He is perhaps one of the most infamous figures
of the Nazi regime.
Adolf Hitler will refer to him as “the man
with the iron heart.”
Others will call him “The Butcher of Prague,”
or “Hitlers Hangman”.
At his funeral, his mentor and friend, Heinrich
Himmler, will eulogise him as Nazi martyr
and an “ideal always to be emulated, but
perhaps never again to be achieved”.
To the rest of the world he is arguably the
worst mass murderer in human history.
This man is Reinhard Heydrich.
Chief of the Nazi police state and the architect
of the Holocaust.
Welcome to a WW2, War Against Humanity biography
special.
I’m Spartacus Olsson.
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich is born March
7, 1904, in the Prussian city of Halle, to
an affluent upper middle-class family of well-established
musicians.
The second of three children, Reinhard enjoys
a childhood of privilege, albeit a strict
and austere one.
Though not especially political, he is raised
with strongly patriotic ideals and a particular
reverence of the nationalist operas of Richard
Wagner with their themes of righteous heroes
struggling against a sinful world.
So unsurprisingly, the young Heydrich soon
develops a talent for music, becoming particularly
proficient with the violin.
He is also diligent and ambitious at school,
although he does suffer from a weak and sickly
constitution.
He compensates for this with rigorous physical
exercise, developing a lifelong passion for
competitive sports.
By 1922, at 18, he has finished school and
chosen to become a Naval Officer in the Reichsmarine.
Despite doing well professionally, Heydrich
never really finds a place among his peers.
Still largely apolitical and playing his beloved
violin for relaxation, his fellow officers
view him as a sensitive "liberal".
This isn't helped by persistent rumours that
Heydrich is of Jewish ancestry, something
that has followed him since his school days.
Nevertheless, he still rises through the ranks,
becoming a second naval lieutenant in 1926.
But he is also increasingly arrogant, something
that will spell the end of his naval career.
In 1930, while courting a woman for engagement,
he openly asks for the hand of another he
has fallen in love with by the name of Lina
von Osten.
When the Navy leadership find out, Heydrich
must defend himself before a court of honour
in January 1931.
During this hearing, the young officer behaves
in such an arrogant and disrespectful manner,
that he manages to land himself a dishonourable
discharge.
His dismissal leaves him with little prospects
in a bankrupt Germany.
But family connections and historical chance
change everything.
Lina von Osten comes from a minor noble family
on a steady decline for over fifty years but
who lost the last of their fortune during
the German hyperinflation in the early twenties.
Like so many of their class, it triggers them
to throw their support behind the extreme
right.
Lina’s brother is already a Nazi Party member
and trooper in the Sturmabteilung, currently
the party's leading paramilitary group.
Lina herself is a committed National Socialist
and fervent anti-Semite.
Heydrich becomes increasingly familiar with
Nazi ideology, and he has family connections
on his own side who are promising him an elevated
position in the party if he chooses to become
a member.
He has never read Mein Kampf or even heard
of the SS before, but he joins the Party in
June 1931 and through his family connection,
immediately sets up an appointment with none
other than Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler is the commander of the SS, still
a relatively insignificant paramilitary organisation
subordinate to the larger SA.
But Himmler has big dreams.
He wants to build an Intelligence Service
within his organisation, and mistakenly believes
that Heydrich served as an intelligence officer.
Himmler learns of his mistaken when the two
meet, but still takes a strong liking to Heydrich.
Tall, blond, and blue-eyed, he is the ideal
Ayran man and impresses Himmler further with
his supposedly his "expert" knowledge about
the world of espionage - taken from cheap
novels he read as a youngster.
He gets the job as head of Ic-Dienst, destined
to be renamed Sicherheitsdienst or SD in 1932.
The open structures of the SS organisation
are ideal for a ruthlessly ambitious man like
Heydrich to carve out a sphere of influence
for himself.
His primary tasks are to gather information
on political enemies and root out informants
in the Nazi Party.
Through doing this, he develops a career-long
belief: that the Nazi Party faces an existential
threat from internal enemies and spies, and
that a unique strike force is necessary to
counter this.
His new position also brings financial stability
and the means to marry Lina, which he does
in December 1931.
Still only in his late-twenties, Heydrich
does little more than observe the Nazi seizure
of power in the first months of 1933.
However, he still reaps its benefits when
in March he is made commissioner of the Bavarian
Political Police by the new Munich police
chief, Himmler.
In a letter to her parents, Lina Heydrich
describes how her husband is making use of
his new powers, telling them what happened
when a prominent member of Munich's Jewish
community was brought to Nazi headquarters:
"They made short work of him.
They beat him with dog whips, pulled off his
shoes and socks, and then he had to walk home
barefoot in the company of SS men . . . That
will give you an idea of how they do things."
But Heydrich’s work goes beyond random assaults
on individuals.
Already, his persecution becomes systematised
on a massive scale.
He approves a wave of arrests of political
opponents - primarily communists, social democrats,
and trade unionists - so that by January 1934,
16,409 have been held in custody.
12,554 are released but not after punishing
beatings and the condition that they never
return to politics.
Many of them spend time in Dachau, a new concentration
camp not administered directly by Heydrich
but subject to in and outgoings of arrestees
he approves.
By 1934, with Bavaria under their thumb, Himmler
and Heydrich set out to subordinate all of
Germany’s political police to their control.
Himmler uses his extensive contacts to ensure
loyal SS men are appointed in important positions.
Heydrich often travels with him on these political
missions, making sure that many of these appointees
are also recruited into the SD.
In April, Hitler appoints Himmler as chief
of all German police outside of Prussia and
Hermann Goering also hands over control of
the Prussian secret police, the Gestapo.
Himmler immediately puts Heydrich in charge
of this soon-to-be infamous agency.
Heydrich secures his power base further in
June in the Night of the Long Knives, the
infamous purge of the Nazi Party and beyond.
The primary victim is the SA and its leader
Ernst Rohm who until recently had been a friend
of Heydrich and even godfather to his eldest
child.
But a ruthless career drive and belief that
the SA is a threat to the Reich's stability
cause Heydrich to turn on his former ally.
He oversees arrests and executions all over
the country.
Seeking to prove that they can lead Germany's
defence against its internal enemies, Himmler
and Heydrich continue their work to consolidate
Germany's police
The seminal moment comes on June 17, 1936,
when Hitler appoints Himmler as Chief of German
Police.
Himmler immediately places Heydrich in charge
of the Sicherheitspolizei, the Security Police,
which combines the Gestapo - now also the
nation-wide political police - and the criminal
investigations department.
With unprecedented power in his hands, Heydrich
fosters a culture of a constant state of emergency
among his police.
His leadership style is shaped by his own
ideological conviction: that Germany is locked
in a fierce Darwinist struggle with its enemies,
namely world Jewry but also Free Masons and
political Christianity.
To him, this struggle can only be won with
absolute loyalty to the Fuhrer and the suppression
of all emotion and mercy.
With this in mind, he rewards radical initiative
among his subordinates and dismisses any attempt
at compromise as cowardice.
This cold-heartedness makes Heydrich the man
who turns National Socialist words into deeds.
And in the years leading up to the war, he
proves this time and time again.
He plays a vital role in the German annexation
of Austria on March 12, 1938, with an immediate
purge of the police and arrest of 21,000 people
deemed a threat to the regime.
He also bears significant responsibility for
the unprecedented violence of Kristallnacht
on November 9 the same year.
It is under his orders that police across
Germany do nothing to quell the anti-Semitic
pogrom engineered by the Nazi Party.
We have covered both these events in our Between
Two Wars series if you would like to learn
about them in more detail.
The Sudeten Crisis in March 1938 brings Germany
within an inch of war and Heydrich begins
preparing for rear operations in occupied
lands.
SD men will follow behind the invading Wehrmacht
with arrest lists enemies of the state.
By September, Heydrich has formed two special
task forces, the Einsatzgruppen, who to carry
out these missions.
In the end, war is temporarily avoided when
Britain and France concede to Germany occupying
the Sudetenland.
But the Einsatzgruppen enter these new German
lands under orders to detain all enemies of
the Reich, albeit under strict orders to partake
in no unnecessary killings or violence.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 German and Czech
civilians are detained, 7000 of which are
sent to concentration camps.
Heydrich once again mobilises his new Einsatzgruppen
when the remaining of Czech lands falls to
the Nazi's in March 1939.
Similarly, thousands are arrested.
When war does eventually come in September
1939, Heydrich has been ready for it.
In the build-up to hostilities, his Gestapo
and SD received orders from the Nazi leadership
to begin preparations to neutralise any and
all Polish resistance.
Agents dutifully create a list of around 61,000
Poles to be immediately detained or executed.
When the Wehrmacht enter Poland on September
1, five – later seven – Einsatzgruppen
divisions follow in their wake.
Commanders interpret "enemies of the state"
liberally, especially after Heydrich meets
with some of them in Krakow on September 11
and orders that they should take the harshest
possible measures against any suspected insurgents.
By December 1939, some 40,000 Poles have been
killed in these kinds of operations.
Not all of them are at the hands of the Einsatzgruppen,
other terroristic groups are tearing through
Poland, and the Wehrmacht itself plays a considerable
role.
But the extrajudicial task force created by
Heydrich has set a tone for the subsequent
operations in the global war that has now
begun.
He also plays a significant role in establishing
the system of Nazi terror in occupied Poland.
I have already covered the specifics of this
in a previous War against Humanity episode.
Still, it is he who is responsible for the
creation of the ghetto system, mass deportations
to concentration camps, and, the first real
steps towards the Final Solution.
His power within the Reich only grows further
when he becomes chief of the newly formed
Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Main Security
Office or RHSA at the end of September 1939
Ever powerful, his obsessive campaign of “security”
continues.
Concentration camps throughout Nazi Europe
are swelling due to the mass deportations
he is orchestrating, but as are Germany's
regular prisons.
Who constitutes a criminal has been widened
since the Nazi's gained power, and even more
since war begins.
Criminal enemies of the state now mean not
only rapists, thieves, and murderers, but
also defeatists, the work-shy, and deviants.
Under new guidelines Heydrich has written,
Gestapo and SD agents have the power to execute
without trial, even for minor crimes.
Jews and Polish labourers in Germany bear
the brunt of this unrestricted terror.
Poles having sexual relation with German's
are shot, and their partners deported to concentration
camps.
Jews also face ever-increasing surveillance
and harassment.
Not long after war breaks out, they are banned
from entering most shops, and all radio sets
in Jewish homes are confiscated.
But Heydrich's rise to power, which has so
far been mostly uninhibited, faces a set-back
with the 1940 Campaigns in Northern and Western
Europe.
Displeased with the excessive violence carried
out by Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen in Poland,
conservatives in the Wehrmacht block any real
SS political involvement in both the fighting
and following occupations of Norway, Denmark,
the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and
France.
Nevertheless, his ruthless thirst for action
is satisfied somewhat by a four-week career
as a volunteer pilot in the Luftwaffe in the
Norwegian Campaign in the spring of 1940.
His flying career is cut short by a minor
crash but not after he has also used his time
in Norway to orchestrate a wave of arrests
of potential dissidents.
However, these are notably less brutal than
previous SD operations with strict orders
from Heydrich that all agents act with the
utmost professionalism.
Back to his regular duties, Heydrich continues
his search for a Final Solution to the Jewish
Question.
Again, I've covered many of these schemes,
like the Madagascar Plan, in our War against
Humanity episode from April 1941.
But something worth mentioning here is Heydrich's
absolute commitment never to relinquish any
of his power.
The first real plans to deport Jews to Madagascar
are not actually drawn up by anyone in his
department but by officials at the Foreign
Office.
Heydrich learns of this in June 1940 and immediately
sends a letter of complaint to Foreign Minister
von Ribbentrop.
He states that only he is in charge of Jewish
emigration and, seeing as he has already excelled
at the task in Poland, should be the only
one to orchestrate the 'final territorial
solution'.
Ribbentrop concedes to Heydrich's jurisdiction,
not that Heydrich needed confirmation of this.
He had set about working on the Madagascar
Plan as soon as he sent off his letter.
Now, if you've been watching our War Against
Humanity programming, you'll know that anti-Jewish
policy in the Nazi regime has mostly been
one of expulsion and deportation.
But the opening of war with the Soviet Union
changes all of this.
It is to be a war of complete destruction.
Heydrich has been preparing for this for a
long time.
And luckily for him, the Wehrmacht are being
a lot more cooperative.
In April 1941, he finalises plans with General
Quartermaster of the army, Eduard Wagner.
Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen will hold ultimate
responsibility for the liquidation of all
subversive elements in rear areas and can
rely on the Wehrmacht’s logistical support.
And so when the Axis armies begin their push
into the USSR in June 1941, four Einsatzgruppe
follow in their footsteps.
Both Himmler and Heydrich quickly decide that
they should personally monitor the work being
done.
Characteristic of his leadership style, Heydrich
encourages rapid action and mass violence.
So much so that he reprimands the commando
of Einsatzgruppe B, Arthur Nebe, for not keeping
pace with the German advance.
Nebe offers his sincerest apologies that in
the first few days of operation only 96 Jews
have been killed and ensures Heydrich he will
intensify his efforts.
Heydrich and Himmler's political ambition
ramps up the acceleration of the killings.
They are disappointed to learn in July that
Hitler plans to delegate the administration
of the conquered territories to civil commissioners.
Both men believe that matters here are inherently
political and racial and so must be handled
by the SS.
Their plan is to scale the ethnic cleansing
up even more before the civilian administrators
can get a hold of the territory, making whole
areas "Jew-free".
This will apparently prove to Hitler that
only the SS have the grit and toughness to
administer the new German East.
You can see the week-by-week implications
of this in our regular War Against Humanity
series as well as how Heydrich increasingly
"professionalised" the killing process.
But the end result is truly staggering, in
six months from the commencement of Barbarossa
in June to the end of 1941, Germans, often
aided by local collaborators, will have killed
between up to a million Jewish men, women
and children in Eastern Europe.
Heydrich’s role in the history of Nazi terror
will continue beyond Barbarossa.
In September he will be made Deputy Reich
Protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia.
From here he will establish a virtual military
dictatorship and rule with an iron fist.
In December, his men will carry out the “Nacht
und Nebel” directive under which 7,000 dissidents
or potential dissidents are murdered in the
occupied West.
In January 1942 it is he who will convene
the Wannsee Conference to address the Final
Solution to the Jewish Question.
I will cover all this and more when the time
comes, but by now it should be evident as
to what sort of man Heydrich is.
Cold-hearted ambition and inexplicable hatred
have made this quiet son of a musician into
one of the, if not the most brutal murderers
of the Third Reich and human history.
Since joining the SS in 1931, he has left
a trail of destruction in his wake that defies
the worst possible nightmares.
He has built a security empire both within
and outside the Reich and instituted a system
of inescapable terror for those unfortunate
enough to be caught in his web.
It is he who has turned the anti-Semitic ramblings
of politicians into the wholesale slaughter
of ordinary men, women, children, and infants.
His work will only be cut short in May 1942
by Czechoslovakian assassins trained by the
British Special Operations Executive.
But even then, the violence that comes with
his name won’t stop.
In retaliation, German authorities will raze
the Czech villages of Lidice and Ležáky
and kill at least 1300 civilians, and the
killing machine that he has created will continue
to pick up speed for another three years so
that when all is said and done, he is personally
responsible for the murder of millions of
innocent souls.
If you want to learn about the pogrom Heydrich
helped to organise then you can watch our
Between Two Wars video on Kristallnacht right
here.
Join the effort to keep the memory of Heydrich’s
victims alive to remind us to not let his
kind of evil rise again by join ing the TimeGhost
Army on patreon.com or timeghost.tv
Never forget.
