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Reinhard Heydrich

Surname Heydrich Given Name Reinhard Born 7 Mar 1904 Died 4 Jun 1942 Country Germany Category Government Gender Male

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseReinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born in Halle an der Saale near Leipzig to Bruno Heydrich, a musical composer and an opera singer, and Elizabeth Kranz, and pianist. The musical influence developed him into a life-long violin enthusiast. Regarding his ancestry, it is still debated today whether he was of Jewish descent based on some evidence that one of his grandparents was Jewish.

ww2dbaseIn 1919 Heydrich joined a far-right para-military organization that positioned itself against Jews and Communists, then in 1922 joined the German Navy. In 1926, he was discharged with conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman after a series of sexual liaisons. In 1931, he was referred to Heinrich Himmler for the job to direct a counter-intelligence division of the SS, and was given the position after a twenty-minute interview. In this role he developed a card-file system on all people who could pose a threat to the Nazi Party. The job itself warranted a very small pay and he was by no means an influential figure of the party at this time, but it would soon grow to be much larger. After being renamed the SD, the future parent organization of the Gestapo, Heydrich built his relationship with Adolf Hitler during the German leader's rise in the 1930s. With the well-developed card-file system his organization was called upon to provide Hitler with intelligence on political opponents. The SD later rendered similar services during the "Night of the Long Knives" purge. After this time, Hitler often viewed Heydrich as one of his potential successors. He was also credited for supplying Josef Stalin with intelligence to support a similar purge in Russia.

ww2dbaseAt the time when Germany invaded Poland in Sep 1939, Heydrich served in the Luftwaffe as an Iron Cross-decorated pilot. His last air mission was on 22 Jul 1941 when his ME Bf 109E-7 fighter was damaged by Russian anti-aircraft fire. He had to make an emergency landing shortly after and returned to Germany safely, but was forbidden to fly again as his capture could be of severe consequences due to his intimate knowledge of German operations (though he did fly one more mission several months after the incident).

ww2dbaseOn 20 Jan 1942, Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference where his "final solution of the Jewish problem" was approved by Hitler. He oversaw the construction and design of many early concentration camps and was one of the main architects of the Holocaust. However, his record of atrocities against Jews dated long before 1942. On 9 Nov 1938, 25,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps during Kristallnacht. His SS Einsatz groups had also long been terrorizing the Jewish population in Poland and Russia. "In a time of barbarity, Reinhard Tristan Heydrich, 'the Hangman,' stood out as one of the cruelest and most brutal mass murderers in Nazi Germany", as noted by Shira Schoenberg.

ww2dbaseOn 27 Sep 1941 Heydrich was appointed the virtual head of the puppet state Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, ruling the territory above the authority of the local Czechoslovakian president and prime minister. While in Czechoslovakia he arrogantly rode in open-roof vehicles, and that arrogance caught up with him on 27 May 1942. On that morning, he left his home in Panenské Břežany for his office at the Prague Castle without his usual escort. British MI6-trained Czech soldier Jozef Gabčík and a small group of others ambushed his sedan. Gabčík attacked the sedan with a Sten submachine gun but the gun jammed at the wrong moment. Instead, he threw an anti-tank grenade at the car; the grenade failed to enter the car, but the shrapnel seriously injured Heydrich. Upon hearing the news Hitler immediately sent his best doctors to Prague to save his potential successor, but despite the best efforts Heydrich died of septicemia a week later. Conspirators of the assassination were tracked down by Gestapo agents and committed suicide after a fierce firefight, and an awful reprisal ensued against Czechs took place in the Prague area. One episode of such reprisal took place at the village of Lidice, where 172 men and boys ages 16 and above were rounded up and executed on 10 Jun 1942, while the remaining were sent to concentration camps; the village was destroyed by explosives then leveled.

ww2dbaseSources: Jewish Virtual Library, Spartacus Educational, Wikipedia.

Last Major Revision: Jan 2006

Reinhard Heydrich Timeline

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