Reinhard Heydrich - Biography (2024)

In brief: Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) was second in importance to Heinrich Himmler in the Nazi SS organization. Nicknamed "The Blond Beast" by the Nazis, and "Hangman Heydrich" by others, Heydrich had insatiable greed for power and was a cold, calculating manipulator without human compassion who was the leading planner of Hitler's Final Solution in which the Nazis attempted to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe.

Early Years

Born in the German city of Halle, near Leipzig on March 7, 1904, ReinhardEugen Tristan Heydrich was raised in a cultured, musical environment. Hisfather founded the Halle Conservatory of Music and was a Wagnerian operasinger, while his mother was an accomplished pianist. Young Heydrich trainedseriously as a violinist, developing expert skill and a lifelong passionfor the violin.

As a boy, he lived in an elegant home with his family enjoying elevatedsocial status. But young Heydrich also suffered as the target of schoolyardbullies, teased about his very high pitched voice and his devout Catholicismin the mostly Protestant town. He was also beaten up by bigger boys andtormented with anti-Jewish slurs amid rumors of Jewish ancestry in hisfamily.

At home Heydrich's mother believed in the value of harsh disciplineand frequent lashings. As a result, Heydrich was a withdrawn, sullen boy,unhappy, but also intensely self-driven to excel at everything. As he grewhe excelled at academics and also displayed natural athletic talent, laterbecoming an award winning fencer.

Too young to serve in World War One, after the war at age 16 Heydrichteamed up with the local Freikorps, a right-wing, anti-Semitic organizationof ex-soldiers involved in violently opposing Communists on the streets.Young Heydrich was also influenced by the racial fanaticism of the GermanVölk movement and its belief in the supremacy of the blond haired,blue eyed Germanic people which he resembled. He took delight in associatingwith these violently anti-Semitic groups to disprove the persistent, butfalse rumors regarding his possible Jewish ancestry.

The German defeat in World War One brought social chaos, inflation andeconomic ruin to most German families including Heydrich's. In March of1922, at age 18, Heydrich sought the free education, adventure and prestigeof a Naval career and became a cadet in the small, elite German Navy.

Once again, however, he was teased. Heydrich was by now over six feettall, a gangly, awkward young man who still had the high, almost falsettovoice. Naval cadets took delight in calling him "Billy Goat"because of his bleating laugh and taunted with "Moses Handel"because of rumored Jewish ancestry and his unusual passion for classicalmusic.

But the intense, driven Heydrich persevered and rose by 1926 to therank of second lieutenant, serving as a signals officer attached to Intelligenceunder Wilhelm Canaris. The teasing and taunting soon gave way to resentmentover the extraordinary arrogance of this young man who was already dreamingof becoming an admiral.

Heydrich also developed great interest in women and pursued sex withthe same self-driven desire for achievement he applied to everything else.He had many sexual relationships and in 1930 was accused of having sexwith the unmarried daughter of a shipyard director. According to popularNazi legend, as a result of his refusal to marry her, Heydrich was forcedby Admiral Erich Raeder to resign his Naval commission in 1931 for "conductunbecoming to an officer and a gentleman."

With his Naval career wrecked, his fiancé, Lina von Osten, anenthusiastic Nazi Party member, suggested he join the Nazi Party and lookinto the SS organization which at that time served mainly as Hitler's personalbodyguard and had about 10,000 members.

Joins Nazi Party and the SS

In 1931, at age 27, Heydrich joined the Nazi Party and became a memberof the SS (Schutzstaffel), the elite organization of black-coated youngmen chosen on the basis of their racial characteristics.

An interview was soon arranged with the new SS Reichsführer, HeinrichHimmler, who was seeking someone to build an SS intelligence service. Duringthe interview Himmler posed a challenge to Heydrich by asking him to take20 minutes and write down his plans for a future SS intelligence gatheringservice. Himmler was impressed by Heydrich's Aryan looks, his self-confidence,and diligent response to the challenge and gave him the job.

Heydrich proceeded to create the intelligence gathering organizationknown as the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), or SS Security Service.

It began in a small office with a single typewriter. But Heydrich'stireless determination soon grew the organization into a vast network ofinformers that developed dossiers on anyone who might oppose Hitler andconducted internal espionage and investigations to gather information downto the smallest details on Nazi Party members and storm trooper (SA) leaders.

Heydrich also had a taste for gossip and maintained folders full ofrumors and details of the privates lives and sexual activities of top Nazis,later resorting to planting hidden microphones and cameras.

Heydrich's ruthless diligence and the rapid success of the SD earned him a quick rise through the SS ranks - appointed SS Major by December, 1931, then SS Colonel with sole control of the SD by July of 1932. In March of 1933, he was promoted to SS Brigadier General, though not yet 30 years old.

The only stumbling block occurred as the old rumors surfaced about possibleJewish ancestry on his father's side of his family. Heydrich's grandmotherhad married for a second time (after the birth of Heydrich's father) toa man with a Jewish sounding name.

Both Hitler and Himmler quickly became aware of the rumors which werespread by Heydrich's enemies within the Nazi Party. Himmler at one pointconsidered expelling Heydrich from the SS. But Hitler, after a long privatemeeting with Heydrich, described him as "a highly gifted but alsovery dangerous man, whose gifts the movement had to retain...extremelyuseful; for he would eternally be grateful to us that we had kept him andnot expelled him and would obey blindly."

Thus Heydrich remained in the elite Aryan order but was haunted by thepersistent rumors and as a result developed tremendous hostility towardJews. Heydrich also suffered great insecurity and some degree of self loathing,exampled by an incident in which he returned home to his apartment aftera night of drinking, turned on a light and saw his own reflection in awall mirror then took out his pistol and fired two shots at himself inthe mirror, uttering "filthy Jew!"

Dachau Founded

See Also

Reinhard Heydrich: In DepthReinhard Heydrich | Life & Assassination

Following the Nazi seizure of power in January, 1933, Heydrich and Himmleroversaw the mass arrests of Communists, trade unionists, Catholic politiciansand others who had opposed Hitler. The total number of arrests were sohigh that prison space became a problem. An unused munitions factory atDachau, near Munich, was quickly converted into a concentration camp forpolitical prisoners.

Once inside Dachau, prisoners were subjected to harsh military styletreatment and beatings. Stealing a cigarette could bring 25 lashes. Otherpunishments included suspension from a pole by the wrists, incarcerationin a stand-up cell or dark cell, and in some cases death by shooting orhanging.

The gates at Dachau bore the cynical slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei"(work sets you free). Political prisoners who survived the 11 hour workdayand meager amounts of food were frightened and demoralized into submission,then eventually released. After Dachau, large concentration camps wereopened at Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Lichtenburg.

By April 1934, amid much Nazi infighting and backstabbing, Himmler assumedcontrol of the newly created Secret State Police (Gestapo) with Heydrichas his second in command actually running the organization.

Night of the Long Knives

Two months later, in June, Himmler and Heydrich, along with HermannGöring, successfully plotted the downfall of powerful SA chief ErnstRöhm by spreading false rumors that Röhm and his four millionSA storm troopers intended to seize control of the Reich and conduct anew revolution.

During the Nightof the Long Knives Röhm and dozens of top SA leaders werehunted down and murdered on Hitler's orders, with the list of those tobe murdered drawn up by Heydrich. As a result, the SA Brownshirts lostmuch of their influence and were quickly overtaken in importance by theblack-coated SS.

In June of 1936, all of the local police forces throughout Germany alongwith the Gestapo, the SD, and the Criminal Police, were placed under thecommand of SS Reichsführer Himmler, who now answered only to Hitler.

By 1937, any remnants of civilized notions of justice were thrown outas the police, especially the Gestapo, were placed above the law with unlimitedpowers of arrest. Anyone could be taken into Schutzhaft (protective custody)for any reason and for any amount of time without a trial and with no legalrecourse.

A dictate from Hitler in October of 1938 stated: "All means, evenif they are not in conformity with existing laws and precedents, are legalif they subserve the will of the Führer."

Criticizing the Nazis or even making a joke could land one in a concentrationcamp, never to be seen again. Some arrests were made under suspicion thata person might commit a crime in the future. The average German could trustno one as anyone, even a family member, might be an informant working withthe SD or Gestapo.

"We know that some Germans get sick at the very sight of the (SS)black uniform and we don't expect to be loved," said Himmler.

All over Germany, Heydrich's SD and Gestapo agents used torture, murder,indiscriminate arrests, extortion and blackmail to crush suspected anti-Nazisand also to enhance the immense personal power of Heydrich, now widelyfeared throughout Germany.

Many top Nazis even feared meeting him or being in his presence duringthe few official gatherings he attended. With his murderous glare, Heydrichcould frighten even the most hardened Nazis.

Heydrich preferred to operate behind the scenes. He generally avoidedpublicity and was rarely seen in public, unlike Himmler. Photos of Heydrichusually show him peering suspiciously into the camera.

Heydrich was also a friendless man whose only companions were seniorSS subordinates who accompanied him during drinking bouts and womanizingat a few favored night spots. Those few women who resisted his advancescould likely expect a visit from the Gestapo.

International Espionage

Heydrich was a master of intrigue and pulling strings behind the scenes,sometimes on an international scale. His exploits included involvementin prodding Soviet leader Stalin into conducting a purge of top Red Armygenerals in 1937 by supplying evidence to Soviet secret agents of a possibleSoviet military coup against Stalin.

In Germany, Heydrich had a hand in the downfall of two powerful, traditionalistGerman Army generals who had expressed opposition to Hitler when he announcedhis long range war plans in November, 1937. War Minister, Werner von Blombergand Commander in Chief of the Army, Werner von Fritsch, were disgracedby framed-up attacks on their personal character and forced out, thus eliminatingtheir influence. Following their dismissal, Hitler himself assumed theposition of commander in chief of the German Army.

Soon afterward, Hitler looked to increase the size of the German Reichat the expense of other nations, first targeting Austria then Czechoslovakia.

In Austria, Himmler and Heydrich worked behind the scenes to encouragepro-Nazis there to spread unrest and commit sabotage.

Following the Nazi annexation of Austria in March, 1938, the SS rushedin to round up anti-Nazis and harass Jews. Heydrich then established theGestapo Office of Jewish Emigration, headed by Austrian native, Adolf Eichmann.This office had the sole authority to issue permits to Jews wanting toleave Austria and quickly became engaged in extorting wealth in returnfor safe passage. Nearly a hundred thousand Austrian Jews managed to leavewith many turning over all their worldly possessions to the SS. A similaroffice was then set up back in Berlin.

As Hitler turned his attention toward Czechoslovakia, Heydrich encouragedthe Nazification of ethnic Germans to spread political unrest in the areabordering Germany (the Sudetenland). On October 1, 1938, under the threatof German invasion, the Czech government gave up the Sudetenland to Hitler.

Kristallnacht

On November 9/10, 1938, Kristallnachtoccurred with the first widespread attacks on Jews and mass arrests throughoutthe Reich. On Heydrich's order, 25,000 Jewish men were sent to concentrationcamps.

In January of 1939, Heydrich helped destabilize Czechoslovakia by incitingunrest in the eastern province of Slovakia and also sent in a sabotagesquad to cause panic.

In March, after representatives of France and England failed to challengehim at Munich, Hitler gambled and sent in the German Army to 'protect'Czechoslovakia from the crisis which the Nazis themselves had deliberatelycreated.

Behind the Army, the SS rushed in - the pattern now established - withthe SS always following the German Army into conquered lands. And by now,nearly a hundred concentration camps of various sizes had sprung up throughoutthe Reich.

On September 1, 1939, World War Two began with the Nazi invasion ofPoland. As a prelude to the invasion, Heydrich had engineered a fake Polishattack on a German radio station at Gleiwitz, Germany, a mile from thePolish border, thus giving Hitler an excuse for military retribution.

RSHA

After the invasion of Poland, Heydrich was given control of the newReich Main SecurityOffice (RSHA) which combined the SD, Gestapo, Criminal Police,and foreign intelligence service into an enormous, efficient, centralizedorganization that would soon terrorize the entire continent of Europe andconduct mass murder on a scale unprecedented in human history.

In Nazi occupied Poland, Heydrich vigorously pursued Hitler's plan forthe destruction of Poland as a nation. "...whatever we find in theshape of an upper class in Poland will be liquidated," Hitler haddeclared.

First Einsatz Groups

Heydrich then formed five SS Special Action (Einsatz) Groups to systematicallyround up and shoot Polish politicians, leading citizens, professionals,aristocracy, and the clergy. Poland's remaining people, considered by theNazis to be racially inferior, were to be enslaved.

German-occupied Poland had an enormous Jewish population of over 2 millionpersons. On Heydrich's orders, Jews who were not shot outright were crammedinto ghettos in places such as Warsaw, Cracow, and Lodz. Overcrowding andlack of food within these walled-in ghettos led to starvation, disease,and the resulting deaths of half a million Jews by mid 1941.

Invasion of Soviet Union

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June, 1941, Heydrichorganized four large SS Einsatz groups (A,B,C,D) to operate in the SovietUnion with orders stating "... search and execution measures thatcontribute to the political pacification of the occupied area are to beundertaken." As a result, all Communist political commissars takeninto custody were shot along with suspected partisans, saboteurs, and anyonedeemed a security threat.

As the German Army continued its advance deep into Soviet territoriesand the Ukraine, the Einsatz groups followed, now aided by volunteer unitsof ethnic Germans who lived in Poland, and volunteers from Latvia, Lithuania,Estonia, and the Ukraine.

"The Führer has ordered the physical extermination of theJews," Heydrich told his subordinate Adolf Eichmann, who later reportedthat statement during his trial after the war.

Mass Murder of Jews

The Einsatz groups now turned their attention to the mass murder ofJews. At his trial in Nuremberg after the war, Otto Ohlendorf, commanderof Einsatzgruppe D, described the method...

"The unit selected would enter a village or city and order theprominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for the purpose ofresettlement. They were requested to hand over their valuables and shortlybefore execution, to surrender their outer clothing. The men, women, andchildren were led to a place of execution, which in most cases was locatednext to a more deeply excavated antitank ditch. Then they were shot, kneelingor standing, and the corpses thrown into the ditch."

Einsatz leaders kept highly detailed records including the daily numbersof Jews murdered. Competition even arose as to who posted the highest numbers.In the first year of the Nazi occupation of Soviet territory, over 300,000Jews were murdered. By March of 1943, over 600,000 and by the end of thewar, an estimated 1,300,000.

EinsatzExecution Photos -AnEyewitness Account of Einsatz Executions

In the city of Minsk, Heinrich Himmler witnessed Einsatz Group B conductan execution of 100 persons, including women, and became visibly ill. Afternearly fainting, he frantically yelled out for the firing squad to quicklyfinish off those who were only wounded.

After this Himmler ordered the Einsatz commanders to employ a more humanemethod of extermination by using mobile gas vans. These trucks fed theirexhaust into a sealed rear compartment containing 15 to 25 persons, usuallyJewish women and children. However this method was judged unsatisfactorydue to the small numbers killed and the subsequent unpleasant task of havingto remove the bodies.

Another Nazi extermination program, euthanasiaof the sick and disabled in Germany, provided the SS with a betteropportunity to experiment. At Brandenburg in Germany a former prison wasconverted into a killing center where the first experiments with gas chamberstook place. They were disguised as shower rooms, but were actually hermeticallysealed chambers connected by pipes to cylinders of carbon monoxide. Thedrugged patients were led naked to their deaths in the gas chamber. Thekilling center included a crematorium where the bodies were taken for disposal.Families were then falsely told the cause of death was medical such asheart failure or pneumonia.

The head of the euthanasia program, SS Major Christian Wirth, used thetechnical knowledge and experience gained at Brandenburg and the five othereuthanasia killing centers to construct a pilot gas chamber plant at Chelmnoin occupied Poland, to be used for Jews.

On July 31, 1941, on Hitler's order, Reich Marshal Hermann Göringissued an orderto Heydrich instructing Heydrich to prepare "a general planof the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carryingout the desired final solution (Endlösung) of the Jewish question."

Wannsee Conference

As a result, on January, 20, 1942, Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conferencein Berlin with 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to coordinate the Final Solutionin which the Nazis would attempt to exterminate the entire Jewish populationof Europe and the Soviet Union, an estimated 11,000,000 persons.

"Europe would be combed of Jews from east to west," Heydrichbluntly stated.

The minutes of that meeting, taken by Adolf Eichmann, have been preservedbut were personally edited by Heydrich after the meeting using the codedlanguage Nazis often employed when referring to lethal actions to be takenagainst Jews.

Completeminutes of the Wannsee Conference

"Instead of emigration, there is now a further possible solutionto which the Führer has already signified his consent - namely deportationto the east," Heydrich stated when referring to mass deportationsof Jews to ghettos in Poland then on to the planned gas chamber complexesat Belsec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

Heydrich also took cynical delight in forcing the Jews themselves topartially organize, administer, and finance the Final Solution throughthe use of Jewish councils inside the ghettos which kept lists of namesand assets.

By mid 1942, mass gassing of Jews using Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide)began at Auschwitz in occupied Poland, where extermination was conductedon an industrial scale with estimates running as high as three millionpersons eventually killed through gassing, starvation, disease, shooting,and burning.

Protector of Czechoslovakia

In September of 1941, the ever-ambitious Heydrich had achieved favoredstatus with Hitler and was thus appointed Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemiaand Moravia in former Czechoslovakia and set up headquarters in Prague.Soon after his arrival, he established a Jewish ghetto at Theresienstadt.

He also established a successful policy of offering incentives to Czechworkers, rewarding them with food and privileges if they filled Nazi productionquotas and displayed loyalty to the Reich. At the same time, Heydrich'sGestapo and SD agents conducted a brutal crackdown of the Czech resistancemovement.

SS Obergruppenführer Heydrich was by now a supremely arrogant youngman who liked to travel between his country home and headquarters in Praguein an open top green Mercedes car without an armed escort as a show ofconfidence in his intimidation of the resistance and successful pacificationof the population.

Attacked by Czechs

On May 27, 1942, as his car slowed to round a sharp turn in the roadwayit came under attack from Free Czech agents who had been trained in Englandand brought to Czechoslovakia to assassinate him. They shot at Heydrichthen threw a bomb which exploded, wounding him. He managed to get out ofthe car, draw his pistol and shoot back at the assassins before collapsingin the street.

Himmler rushed his own private doctors to Prague to help Heydrich, whoheld on for several days, but died on June 4 from blood poisoning broughton by fragments of auto upholstery, steel, and his own uniform that hadlodged in his spleen.

In Berlin, the Nazis staged a highly elaborate funeral with Hitler callingHeydrich "the man with the iron heart."

Meanwhile the Gestapo and SS hunted down and murdered the Czech agents,resistance members, and anyone suspected of being involved in Heydrich'sdeath, totaling over 1000 persons. In addition, 3000 Jews were deportedfrom the ghetto at Theresienstadt for extermination. In Berlin 500 Jewswere arrested, with 152 executed as a reprisal on the day of Heydrich'sdeath.

Liquidationof Lidice

As a further reprisal for the killing of Heydrich, Hitler ordered thesmall Czech mining village of Lidice to be liquidated on the fake chargethat it had aided the assassins.

In one of the most infamous single acts of World War Two, all 172 menand boys over age 16 in the village were shot on June 10, 1942, while thewomen were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp where most died.Ninety young children were sent to the concentration camp at Gneisenau,with some taken later to Nazi orphanages if they were German looking.

The village of Lidice was then destroyed building by building with explosives,then completely leveled until not a trace remained, with grain being plantedover the flattened soil. The name was then removed from all German maps. Photos of Lidice

For months after Heydrich's death, Heinrich Himmler hesitated on appointinga successor, finally settling on Ernst Kaltenbrunner, a trained lawyer(and alcoholic) who possessed little of his predecessor's skills for intrigue.Thus after Heydrich's death, Himmler's personal power vastly increasedas he took over many of Heydrich's duties.

The Final Solution plans begun by Heydrich were further developed underHimmler, Kaltenbrunner, and Eichmann, with the help of SS subordinates,Nazi bureaucrats, industrialists, scientists, and people from occupiedcountries.

Until the end of war in 1945, Jews were transported from all over Europeto killing centers such as Auschwitz where they were exterminated, alongwith gypsies, hom*osexuals, priests, prisoners of war, and ultimately personsof every nationality, religious faith, and political persuasion.

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