Branch: Waffen SS
Born: 7 March 1904 in Halle an der Saale, Germany.
Died: 4 June 1942 in Prague-Liben, Protectorate Bohemia
and Moravia (now Czech Republic).
Ranks:
SS-Obergruppenführer
SS-Gruppenführer
SS-Brigadeführer
SS-Oberführer
SS-Standartenführer
SS-Obersturmbannführer
SS-Sturmbannführer
SS-Hauptsturmführer
SS-Obersturmführer
Decorations:
Commands:
Other: Personnel
Articles:
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born on 7 March 1904 in
Halle an der Saale, Germany and became a high-ranking German
National Socialist official during World War II, and one of
the main architects of The Holocaust. He was SS-Obergruppenführer
(Lieutenant-general) and General der Polizei, chief of the
Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo, and Kripo)
and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (Deputy Reich-Protector)
of Bohemia and Moravia. In August 1940 he was appointed and
served as President of Interpol (the international law enforcement
agency). Reinhard Heydrich chaired the January 1942 Wannsee
Conference, which laid out plans for the final solution to
the Jewish Question the deportation and extermination of all
Jews in German-occupied territory.
Historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi
elite, and
Adolf
Hitler christened him the man with the iron heart. He
was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), an intelligence
organisation tasked with seeking out and neutralising resistance
to the National Socialist Party via arrests, deportations,
and murder. He was an organiser of Kristallnacht, a series
of co-ordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany
and parts of Austria on 9-10 November 1938, carried out by
SA stormtroopers and civilians, one of the early events of
the Holocaust. Upon his arrival in Prague, Reinhard Heydrich
sought to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation through
the suppression of the Czech culture and the deportation and
execution of members of the Czech resistance.
He was attacked in Prague on 27 May 1942 by a British-trained
team of Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been sent on behalf
of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to kill him in an
operation code named Operation Anthropoid. He died from his
injuries a week later. Intelligence falsely linked the assassins
to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky. Lidice was
razed to the ground all adult males were executed, and all
but a handful of its women and children were deported and
killed in Nazi concentration camps.
Early life
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born in 1904 in Halle
an der Saale to composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Reinhard
Heydrich and his wife Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia Krantz,
a Roman Catholic. His two forenames were patriotic musical
references: Reinhard was the name of the tragic hero from
Amen, an opera written by his father, while Tristan stems
from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. His third name,
Eugen, was the name of his late maternal grandfather, Professor
Eugen Krantz, who had been the director of the Dresden Royal
Conservatory. Reinhard Heydrich was born into a family of
social standing and substantial financial means. Music was
a part of Reinhard Heydrich's everyday life his father was
the founder of the Halle Conservatory of Music. His mother
was a piano instructor there. Reinhard Heydrich developed
a passion for the violin, a passion he carried into his adult
life he impressed listeners with his musical talent.
His father was a German nationalist who instilled patriotic
ideas in the minds of his three children, but was not affiliated
with any political party until after World War I. The Reinhard
Heydrich household was strict. As a youth, Reinhard Heydrich
engaged his younger brother, Heinz, in mock fencing duels.
Reinhard Heydrich was very intelligent and excelled in his
schoolwork at the Reformgymnasium, especially in science.
A talented athlete, he became an expert swimmer and fencer.
He was shy, insecure, and was frequently bullied for his high-pitched
voice. Reinhard Heydrich was often mocked in his youth, being
nicknamed Moses Handel owing to rumours that he had Jewish
ancestry. Years later,
Wilhelm
Canaris said he had obtained photocopies proving Reinhard
Heydrich's Jewish ancestry, but these photocopies never surfaced.
Rudolf Jordan also made the claim that Reinhard Heydrich was
not a pure Aryan. Reinhard Heydrich ordered Schutzstaffel
(SS) researchers to investigate the rumour. They established
that he had no Jewish ancestors. Achim Gercke concluded that
Reinhard Heydrich was a pure Aryan.
In 1918, World War I ended with Germany's defeat. In late
February 1919, civil unrest took place in Reinhard Heydrich's
home town of Halle, including strikes and clashes between
communist and anti-communist groups. Under Defense Minister
Gustav Noske's directives, a right-wing paramilitary unit
was formed and ordered to recapture Halle. Reinhard Heydrich,
then 15 years old, joined Maercker's Volunteer Rifles (the
first Freikorps unit). After the end of the skirmishes, Reinhard
Heydrich was part of the force assigned to protect private
property. Little is known as to his role, but the events left
a strong impression it was a political awakening for him.
He joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund
(The National German Protection and Shelter League), an anti-Semitic
As a result of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles,
hyperinflation spread across Germany and many people lost
their life savings. By 1921, these events greatly reduced
the ability of the people of Halle to afford a musical education
at Bruno Reinhard Heydrich's conservatory. This led to a financial
crisis for the Reinhard Heydrich family.
In 1922 Reinhard Heydrich joined the Navy, taking advantage
of the security, structure, and pension it offered. He became
a naval cadet at Germany's chief naval base at Kiel. On 1
April 1924 he was promoted to senior midshipman and sent off
to officer training at the Mürwik Naval College.In 1926
he advanced to the rank of ensign (Leutnant zur See) and was
assigned as a signals officer on the battleship
Schleswig-Holstein,
the flagship of the German North Sea Fleet. With the promotion
came greater recognition he received good evaluations from
his superiors. He had fewer problems with other crewmen, but
the increased rank drove his ambition and arrogance.
Reinhard Heydrich became a notorious womaniser, having countless
affairs. In December 1930 he attended a rowing club ball and
met Lina von Osten. The two became romantically involved and
soon announced their engagement. Lina was already a National
Socialist Party follower she had attended her first rally
in 1929. Reinhard Heydrich was dismissed from the navy by
Admiral
Erich
Raeder in April 1931 after being charged with conduct
unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman for breaking an engagement
promise to a woman he had known for six months prior to the
engagement to Lina. Reinhard Heydrich was devastated, but
he remained engaged to Lina von Osten. He found himself with
no prospects for a career. Reinhard Heydrich and von Osten
married in December 1931.
Career in the military and SS
In 1931,
Heinrich
Himmler began setting up a counterintelligence division
of the SS. Acting on the advice of his associate Karl von
Eberstein, who was a friend of Lina von Osten,
Heinrich
Himmler interviewed Reinhard Heydrich.
Heinrich
Himmler was impressed and hired him immediately. His pay
was 180 reichsmarks per month (40 USD). His NSDAP number was
544,916 and his SS number was 10,120.Reinhard Heydrich later
received a Totenkopfring from
Heinrich
Himmler for his service.
On 1 August 1931 Reinhard Heydrich began his job as chief
of the new 'Ic Service' (intelligence service). He set up
his office at the Brown House, the National Socialist Party
headquarters in Munich. By October he had created a network
of spies and informers for intelligence-gathering purposes
and to obtain information to be used as blackmail to further
political aims. Information on thousands of people was recorded
on index cards stored at the Brown House. To mark the occasion
of Reinhard Heydrich's December wedding,
Heinrich
Himmler promoted him to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer
(major). In just over fifteen months, Reinhard Heydrich had
surpassed his former navy rank and was making what was considered
a comfortable salary.
In 1932 a number of Reinhard Heydrich's enemies began to spread
rumours of his possible Jewish ancestry. Within the Nazi organisation
such innuendo could be deadly, even for the head of the Reich's
counterintelligence service. An investigation was conducted
by National Socialist Party racial expert Dr. Achim Gercke
into Reinhard Heydrich's genealogy. Dr Gercke reported that
Reinhard Heydrich was ... of German origin and free from any
coloured and Jewish blood.
In the summer of 1932,
Heinrich
Himmler appointed Reinhard Heydrich chief of the renamed
security service the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Reinhard Heydrich's
counterintelligence service grew into an effective machine
of terror and intimidation. With
Adolf
Hitler striving for absolute power in Germany,
Heinrich
Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich wished to control the political
police forces of all 17 German states, and they began with
the state of Bavaria. In 1933, Reinhard Heydrich gathered
some of his men from the SD and together they stormed police
headquarters in Munich and took over the police using intimidation
tactics.
Heinrich
Himmler became the Munich police chief and Reinhard Heydrich
became the commander of Department IV, which controlled the
political police.
In 1933,
Adolf Hitler
became Chancellor of Germany, and through a series of decrees
became Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor)
of Germany. Originally intended to house political opponents,
the first concentration camps were set up in early 1933, and
by the end of the year there were over fifty of them.
The Gestapo was originally founded in 1933 as a Prussian police
force by
Hermann
Göring. When
Hermann
Göring transferred full authority over the Gestapo
to
Heinrich
Himmler in April 1934, it immediately became an instrument
of terror under the purview of the SS.
Heinrich
Himmler named Reinhard Heydrich the head of the Gestapo
on 22 April 1934.
At this point, the SS was still part of the Sturmabteilung
(SA), the early Nazi paramilitary organisation. Beginning
in April 1934, and at
Adolf
Hitler's request, Reinhard Heydrich and
Heinrich
Himmler began building a dossier on SA leader
Ernst
Röhm in an effort to remove him as a rival for leadership
of the party. At
Adolf
Hitler's direction, Reinhard Heydrich,
Heinrich
Himmler,
Hermann
Göring, and Viktor Lutze drew up lists of those who
should be liquidated, starting with seven top SA officials
and including many more. On 30 June 1934 the SS and Gestapo
acted in coordinated mass arrests that continued throughout
the weekend.
Ernst
Röhm was shot without trial, along with the leadership
of the SA. This Nazi purge became known as the Night of the
Long Knives. Up to 200 people were killed in the purge. Lutze
was appointed new head of the SA, and it was converted into
a sports and training organisation.
With the SA out of the way, Reinhard Heydrich began building
the Gestapo into an instrument of fear. He improved his index
card system, creating categories of offenders, and using color-coded
cards. The Gestapo had the authority to arrest citizens on
the suspicion that they might commit a crime, and the definition
of a crime was at their discretion. The Gestapo Law, passed
in 1936, gave the police force the right to act outside the
law. This led to the sweeping use of Schutzhaft protective
custody, a euphemism for the power to imprison people without
judicial proceedings.The courts were not allowed to investigate
or interfere. The Gestapo was considered to be acting legally
as long as it was carrying out the will of the leadership.
People were arrested arbitrarily, sent to concentration camps,
or killed.
Heinrich
Himmler began developing the notion of a Germanic religion
and wanted SS members to leave the church. In early 1936,
Reinhard Heydrich left the Catholic Church. His wife, Lina,
had already done so the year before. Reinhard Heydrich not
only felt he could no longer be a member, but came to consider
the political power (and influence) of the church a danger
to the state.
On 17 June 1936 all police forces throughout Germany were
united, with
Heinrich
Himmler as the chief. On 26 June,
Heinrich
Himmler reorganised the police into two groups: the Ordnungspolizei
(Orpo), which consisted of the national uniformed police and
the municipal police, and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), which
consisted of the Gestapo and the Kripo or Kriminalpolizei
(criminal police). At that point, Reinhard Heydrich was head
of the SiPo and SD. Heinrich Müller was the chief of
operations of the Gestapo.
Reinhard Heydrich was assigned to help organise the 1936 Summer
Olympics, held in Berlin. The games were used to promote the
propaganda aims of the National Socialist Regime. Goodwill
ambassadors were sent to countries that were considering a
boycott. Anti-Jewish violence was forbidden for the duration,
and news stands were required to stop displaying copies of
Der Stuermer. For his part in the success of the Games, Reinhard
Heydrich was awarded the Deutsches Olympiaehrenzeichen or
German Olympic Games Decoration (First Class).
In mid-1939 Reinhard Heydrich created the Stiftung Nordhav
Foundation to obtain real estate for use of the SS and Security
Police as guest houses and vacation spots.The Wannsee Villa,
which the Stiftung Nordhav acquired in November 1940, was
the site of the Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942), a meeting
Reinhard Heydrich held with senior officials of the National
Socialist Regime to formalise plans for the deportation and
extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory, and
in countries not yet conquered.This action was to be coordinated
among the representatives from the Nazi state agencies present
at the meeting.
On 27 September 1939 the SD and SiPo (made up of the Gestapo
and the Kripo) were folded into the new Reich Main Security
Office or SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), which was placed
under Reinhard Heydrich's control. The title of Chef der Sicherheitspolizei
und des SD (Chief of the Security Police and SD) or CSSD was
conferred on Reinhard Heydrich on 1 October. Reinhard Heydrich
became the President of Interpol on 24 August 1940, and its
headquarters were transferred to Berlin. He was promoted to
SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei on 24 September
1941.
In 1936, the SD received information that a top ranking Soviet
officer was plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin. Sensing an
opportunity to strike a blow at both the Soviet Army as well
as Admiral
Wilhelm
Canaris of the German Abwehr, Reinhard Heydrich decided
the Russian officers should be unmasked. Reinhard Heydrich
discussed the matter with
Heinrich
Himmler and both in turn brought it to
Adolf
Hitler's attention. Unknown to Reinhard Heydrich, the
information that he received about the plot was actually misinformation
planted by Stalin himself, in an attempt to make his purges
of the Red Army high command believable. Stalin ordered one
of his best NKVD agents, General Nikolai Skoblin, to pass
Reinhard Heydrich the false information suggesting a plot
against Stalin by Marshall Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other
Soviet generals. Reinhard Heydrich received approval from
Adolf Hitler
to act immediately on the information. Reinhard Heydrich's
SD forged a series of documents and correspondence implicating
Tukhachevsky and other Red Army commanders. The material was
delivered to the NKVD. The Great Purge of the Red Army followed
upon orders of Stalin. While Reinhard Heydrich believed they
had successfully deluded Stalin into executing or dismissing
some 35,000 of his officer corps, the importance of Reinhard
Heydrich's part is a matter of speculation and conjecture.
The forged documents were not used by Soviet military prosecutors
against the generals in their secret trial, which instead
relied on false confessions extorted or beaten out of the
defendants.
By late 1940, German armies had swept through most of Western
Europe. In 1941, Reinhard Heydrich's SD was given the responsibility
of carrying out the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) decree,
designed to seize persons endangering German security. According
to the decree, suspects had to be arrested in a maximally
discreet way under the cover of night and fog. People disappeared
without a trace and no one was told of their whereabouts or
their eventual fate. For each prisoner, the SD was required
to fill out a questionnaire that listed their personal information,
their country of origin, and the details of their crimes against
the Reich. This questionnaire was to be put into an envelope
inscribed with a seal that read Nacht und Nebel and submitted
to the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA). In the WVHA Central
Inmate File, as in many camp files, these prisoners would
be given a special covert prisoner code, as opposed to the
code for POW, Felon, Jew, Gypsy, etc. This decree remained
in effect after Reinhard Heydrich's death. The exact number
of people who vanished under this decree has never been positively
established, but it is estimated to be 7,000.
On 27 September 1941 Reinhard Heydrich was appointed Deputy
Reich Protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
(the part of Czechoslovakia incorporated into the Reich on
15 March 1939). The Reich Protector,
Konstantin
von Neurath, remained titular Protector, but was sent
on leave, and Reinhard Heydrich assumed effective government
of the territory, as
Adolf
Hitler,
Heinrich
Himmler, and Reinhard Heydrich felt
Konstantin
von Neurath'ssoft approach to the Czechs had promoted
anti-German sentiment and encouraged anti-German resistance
via strikes and sabotage. Reinhard Heydrich told his aides
upon his appointment, We will Germanize the Czech vermin.
Reinhard Heydrich came to Prague to enforce policy, fight
resistance to the National Socialist Regime, and keep up production
quotas of Czech motors and arms that were extremely important
to the German war effort. Reinhard Heydrich viewed the area
as a bulwark of Germandom and condemned the stabs in the back
by the Czech resistance. To realise his goals Reinhard Heydrich
demanded racial classification of those who could and could
not be Germanized. He explained, ... making this Czech garbage
into Germans must give way to methods based on racist thought.Reinhard
Heydrich started his rule by terrorising the population: within
three days of his arrival in Prague, 92 people were executed,
with their names appearing on posters throughout the occupied
region. Almost all avenues by which Czechs could act Czech
in public were closed. According to Reinhard Heydrich's estimate
between 4,000 and 5,000 people had been arrested by February
1942. Those who were not executed were sent to Mauthausen-Gusen
concentration camp, where only four per cent of Czech prisoners
survived the war. In March 1942, further sweeps against Czech
cultural and patriotic organisations, military, and intelligentsia
resulted in the practical paralysis of Czech resistance. Although
small disorganised cells of Central Leadership of Home Resistance
(Ústrední vedení odboje domácího,
ÚVOD) survived, only the communist resistance was able
to function in a coordinated manner (although it also suffered
arrests). The terror also served to paralyse resistance in
society, with public and widespread reprisals against any
action resisting the German rule. Reinhard Heydrich's brutal
policies during that time quickly earned him the nickname
the Butcher of Prague.
As the Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard
Heydrich applied carrot-and-stick methods. Labour was reorganised
on the basis of the German Labour Front. Reinhard Heydrich
used equipment confiscated from the Czech organisation Sokol
to organise events for workers. The black market was suppressed,
with food given out in worker cafeterias. Food rations and
free shoes were given out, pensions were increased, and (for
some time) free Saturdays were introduced. Unemployment insurance
was established for the first time. Those associated with
the resistance movement or the black market were tortured
or executed. Reinhard Heydrich described those harshly dealt
with as economic criminals and enemies of the people in the
press, which helped gain him support. Conditions in Prague
and the rest of the Czech lands were relatively peaceful under
Reinhard Heydrich, and industrial output increased. Still,
those measures could not hide shortages and increasing inflation,
and reports grew of growing discontent.
Despite public displays of goodwill towards the Czechs, privately
Reinhard Heydrich made no illusions as to his eventual goal:
This entire area will one day be definitely German, and the
Czechs have nothing to expect here. Eventually up to two-thirds
of Czechs were to be either be removed to regions of Russia
or exterminated after Nazi Germany won the war. Bohemia and
Moravia were to be annexed directly into the German Reich.
The Czech workforce was exploited as conscripted labour by
the Nazis. More than 100,000 workers were removed from unsuitable
jobs and conscripted by the Ministry of Labour by December
1941, Czechs could be called to work anywhere within the Reich.
Between April and November 1942, 79,000 Czech workers were
taken in this manner for work within Nazi Germany. Also in
February 1942, the work day was increased from eight hours
to twelve.
Reinhard Heydrich was, for all intents and purposes, military
dictator of Bohemia and Moravia. His changes to the government's
structure left President Emil Hacha and his cabinet virtually
powerless. He often drove alone in a car with an open roof
a show of his confidence in the occupation forces and in the
effectiveness of his government.
Summary of career
Reinhard Heydrich's time in the SS was a mixture of rapid
promotions, reserve commissions in the regular armed forces,
and front-line combat service. During his 11 years with the
SS, Reinhard Heydrich truly rose from the ranks, being appointed
to every rank from private to full general. He was also a
major in the Luftwaffe, flying nearly one hundred combat missions
until 22 July 1941, when his plane was hit by Soviet anti-aircraft
fire. Reinhard Heydrich made an emergency landing behind enemy
lines. He evaded a Soviet patrol and met up with a forward
German patrol. After this Reinhard Heydrich returned to Berlin
and resumed his SS duties. His service record also gives him
credit as a Reserve Lieutenant in the Navy, although during
World War II Reinhard Heydrich had no contact at all with
this military branch.
Reinhard Heydrich was the recipient of several high-ranking
Nazi and military awards, including the German Order, Blood
Order, Golden Party Badge, bronze and silver combat mission
bars, and the Iron Cross First and Second Classes.
Role in the Holocaust
Historians regard Reinhard Heydrich as the most feared member
of the National Socialist elite
Adolf
Hitler called him the man with the iron heart. He was
one of the main architects of the Holocaust during the early
years of the war, answering only to and taking orders from
Adolf Hitler,
Hermann
Göring, and
Heinrich
Himmler in all matters that pertained to the deportation,
imprisonment, and extermination of Jews.
Reinhard Heydrich was one of the organisers of Kristallnacht,
a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany on the night of 9-10
November 1938. Reinhard Heydrich sent a telegram that night
to various SD and Gestapo offices, helping to coordinate the
program with the SS, SD, Gestapo, uniformed police (Orpo),
National Socialist Party officials, and even the fire departments.
It talks about permitting arson and destruction of Jewish
businesses and synagogues, and orders the taking of all archival
material out of Jewish community centres and synagogues. The
telegram ordered that as many Jews particularly affluent Jews
are to be arrested in all districts as can be accommodated
in existing detention facilities ... Immediately after the
arrests have been carried out, the appropriate concentration
camps should be contacted to place the Jews into camps as
quickly as possible. Twenty thousand Jews were sent to concentration
camps in the days immediately following Kristallnacht is considered
as the beginning of the Holocaust by historians.
When
Adolf Hitler
required a pretext for the invasion of Poland in 1939, Reinhard
Heydrich was placed in charge of the false flag plan code
named Operation Himmler, a fake attack on the German radio
station at Gleiwitz on 31 August 1939. Reinhard Heydrich worked
out the plan of the operation and toured the site, which was
about four miles from the border with Poland. Wearing Polish
uniforms, 150 German troops carried out a group of attacks
along the border that
Adolf
Hitler then used as an excuse to launch his planned invasion.
On 21 September 1939 Reinhard Heydrich sent out a teleprinter
message to the chiefs of all Einsatzgruppen of the Security
Police with a subject of Jewish question in the occupied territory.
It contained instructions on how to round up Jewish people
for placement into ghettos, called for the formation of Judenrat
(Jewish councils), ordered a census, contained Aryanization
plans for Jewish-owned businesses and farms, and discussed
other measures. The Einsatzgruppen followed the army into
Poland for this purpose. Later, in the Soviet Union, they
were tasked with rounding up and killing Jews, by gunshot
and using gas vans. By the end of the war, the Einsatzgruppen
had murdered over one million people, including over 700,000
in Russia alone.
On 29 November 1939 he sent out a cable regarding the Evacuation
of New Eastern Provinces, describing details of the deportation
of people by railway to concentration camps, and giving guidance
surrounding the December 1939 census, which would be the basis
on which those deportations were formed. In May 1941, Heyrdrich
drew up regulations with Quartermaster general Eduard Wagner
for the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union that ensured
that the Einsatzgruppen and army would cooperate in murdering
Soviet Jews.
On 10 October 1941 Reinhard Heydrich was the senior officer
at a meeting in Prague that discussed deporting 50,000 Jewish
people from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to ghettos
in Minsk and Riga. Also discussed was the taking of 5,000
Jewish people from Prague in the next few weeks and handing
them over to the Einsatzgruppen commanders Arthur Nebe and
Otto Rasch. The creation of ghettos in the Protectorate was
planned, which resulted in the construction of Theresienstadt,
where 33,000 people would eventually die. Tens of thousands
more would pass through the camp on their way to their deaths
in the East. In 1941
Heinrich
Himmler named Reinhard Heydrich as responsible for implementing
the forced movement of 60,000 Jewish people from Germany and
Czechoslovakia to the Lodz (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto in Poland.
On 20 January 1942 Reinhard Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference,
at which he presented to the heads of a number of German Government
departments a plan for the deportation and transporting of
11 million Jewish people from every country in Europe, to
be worked to death or killed outright in extermination camps.
Under suitable direction, the Jews should be brought to the
East in the course of the Final Solution, for use as labour.
In large labour gangs, with the sexes separated, the Jews
capable of work will be transported to those areas and set
to road-building, in the course of which, without doubt, a
large part of them (ein großteil) will fall away through
natural losses. The surviving remnant, surely those with the
greatest powers of resistance, will be given special treatment,
since, if freed, they would constitute the germinal cell for
the re-creation of Jewry.
from Reinhard Heydrich's speech at the Wannsee Conference,
January 1942
Death in Prague
In London, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile resolved to
kill Reinhard Heydrich. Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabcík
headed the team chosen for the operation. After receiving
training from the British Special Operations Executive (SOE),
they returned to the Protectorate by parachute on 28 December
1941, dropped from a Handley Page Halifax. They lived in hiding,
preparing for the assassination attempt.
On 27 May 1942 Reinhard Heydrich was scheduled to attend a
meeting with
Adolf
Hitler in Berlin. German documents suggest that
Adolf
Hitler intended to transfer Reinhard Heydrich to German-occupied
France, where the French resistance had started to gain ground.
Reinhard Heydrich would have to pass a section where the Dresden-Prague
road merged with a road to the Troja Bridge. The intersection,
in the Prague suburb of Liben, was well-suited for the attack
because Reinhard Heydrich's car would have to slow to negotiate
a hairpin turn. As the car slowed to take the turn, Gabcík
took aim with a Sten sub-machine gun, but it jammed and failed
to fire. Instead of ordering his driver to speed away, Reinhard
Heydrich called his car to a halt in an attempt to take on
the attackers. Kubiš then threw a bomb (a converted anti-tank
mine) at the rear of the car as it was coming to a halt. The
explosion wounded Reinhard Heydrich and Kubiš.
When the smoke cleared, Reinhard Heydrich emerged from the
wreckage with his gun in his hand he chased Kubiš and
tried to return fire. Kubiš jumped on his bicycle and
pedalled away. Reinhard Heydrich ran after him for half a
block but became weak from shock. He sent his driver, Klein,
to chase Gabcík on foot. In the ensuing firefight,
Gabcík shot Klein in the leg and escaped to a safe
house. Reinhard Heydrich, still with pistol in hand, gripped
the left side of his back, which was bleeding profusely.
A Czech woman went to Reinhard Heydrich's aid and flagged
down a delivery van. Reinhard Heydrich was first placed in
the driver's cab, but after complaining that the movement
of the truck was causing him pain, he was placed in the back
of the truck, lying on his stomach, and taken to the emergency
room at Na Bulovce Hospital. He had suffered severe injuries
to his left side, with major damage to his diaphragm, spleen,
and lung, as well as a broken rib. Dr. Slanina packed the
chest wound, while Dr. Walter Diek tried unsuccessfully to
remove the splinters. He immediately decided to operate. This
was carried out by Drs. Diek, Slanina, and Hohlbaum. Reinhard
Heydrich was given several blood transfusions. A splenectomy
was performed. The chest wound, left lung, and diaphragm were
all debrided and the wounds closed.
Heinrich
Himmler ordered Dr. Karl Gebhardt to fly to Prague to
take over Reinhard Heydrich's care. Despite a fever, his recovery
appeared to progress well. Dr. Theodor Morell,
Adolf
Hitler's personal doctor, suggested the use of Sulfonamide
a new antibiotic, but Dr. Gebhardt refused, as he thought
Reinhard Heydrich would recover.On 2 June, during a visit
by
Heinrich
Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich reconciled himself to his fate
by reciting a part of one of his father's operas:
The world is just a barrel-organ which the Lord God turns
Himself.
We all have to dance to the tune which is already on the drum.
Reinhard Heydrich slipped into a coma after
Heinrich
Himmler's visit, and never regained consciousness. He
died on 4 June, probably around 4:30 am, at the age of 38.
The autopsy states that he died of sepsis. Reinhard Heydrich's
facial expression as he died betrayed an uncanny spirituality
and entirely perverted beauty, like a renaissance Cardinal,
according to Dr. Bernhard Wehner, a police official who investigated
the assassination.
After an elaborate funeral in Prague, Reinhard Heydrich's
coffin was placed on a train to Berlin, where a second ceremony
was held in the new Reich Chancellery.
Adolf
Hitler attended, and placed Reinhard Heydrich's decorations
on his funeral pillow, including the highest grade of the
German Order and the Blood Order Medal. Although Reinhard
Heydrich's death was employed as pro-Reich propaganda,
Adolf
Hitler seemed privately to blame Reinhard Heydrich for
his own death, through carelessness:
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 Reinhard Heydrich
should expose himself to unnecessary danger, I can only condemn
as stupid and idiotic.
Reinhard Heydrich was buried in Berlin's Invalidenfriedhof,
a military cemetery. The location of the grave in the Invalidenfriedhof
is not entirely certain, as the temporary wooden grave marker
disappeared when the Red Army overran the city in 1945. The
marker was never replaced, because the Allies and Berlin authorities
feared Reinhard Heydrich's grave would become a rallying point
for Neo-Nazis. A photograph of Reinhard Heydrich's burial
shows the wreaths and mourners to be in section A, which abuts
the north wall of the Invalidenfriedhof and Scharnhorststraße,
at the front of the cemetery. A recent biography of Reinhard
Heydrich also places the grave in Section A.
Adolf
Hitler wanted Reinhard Heydrich to have a monumental tomb,
but as a result of the downhill course of the war, it was
never built.
After the war the judicial system of West Germany awarded
Reinhard Heydrich's widow a federal pension. The couple had
four children: Klaus, born in 1933 Heider, born in 1934 Silke,
born in 1939 and Marte, born shortly after her father's death
in 1942. Klaus was killed in a traffic accident in 1943. Lina
wrote a memoir, Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher (Living With
a War Criminal), which was published in 1976. She remarried
once and died in 1985.
Aftermath
Reinhard Heydrich's assailants hid in safe houses, and eventually
took refuge in Ss. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral, an Orthodox
church in Prague. Their location was betrayed by a traitor
in the Czech resistance. The church was surrounded by eight
hundred members of the SS and Gestapo. Several Czechs were
killed, and the remainder hid in the crypt of the church.
The Germans attempted to flush the men out with gunfire, tear
gas, and by flooding the crypt. Eventually an entrance was
created with explosives. Rather than surrender, the soldiers
took their own lives. Supporters of the assassins who were
killed in the wake of these events included the church's leader,
Bishop Gorazd, who is now revered as a martyr of the Orthodox
Church.
Infuriated by Reinhard Heydrich's death,
Adolf
Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10,000 randomly
selected Czechs, but after consultations with Karl Hermann
Frank, he reduced his response, because the Czech lands were
an important industrial zone for the German military, and
indiscriminate killing could reduce the productivity of the
region.
Adolf Hitler
ordered a quick investigation. Intelligence falsely linked
the assassins to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky.
Upon
Heinrich
Himmler's orders, the Nazi retaliation was brutal. Over
13,000 people were arrested, deported, and imprisoned. Beginning
on 10 June, all males over the age of 16 in the village of
Lidice, 22 km north-west of Prague, and the village of Ležáky,
were murdered. All but four of the women were deported immediately
to Ravensbrück concentration camp four were pregnant
they were forcibly aborted at the same hospital where Reinhard
Heydrich had died and then sent to the concentration camp.
A number of children were chosen for Germanization. However,
81 children were killed in gas vans at the Chelmno extermination
camp. The towns were burned and the ruins of Lidice were levelled.
At least 1,300 people were massacred after Reinhard Heydrich's
death.
Reinhard Heydrich's replacements were Ernst Kaltenbrunner
as the chief of RSHA, and Karl Hermann Frank 27-28 May 1942
and Kurt Daluege 28 May 1942 to 14 October 1943 as the new
acting Reichsprotektors.
After Reinhard Heydrich's death, his legacy lived on the first
three death camps were constructed and put into operation
at Treblinka, Sobibór, and Belzec. The project was
named Operation Reinhard in Reinhard Heydrich's honour.
For a complete list of
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