “To turn this Czech trash into Germans must give way to methods based on racist thinking.” Heydrich began his rule by terrorizing the population. 92 people were executed in the three days following his arrival in Prague. Their names were posted on posters throughout the occupied region. Almost all means through which Czechs could publicly express their culture were closed. According to Heydrich's estimate, between 4,000 and 5,000 people were arrested in February 1942. Those who were not executed were sent to the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where only 4% of the Czech prisoners survived the fighting. In March 1942, more raids against cultural, patriotic, military organizations and in general against the Czech intelligentsia they ended up bringing the resistance to an almost total paralysis. Although small disorganized cells of the government-in-exile controlled Ústřední vedení odboje domácího (ÚVOD) survived, only the communist groups were able to function in an effective and coordinated manner (although they had also suffered arrests). The terror also served to paralyze resistance within Czech society, with widespread public reprisals against any resistance to German rule. Heydrich's brutal policies during those months earned him the nickname "Butcher". of Prague".

As acting Reichsprotektor, Heydrich applied the so-called carrot-and-stick policy. Labor was reorganized on the basis of the German Labor Front. Heydrich used the equipment confiscated from the Czech organization Sokol to organize events and performances for the workers. Free rations of food and shoes were distributed, pensions were increased, and for a time Saturdays were made public. be non-working days. Unemployment insurance for the Czechs was even established - for the first time in its history. The black market was harshly repressed. All those associated with the black market or with the resistance were tortured and executed. Heydrich called them "economic criminals" and "enemies of the people", which earned him increased support among the population. In general, conditions in Prague and the rest of the Czech territories were relatively peaceful during Heydrich's tenure, and industrial production increased markedly. However, all these measures could not hide the scarcity of products and the increase in demand. inflation; there continued to be reports that discontent was high.

The Czech labor force was exploited as forced labor by the Nazi authorities. After Heydrich's arrival in Prague, more than 100,000 workers were removed from their "unfit" jobs and recruited by the Ministry of Labour. By December 1941, Czechs could be called up at any time to work anywhere in the Reich. Between April and November 1942, some 79,000 Czech workers were brought in this way to work in Nazi Germany. Also, in February 1942, the working day was increased from eight to twelve hours.

Despite public displays of goodwill toward the Czech population, privately Heydrich left no doubt about his true ultimate goal: "This whole area will one day be definitively German, and the Czechs should expect nothing from here." ». Finally, two thirds of the Czech population were to be expelled to regions of Russia or exterminated after Nazi Germany won the war. Bohemia and Moravia faced direct annexation to the German Reich. Heydrich was, to all intents and purposes, a military dictator of Bohemia and Moravia, despite being "acting" Reichsprotektor. His changes in the government structure left President Emil Hacha and his cabinet virtually powerless, with no real role or importance. Against the advice of some Nazi officials, Heydrich often drove alone in an open-top car, in a show of his confidence in the occupying forces and the effectiveness of his government.

Murder

Death in Prague

The convertible Mercedes-Benz in which Heydrich was fatally wounded after the attack.

In London, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile decided to remove Heydrich. Agents Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík led the team chosen for the operation. Trained by the British Special Operations Directorate (SOE), on December 28, 1941 both agents returned to the Protectorate and parachuted from a Handley Page Halifax. During the following months they lived in hiding, preparing the assassination of the Reichsprotektor.

By May 27, 1942, Heydrich had planned to meet Hitler in Berlin. German documentation from the time suggests that Hitler intended to transfer Heydrich to occupied France, where the French resistance was gaining more and more ground. Heydrich would have to pass through an area where the Dresden-Prague road meets the a road that led to the Troja Bridge. This section, located in the Prague suburb of Libeň, was a good location for the attack because the drivers had to slow down around a tight curve. When Heydrich's vehicle (an open-top Mercedes model 320, registration “SS-3”) arrived in the area, while slowing down, Gabčík aimed a Sten submachine gun at his target, but it turned out to be jammed and he did not fire. Instead of ordering his driver to speed up, Heydrich ordered her to stop and attempted to engage the attackers. Kubiš then threw a bomb (a modified anti-tank mine) at the rear of the car when it came to a complete stop. The explosion injured Heydrich and Kubiš.

Postal seal with the mortuary mask of Heydrich (1943).

As the smoke cleared, Heydrich suddenly emerged with his gun drawn; he chased after Kubis and tried to fight back. Heydrich followed him for a while, but he began to feel weak from the shock and collapsed. He sent his driver, Klein, to pursue Gabčík on foot. In the ensuing firefight, Gabčík shot Klein in the leg and managed to escape to a resistance safe house. Heydrich, still holding his pistol, clutched at the wounded area, which was bleeding profusely.

A Czech woman came to the aid of the Reichsprotektor and signaled to a passing delivery van to stop. Heydrich initially positioned himself in the driver's cab, but soon complained that the movement of the van was causing him pain, so he was placed in the back of the van and taken to the Bulovce hospital emergency room. Heydrich had sustained severe injuries to his left side, with major damage to his diaphragm, spleen, and lung. He had also fractured a rib. One doctor, Slanina, compressed the chest wound, while another doctor, Walter Diek, tried unsuccessfully to remove the splinters. It was immediately decided to operate. The surgical intervention was carried out by Diek, Slanina and Hohlbaum. Heydrich received numerous blood transfusions and underwent a splenectomy. The wounds to the chest, left lung, and diaphragm were debrided and closed. Himmler ordered another doctor, Karl Gebhardt, to Prague to take over medical care. Despite running a fever, Heydrich's recovery seemed to be progressing well. Theodor Morell, Hitler's personal physician, suggested the use of sulfonamides, a new antibacterial drug, but Gebhardt rejected this idea, thinking that Heydrich would recover.Everything suggested that he was recovering. On June 2 Himmler went to Prague and visited Heydrich in hospital, still convalescing.

Following Himmler's visit, she fell into a deep coma shortly thereafter and never regained consciousness. He passed away on June 4, probably around 04:30. He was thirty-eight years old. The subsequent autopsy carried out concluded that the cause of his death had been sepsis. As Bernhard Wehner, an officer of the Kriminalpolizei who investigated the murder, would comment, Heydrich's facial expression when he passed away revealed "mysterious spirituality and completely perverted beauty, like a Renaissance cardinal."

Funeral

After an elaborate funeral in Prague on June 7, 1942, Heydrich's coffin was loaded on a train to Berlin, where a second ceremony was held at the New Reich Chancellery on June 9. During the ceremony, Himmler delivered a eulogy. Hitler attended the ceremony and presented Heydrich with various decorations—including the highest degree of the German Order, the Order of Blood medal, the Gold Wound Medal, and the Cross. War Merit Award 1st Class with swords—placing them on the coffin. Although Heydrich's death was used extensively in Nazi propaganda, privately Hitler blamed Heydrich for his own death:

Heydrich's anonymous tomb at the Berlin Invalids Cemetery.

Since they are an opportunity not only for a thief but also for a murderer, this type of heroic gestures such as driving in an unarmed convertible vehicle or walking the streets without just monitoring are doomedly stupid, which does not serve the homeland or an apex. That a man as irreplaceable as Heydrich would expose himself to an unnecessary danger, I can only condemn him as a stupid and idiot.

Heydrich was buried in Berlin's Invalids Cemetery, a military cemetery. The exact location of his burial is currently unknown—a temporary wooden sign disappeared when the Red Army entered the city in 1945 and never it was replaced, so Heydrich's grave has not become a rallying point for neo-Nazis. A photograph of Heydrich's burial shows that the wreaths and mourners may have been in section A, which borders the north wall from the Invalidenfriedhof and Scharnhorststraße, at the front of the cemetery. A recent biography of Heydrich also places his grave in section A. Hitler had planned a grave for Heydrich monumental, designed by the sculptor Arno Breker and the architect Wilhelm Kreis, but due to the turn of the tide for Germany, it was never built.

Consequences

Heydrich's assailants hid in safe houses and later took refuge in the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius, an Orthodox church in Prague. After being betrayed by a member of the resistance, who revealed its location to the Germans, the church was surrounded by around 800 members of the SS and the Gestapo. Several Czechs were killed, and the rest hid in the crypt. The Germans tried to drive out the resistance members with gunfire, tear gas and by flooding the crypt. Finally, the Germans entered the interior using explosives. The Czechs preferred to commit suicide rather than become prisoners in the hands of the Germans. All those who had helped the members of the commando and the resistance were killed by the Germans, including Bishop Gorazd, who is now revered by the Orthodox Church.

He says after being destroyed by the Germans (June 1942).

Enraged by Heydrich's death, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10,000 randomly selected Czechs. But after several consultations with Karl Hermann Frank, he moderated his answer. The Czech lands were an important industrial zone for the German Army, and the indiscriminate murder of its inhabitants could reduce the productivity of the region. Hitler ordered a swift investigation. Intelligence falsely linked the murderers to the towns of Lídice and Ležáky. A Gestapo report stated that Lidice, located 22 km northwest of Prague, was suspected of being a hideout for the assailants because several officers of the Czech Army in exile in England came from this town, and the Gestapo had also discovered a resistance radio transmitter in Ležáky. On June 9, after several conversations with Himmler and Karl Hermann Frank, Hitler ordered brutal reprisals to be unleashed. More than 13,000 people were arrested, deported, and imprisoned. On the morning of June 10, all males over the age of 16 in the towns of Lídice and Ležáky were killed. All the women from Ležáky were also killed. Except for four, all the women from Lídice were immediately deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp (the four women not initially deported were pregnant; the Nazis forced them to have abortions in the same hospital in that Heydrich had died and then they were sent to the concentration camp). Some children were chosen to be Germanized, and the remaining 81 were killed in gassed trucks at the Chełmno extermination camp. Both towns were burned down and even the ruins of Lidice were razed to the ground level. At least 1,300 people were thus massacred after Heydrich's death.

Heydrich was replaced at the head of the RSHA by Ernst Kaltenbrunner in 1943, while Kurt Daluege succeeded him as deputy Reichsprotektor. After Heydrich's death, the decisions that were made during the Wannsee conference were carried out. The first three death camps, designed to carry out mass murder without any legal process, were established in Treblinka, Sobibór, and Bełżec. The project was named Operation Reinhard in honor of Heydrich.

Heydrich's widow gained the right to a state pension as a result of a series of lawsuits against the West German government in 1956 and 1959. It was ruled that she was entitled to a substantial pension because her husband had been a German general killed in action. The West German government had refused to pay any pension for Heydrich's role in the Holocaust. The couple had four children: Klaus (born 1933 and killed in a traffic accident in 1943), Heider, born 1934; Silke, born 1939; and Mars, born shortly after her father's death in 1942. Lina wrote a memoir, Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher (Living with a War Criminal), which was published in 1976. She would return to marry and died in 1985.

Career Summary

Personality and relationships

Heydrich next to Himmler and other SS officers, about 1937.

Heydrich's leadership style was to use fear to in turn elicit obedience and respect. Efficient and unscrupulous, nothing seemed to get out of hand. He was a serious person, never friendly or jovial, who cultivated a martial attitude. He exercised daily and took meticulous care with his appearance, and expected his subordinates to do the same. On the other hand, he also had a special affinity for music, practicing various sports—particularly fencing, in which he was very skilful—and studying. He was also a seasoned Messerschmitt Me-109 and Messerschmitt Bf 110 pilot.

He had few close friends, and was a person who was suspicious of everything, mistrusting most other high-ranking SS officers. Himmler was an exception; Heydrich offered him blind obedience and was seen as a "real SS man" for his devotion. Himmler's own motivations for trusting Heydrich lay in part in Heydrich's lack of interest or ambition in taking his place (something Heydrich himself had told Himmler and others on more than one occasion).

Heydrich also proved to be an extremely intelligent man, with a keen cunning for concocting complicated, meticulously structured spells with far-reaching effects. He was, according to Walter Schellenberg, a "prey animal." The mere presence of him often marked a psychological abyss, which caused physical fear even to his closest collaborators. For Wilhelm Canaris, Heydrich was his nightmare, throwing him into nervous trances. Martin Bormann kept him at arm's length and never attempted any action against Heydrich.

Werner Best, Heydrich's personal assistant when he met him in 1933, described his superior as follows:

-" Heydrich was tall, heightier than most of his subordinates. It seemed thin, but at the same time slightly wide, especially in the hips, which gave it a powerful, imposing touch. The narrow and elongated face under the blond hair was dominated by a powerful eagle nose and blue eyes very close together. These eyes often looked cold, penetrating and distrustful. [...] He quickly expressed his views and intentions with a striking contundence, leaving others without the possibility or agreeing and subjecting to his will or undertaking a counter attack for which very few had courage. In this way, Heydrich forced everyone to position himself as a friend or enemy.[...] He often expressed dissatisfaction with his subordinates with excessively tempestuous manners and intentionally painful observations. "...

/

Heydrich only developed close relationships within the circle of the SS security forces and always in the most strictly professional sphere. Gestapo leader Heinrich Müller was one such case, and Heydrich seems to have come to trust him. Adolf Eichmann's absolute loyalty to his person impressed Heydrich, and was one of the reasons why he appointed her his secretary for the Wannsee Conference. Herbert Kappler, who was appointed commander of all SS security forces in Rome, was said to have been a "protégé". SS personnel favored by Heydrich, especially those who attended the Conference of Wannsee, possessed traits similar to Heydrich's: absolute devotion to the SS, a lack of remorse regarding brutal or genocidal orders, and above all, personal loyalty to Heydrich in his capacity as commander of the security forces. However, not all of his subordinates enjoyed his trust: Heydrich displayed a great dislike and mistrust of Arthur Nebe and Walter Schellenberg, perhaps because of their independence and his own personal ambitions.

At the time it was commented that Heydrich despised the SS-Totenkopfverbände, the unit of officers and guards in the concentration camps, and that he held particular contempt for Theodor Eicke, to whom he referred as an "ambitious dwarf". Heydrich neither liked nor trusted Oswald Pohl, and considered the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, an "uneducated thug". Within the upper SS administration, Heydrich maintained good relations with Karl Wolff. However, years later he would say that he had always been careful with Heydrich, since according to Wolff, Heydrich seemed to be waiting for an opportunity to act against him and make him antagonistic with Himmler. Within the Allgemeine-SS, Heydrich maintained relationships with some of the most powerful leaders of the Police and the SS, such as Friedrich Jeckeln. Heydrich maintained contact with him, but cautiously, especially after Jecklen had several clashes and serious disagreements with Himmler in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The security and police officers selected to manage the Operation Reinhard camps came from among Heydrich's closest professional contacts. It was said that Heydrich thought highly of Odilo Globocnik and Christian Wirth. In his other sphere of responsibility, that of Governor of the Czech Protectorate, Heydrich was cold towards Karl Hermann Frank, whom he did not really meet.

Service history

Heydrich's time in the SS was a mix of rapid promotions, reserve commissions in the regular armed forces, and front-line service. During his eleven years with the SS, Heydrich rose rapidly from private to the rank of SS general. He also held the rank of major in the Luftwaffe, and on several occasions participated in combat missions, until Hitler ordered him to return to Berlin and resume his duties in the SS. His service record also credits him with the rank of Lieutenant of the Navy in the reserve, although during World War II Heydrich had little contact with this military branch. Heydrich received numerous Nazi and military decorations, including the German Order, Order of Blood, Gold Party Plaque, Luftwaffe Pilot's Badge, and the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class.

The audacity of the Czech commando was translated into cinematography three times.

Explanatory notes