Pisces of the week: Gestapo chief Reinhard Heydrich

The Nazis were pretty evil, but who was the most evil of them all? You could say Adolf Hitler, but he perhaps had mitigating circumstances. He had a messed up childhood, and as a young adult he lived in poverty. That doesn’t excuse his behaviour, but it provides some logic and reason for it. Hitler’s upbringing was very different to that of Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the holocaust. Heydrich was a man of high intelligence, and also an accomplished violinist, whose father was an opera singer and composer. While it’s true that Heydrich’s family suffered in the economic melt-down immediately following the First World War, the same was true for most Germans. In other words, Heydrich had no excuse, and he must surely be regarded as the most evil Nazi.

Before looking at Heydrich’s horoscope, one should perhaps consider his star sign. Pisces has a reputation for being emotional, and for drifting off into a cloud of fantasy. It’s also a sign that can be very creative. So if you see someone playing a violin beautifully, you’re not surprised when you are told that their sun sign is Pisces. Einstein was also a Pisces, and he played the violin. However, if you want to be a successful Pisces, you need to dedicate yourself to something, hook, line and sinker. You might dedicate yourself to physics, or world peace, or the quest for enlightenment… or to a political ideology. It’s about jumping into the water, without asking questions. In Heydrich’s case, he dedicated himself to Nazism.

Reinhard Heydrich was born on March 7 1904, in Halle, Germany, at 3.00 pm. Here is his horoscope:

The horoscope is a bit cluttered, because I include Witte’s hypothetical planets. But you can see that most of the traditional planets are in the south western quadrant. The southern quadrant is about being out there in the world, the western quadrant is about other people. Heydrich may have been head of the Gestapo, but at some level he was a follower – whether to Nazism in general or to Adolf Hitler in particular.

Although Heydrich was evil, he was also courageous. Many senior Nazis steered clear of danger, but not him. He was a Luftwaffe pilot, who flew in combat during the invasions of Poland and the Soviet Union. Indeed on one occasion his plane was shot down over Russia, but he managed to get back to his own lines. He wasn’t so lucky on May 27 1942, when a two-man assassination team intercepted his open-topped Mercedes, in Prague, the capital of the modern day Czech Republic. The first assassin, Jozef Gabčík, stood in front of his car, and tried to fire his machine gun at him. The gun jammed. At this stage Heydrich should have told his driver to speed away. Instead he ordered the driver to stop, so that he could chase his would-be killers. The second assassin, Jan Kubiš, then threw a bomb at his car, which mortally wounded him.

It is not difficult to see the courage in his horoscope – Mars and Jupiter in Aries. Mars in Aries is the archetypal warror, and it enjoys a fight. Though probably Mars is too strong for its own good. Yes, it is a masculine planet, that does well in the sign of its rulership. However it functions best in a nocturnal horoscope. In a diurnal chart we have overkill – particularly as Mars is the planet in the chart closest to the Midheaven. Very often we see that a planet so placed has a noticeable impact, and in Heydrich’s case he was dominated by the Mars archetype.

There is then the question of why Heydrich was so good at his job. It was a pretty awful job, creating networks of informers and developing a system of annihilation and terror. But unfortunately, some people are good at this kind of work. The Sun in Pisces in the Eighth House, square Pluto in Gemini, had a good understanding of what made people tick, and Heydrich enjoyed the power games involved in being an intelligence chief. Pisces can deceive and obfuscate, and in one successful operation Heydrich was able to pass false information to the Soviet Union that some of their top generals were conspiring against the government. This led to purges and arrests, which weakened the Soviet Union’s ability to defend itself.

Probably the most important aspect in Heydrich’s horoscope is the conjunction between Venus and Saturn, in Aquarius. The conjunction is bang on the Descendant. The fact that Heydrich had an angular Saturn in the sign of its rulership would give him the capacity for hard work, but the conjunction with Venus allowed him to suppress human feelings. It also suggested that relationships were an issue. In terms of his early career this makes sense. He had to leave the Navy because he broke off an already consummated marital engagement, and this breach of promise was considered to be dishonourable. In general, Heydrich had numerous affairs, and visited prostitutes right through his career. Talking about prostitution, he even set up a brothel in Berlin, called Salon Kitty, for the purpose of gathering intelligence. This underlines the point that prostitution is a Venus-Saturn profession.

One planet I find particularly interesting is Hades, the planet of garbage, death and low-life. Here is Heydrich’s 45-degree Hades midpoint tree:

The Hades midpoint tree represents all the midpoints that Hades is making a hard aspect to, and on the right are the orbs. But I only want to concentrate on the conjunctions. If you look at Hedydrich’s horoscope, you’ll see that his Hades conjunct the Venus-Mars and Mars-Saturn midpoints. Hades on the Venus-Mars midpoint is relatively easy to interpret – Venus-Mars is about sex, Hades is about low-life, and when you put it together you get sex with prostitutes. Witte’s description is even better: “Illicit intercourse. Misfortune and unpleasantness with or through intimate acquaintances or relatives”. That perfectly describes the circumstances of his dismissal from the Navy, on an honour charge.

It is worth talking a bit more about Heydrich’s dismissal from the Navy. The event that triggered it was a meeting with his future wife Lina, which meant that he broke off a previous engagement. This happened in December 1930, so I’ll go for a mid-December date of December 15. At this time, Heydrich’s solar arc directed Venus was at 11 degrees 47 minutes Pisces. The orb was not exact, but it was pretty close. Here are the relevant points:

Heydrich’s dismissal from the Navy led to him joining the Nazi party, and the unleashing of the full potential of Hades on the Mars-Saturn midpoint. Mars and Saturn are the lesser and greater malefics, and together they are the death pair. If you have Hades on the Saturn-Mars midpoint you have the capacity for causing enormous destruction.

As far as Heydrich’s death is concerned, he was assassinated when solar arc directed Pluto was at 26 degrees 30 Cancer – in other words, making an exact sesquiquadrate to his Mars-Saturn midpoint. Pluto hitting the Mars-Saturn midpoint perhaps tells us about the quality of his death. Pluto is something hidden and destructive, such as bacteria. Heydrich died because some of horsehair in the seat of the Mercedes had been blown into his body, and as a result he got sepsis. He died in hospital about a week after the attack.

Heydrich’s meeting with Lina happened when he was 26 years old. He was dismissed from the Navy in April 1931, when he had just turned 27. However, the dismissal was a culmination of events – the action happened when he was 26. By the time of his 27th birthday, his career in the Navy was effectively over. Why is this important? Well, a classical technique that has become popular among traditional astrologers is the annual profection, where you have a planet ruling each year. The years start from birth, with the Ascendant. So Heydrich had Leo rising, which means up until his first birthday his year ruler was the Sun. The next sign after Leo is Virgo, so the ruler from the first to the second birthday was Mercury.

When Heydrich hit 26, we have moved around to Libra. So the ruler is Venus. His Venus is prominent in his horoscope, but it is conjunct Saturn. In other words, it is going to be a bad year, and it may well be characterized by the Venus-Saturn conjunction – relationships with women causing problems. Let’s now fast forward 12 years. On March 7 1942 Heydrich celebrated his 38th birthday, and Venus again became his year ruler. The Venus-Saturn conjunction again becomes promient, and we can see that Heydrich’s enemies were strong – after all, Saturn is the ruler of the Seventh House. It should also be said that in traditional astrology the Seventh has a connection with death.

Here’s the solar return for his 42nd birthday, set for Halle:

Venus is angular, on the IC, opposition Pluto. Now you might say that having Venus on the IC is good for a solar return, especially as it is in mutual reception with Saturn, by sign. However one has to wonder how useful the reception really was – Saturn is conjunct the Eighth House cusp. Indeed the Venus-Saturn reception may reinforce the malefic theme of the natal chart. And Venus’ angularity, in a year ruled by an afflicted Venus, might actually have been a signature of death.

We can get further clues by looking at lunar returns. However, such an approach wouldn’t have saved Heydrich, if he had been read to listen to astrologers. This is because an astrologer would have told him that the lunar return starting on May 29 was the one to worry about. Yes, he was still alive on May 29 1942, but the attack that killed him happened two days early. Here’s the May 29 return:

The signature is simple. Venus is on the Descendant, like in the natal chart. It is also in Aries, the sign of its detriment. We don’t even have to look at the packed Eighth House to get a sniff of impending death.

There are still lots of things to say about Reinhard Heydrich’s horoscope, and I have only managed to cover things that are of immediate interest. The chart reminds us of the important of angularity, with the Venus-Saturn conjunction on the Descendant dominating the horoscope. It is suggests that midpoints can be useful, even those involving hypothetical planets. Finally, Heydrich’s chart powerful evidence that annual profections can be a useful technique.