Reinhard Heydrich - a well-known political and statesman of Nazi Germany, who headed the General Directorate of Imperial Security at the beginning of the war. He was one of the initiators of the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question", coordinated activities to combat and destroy the internal enemies of the Third Reich.
Childhood and youth
Reinhard Heydrich was born in the small town of Halle in the German Empire in 1904. His mother was from a we althy family of the director of the conservatory in Dresden. The father of the hero of our article, Bruno Heydrich, was a composer and opera singer.
From an early age, Reinhard Heydrich was fond of politics. In particular, his parents studied the works of Houston Chamberlain, who studied the issues of "struggle of the races." During the First World War, he was still a child (in 1914 he was only ten years old), while he constantly watched the demonstrations and protests that took place in Halle.
In 1919joined a paramilitary nationalist alliance called "Georg Ludwig Rudolf Merker". During this period, he cultivates consciousness in himself, actively goes in for sports.
At the same time, he takes part in the Pan-German Youth Association. However, this organization seems too moderate for Reinhard Heydrich, so he leaves it to join the "German People's Defense and Offensive League" in 1920.
He is imbued with the ideas of youth patriotic movements in the Lucix division, which is part of the volunteer detachments that exist on the territory of Halle.
In 1921, he already creates his own organization, which he calls the "German People's Youth Detachment".
Serving in the army
Heydrich's father owned a music school, which was on the verge of ruin due to the economic crisis. Reinhard himself played the violin well, but there was no future for this craft. At school, he dreamed of becoming a chemist, but when he grew up, this prospect began to seem doubtful to him.
As a result, Reinhard Heydrich, whose photo is in this article, decides to join the army. In 1922, he became a cadet at a naval school in Kiel. Here he is faced with a rigid code of honor, which he considers worthy of emulation. He graduated from the school in 1926 with the rank of lieutenant. He is sent to serve in the reconnaissance fleet.
The head promotes Reinhard Heydrich, whose biography is described in this article, up the career ladderAbwehr Wilhelm Canaris, who at that moment is a senior officer on the cruiser "Berlin". They were friends, Heydrich often visited Canaris.
Private life
At the same time, relations with other colleagues did not develop. He, like his father, was hampered by rumors that there were Jews among his ancestors. In addition, he had a reputation for red tape. There were new stories about Reinhard Heydrich and women.
In 1930, he meets his future wife at one of the balls. The rural teacher Lina von Osten became his chosen one, at the end of the 31st they got married. There is a more romantic version of the beginning of their relationship. According to her, Reinhard was riding with a friend on the lake when he saw the capsized boat. One of the rescued was Lina.
Before that, Heydrich had an affair with the daughter of the head of the naval shipyard in Kiel. He decided to part with his beloved in an original way, sending her a newspaper clipping about his engagement to Lina by mail. According to the Navy code of honor he held dear, Reinhard had committed the low act of dating two girls at the same time. A court of honor was held, presided over by Admiral Raeder. In April 1931, he was dismissed with the wording for "misconduct".
According to some reports, he was fired because of the seduction of the young daughter of the commander of the cruiser "Berlin", who became pregnant from him. In fact, it is quite possible to call Reinhard Heydrich a sex maniac.
Entry intoSS ranks
In the summer of the same year, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, as his full name sounds, joins the National Socialist German Workers' Party, as well as its paramilitary SS. Together with militants, he takes part in actions against communists and socialists.
At that time, Himmler was just transforming the SS, working to ensure that the organization could spy on political opponents and actively participate in military actions. For this, an intelligence service was needed.
Heydrich, through his friend, starts a relationship with Himmler, formulates his vision for the organization of the intelligence service, which are highly appreciated. Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich is assigned to the formation of the security service, which later becomes known as the SD. At first, the main task of this structure was to collect compromising materials on political opponents who occupy a prominent position in society and power, and the SD also conducts targeted actions to discredit them.
In a short time, Heydrich manages to gain respect in the Nazi Party. Already in December, he received the title of SS Obersturmbannfuehrer, and in the summer of the 32nd Standartenfuehrer.
The massacre of the opposition
In 1933 Adolf Hitler comes to power. This means the Nazis come to power, they begin a tough fight against the opposition.
At the same time, the tense situation persists within the party. SA attack aircraft, which largely ensured the arrivalHitler to power, are dissatisfied with the insufficient amount of authority that they got. In addition, a confrontation is planned between Hitler himself, who was inclined towards national politics, and Gregor Strasser, who believed that the socialist program should become the main task of the party.
Among the stormtroopers, the idea of a second revolution, which should be truly socialist, is becoming more and more popular. In this situation, Heydrich's SD collects dirt on Ernst Röhm, who led the SA. Everything indicates that a putsch is being prepared within the party. During the famous "Night of the Long Knives" SS militants smash the SA, Rem himself is killed. For a brilliant operation in the SS, Reinhard Heydrich receives the title of Gruppenführer.
In the future, the SD takes part in the hardware struggle between the Wehrmacht and the SS. Heydrich's wards play a decisive role in removing Colonel General von Fritsch, Minister of Defense von Blomberg, from command of the land army. Both managed to start compromising cases that destroyed their reputation. In particular, von Blomberg's wife turned out to be a prostitute in the past. For this, Hitler fired him. Fritsch was deposed on false charges of homosexuality. Together with them, several dozen disloyal military men lost their posts or were demoted.
Heydrich also fought fiercely against military intelligence. Moreover, the Abwehr was headed by his old friend Canaris. In public, they were friendly, even met every morning for a walk, and behind the scenes they tried to remove each other from a high post.
Binternal security leadership
In 1936, Reinhard became not only the head of the SD, but also the head of the security police, which combined the criminal and secret state police. In the hands of Heydrich is a tool with which he cracks down on the enemies of the regime.
His agents monitor communists, Jews, liberals and members of religious minorities. The SD employs about 3,000 agents, plus about 100,000 informers throughout the country. After the Anschluss, Himmler and Heydrich arrange terror in Austria aimed at opponents of the regime. Near Linz, the Mauthausen concentration camp is being created for them.
In the year the war began, the zipos, the SD and the Gestapo were united into the Main Directorate of Imperial Security. This is the most powerful organization for suppressing the opposition, collecting and analyzing information. Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Imperial Security Main Office.
War
One of the reasons for the attack on Poland and the start of the war is the so-called Gleiwitz incident. This is a re-enactment of a Polish attack on a German radio station in Silesia by the SS. The development and implementation of this plan was carried out by Heydrich.
SS fighters dressed in Polish uniform attacked a German radio transmitter in Gleiwitz. The bodies of the dead "Poles" were presented to the world media. In fact, they were prisoners held in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Germany rated this incident as an excuse to attack Poland. Heydrich's subordinatesoccupied territory began to destroy the communists, local intelligentsia and Jews.
It is noteworthy that during the war years he was engaged not only in organizational work, but also participated in combat sorties as a gunner-radio operator, and then as an attack aircraft in Norway, France and the USSR. This fully corresponded to what an SS officer should have been, according to Heydrich. That is, not only manage from your office, but also directly participate in hostilities yourself.
In 1941 he was shot down near the Berezina River. He was rescued by German soldiers. After that, Himmler forbade him to go on sorties himself.
Jewish question
Heydrich is considered one of the main initiators of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. It was he who sought to realize the plan of the genocide of Jews in Germany itself and in the occupied territories.
If you follow their ideology, the Jews were the main force of the communist movement. Together with the Gypsies, Negroes, Eastern Slavs and other non-Aryan peoples, they were declared "subhuman". Reinhard Heydrich always spoke sharply and unambiguously about Russians and Jews.
Information about the Jews in the SD was collected before the war. When a Polish Jew turned out to be guilty of an attempt on a German diplomat in Paris, Heydrich's wards staged mass pogroms in different cities of the country, which went down in history as "Kristallnacht".
It was Reinhard who was the coordinator of these actions, gave ordersregional divisions. A few days later, he made proposals to Goering on the further solution of the Jewish question. Heydrich pushed for the development of the Nuremberg Laws to reinforce the discriminatory measures that forced Jews to emigrate. It was also proposed, by analogy with the Austrian bureau for Jewish emigration, which was led by Eichmann, to create a similar structure in Berlin. These measures have been taken and implemented in the coming months.
When Poland was occupied, Heydrich ordered that Jews be sent to ghettos organized in major cities. "Jewish councils" were also formed, with the help of which Heydrich forced the Jews themselves to participate in the destruction of their people. At the end of 1939, he put Eichmann in charge of a special unit for the affairs of Jews, with the help of which they began to be sent en masse from Austria and Germany to the Polish ghettos. It was an intermediate stage. In the end, he sought to achieve the complete destruction of the Jewish population in all of Europe.
In the occupied Soviet territories, a large number of Jews turned out to be in the hands of the Germans. Special firing squads were created, which engaged in extermination on a national basis. But even they could not cope with the tasks of destroying so many people.
At the end of 1940, Hitler ordered him to develop a plan for the final solution of the Jewish question. Heydrich's designs have not been preserved, but it is known that he sent his proposals to the Fuhrer in January 1941.
Already in the summer, Hitler officially published the order on the "Generalsolution of the Jewish question". Its text has not been preserved either, but its existence is known thanks to the testimony of the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials. In January 1942, the Wannsee Conference took place, at which the plan to exterminate Jews throughout Europe was discussed.
As part of the Heydrich project, it was supposed to send Jews to forced labor. It was assumed that most would die from exorbitant physical exertion and unstable nutrition. The survivors were planned to be physically destroyed. According to rough estimates, it was planned to liquidate about 11 million people. It was Heydrich who formulated the theses of the "final solution of the Jewish question".
In Bohemia and Moravia
After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the regions of Moravia and Bohemia came under German control. There appeared the post of the imperial protector. At first it was Konstantin von Neurath, who previously held the former Minister of Foreign Affairs. Soon he was dismissed due to insufficient rigidity and constant confrontation between the authorities and party structures and special services in these areas. It was Heydrich's agents who prepared a report for Hitler criticizing Neurath's work.
In September 1941, the Fuhrer decides to appoint Heydrich as Deputy Protector. Neurath disagrees with this decision and resigns. Reinhardt receives all power in the region. Having retained his former position, he actually becomes the imperial protector. Soon he stays in his residence in Gradchany, transports hereyour family. He settles in the Lower Palace, 15 kilometers from Prasha, which was confiscated from the Jewish sugar merchant Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. In total, Reinhard Heydrich had four children. These were the sons of Haider and Klaus, the daughters of Zilka and Marta, who had not yet been born at that time.
Already a week after his appointment, he organized the overthrow of the Czech Prime Minister Alois Elias, as soon as he was suspected of having links with the Resistance. The trial was swift, and four hours later the Czech politician was sentenced to death.
Also, one of his first decrees in Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich ordered the closure of all synagogues in the protectorate, and already in November 41, the Theresienstadt concentration camp was created, which was intended for Czech Jews who were waiting to be sent to death camps.
In parallel, he carried out reforms to appease the local population. In particular, he turned the social security system on its head, increased food rations for workers and wages.
Murder
As a result, the Prague butcher Reinhard Heydrich, he received such a nickname for the brutal fight against the Czech Resistance, became a victim of an assassination attempt. Thanks to ruthless measures, he managed to calm down the country that was under occupation in just two weeks.
The attempt on his life was engineered by the Czech government-in-exile, headed by Edvard Beneša, with the help of the British secret services. One of the goals was to raise the prestige of the Resistance in the eyes of ordinary Czechs. Of course, the organizers of the assassination attemptthey understood that punitive actions would follow this murder, but they hoped that this would only increase the population's hatred of the Nazis.
The operation to liquidate the Prague butcher Reinhard Heydrich was secretly designated "Anthropoid". The direct performers were Jan Kubis and Josef Gabchik, who were trained by the British.
On the morning of May 27, 1942, Heydrich was driving from his country residence to the center of Prague. The car was with an open top, there was only a driver in it, since Reinhard himself always preferred to move around without protection. At 10.32, at the turn to the Prague suburb of Liben Gabchik, he took out a STEN submachine gun and was about to shoot at the target, but his weapon jammed. Then the self-confident Heydrich ordered to stop, took out a pistol, but did not have time to shoot. Kubis threw a bomb at him. However, the Czech missed, she fell and exploded near the right rear wheel of the car.
Heydrich was wounded. He had a broken rib and a shrapnel wound to his spleen, a piece of seat upholstery and a metal fragment of a car got into it. Reinhard fell next to the car. He was rushed to a hospital in Bulovka in a passing truck.
By noon, Heydrich was operated on, the damaged spleen was removed. On the same day, Himmler's personal physician, whose name was Karl Gebhardt, arrived at the hospital. He prescribed morphine to the patient and left. On June 3, information was circulated that Heydrich's condition had improved markedly, he was on the mend. But by evening he fell into a coma, died the next day.day. The medical record listed the cause of death as septic organ failure. It is noteworthy that the final diagnosis has not been made so far, in 1972, researchers, based on medical documents, came to the conclusion that Heydrich could have died from anemic shock.
After the assassination of Heydrich, which was assessed by the German command as a terrorist act, Himmler began to receive numerous condolences from the leaders of the Reich, military leaders, representatives of the satellite countries, in particular, from the Bulgarian and Italian police. The farewell to the body took place in Prague, it lasted two days. After that, the coffin was taken to Berlin. The funeral took place in the German capital on June 9. The first persons of the country took part in farewell to Heydrich, Adolf Hitler delivered a speech over the grave, who described Heydrich as a man with an iron heart.
Later, Himmler repeatedly emphasized that the deceased made a huge contribution to the struggle for the freedom of the German people. Heydrich was posthumously awarded the "German Order", a decree to this effect was signed by the Fuhrer himself. This is a rare award that was intended for the highest party functionaries, as a rule, it was always awarded posthumously.
The opponents of Germany were not at all enthusiastic about the figure of Heydrich. The influential London newspaper The Times published a caustic article in which it noted that one of the most dangerous people from the leadership of the Third Reich organized a "gangster's funeral".
After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler himself headed the RSHA, but already inJanuary 1943 handed over the reins to K altenbrunner. The post of Imperial Projector has passed to Kurt Dalyuge.
Heydrich's grave is in the Berlin cemetery. After the defeat of the Nazis, so that this place does not become a point of attraction for their modern followers. At present, the exact burial place of Heydrich remains unknown. At the same time, on the first anniversary of his death, a bust was erected on the grave, which was destroyed after the liberation of Prague. In 2009, a monument to the representatives of the Resistance, who organized the destruction of Heydrich, was unveiled in the Czech capital.
After a successful assassination attempt on a high-ranking Nazi leader in Czechoslovakia, a punitive operation of retaliation was expected to begin. The assassination made a strong impression on the Nazi leaders, a campaign of mass terror directed at the Czech population began on the day of Heydrich's death. In particular, it was officially announced that anyone who knows the whereabouts of the killers, but does not betray them, will be executed along with all close relatives. Mass searches were carried out in Prague, during these operations many members of the Resistance were found who were hiding underground, as well as communists, Jews and other categories of citizens. In total, 1,331 Czechs were shot, including 201 women.
On the day of Heydrich's funeral, the Czech village of Lidice was destroyed. All men over 16 years old were shot, in total there were 172 of them. 195 women were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and the children were transferred to the Central Office for Immigrants in Litzmannstadt. Later themhanded over to German families, it is not possible today to establish their fate.
The Gestapo finally managed to locate the place where the agents were hiding. They were in the vaults of the Cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Prague. They were betrayed by a member of the Resistance, paratrooper Karel Churda.
On June 18, a massive assault was organized, during which all the agents were killed or committed suicide, realizing that further resistance was useless. Later, the Germans shot the Bishop of Prague Gorazd, the priests of this cathedral and some other clerics. After this incident, the Czech Orthodox Church was officially banned.
The deceased remained in the memory of historians as one of the active members of the Nazi Party. According to contemporaries, the character of Reinhard Heydrich was ruthless, he knew how to make decisions quickly, he acutely perceived the human, moral, political and professional weaknesses of the people around him.
You can learn about his personality from a large number of artistic and research works dedicated to the SD leader. Moreover, it is not always evaluated in a negative way. In 2017, a study was published in Ukraine called "Reinhard Heydrich. The Final Rehabilitation", in which he is presented in a positive way. His wife also tried to justify him, who in the 70s wrote a memoir "Life with war criminals".
There are many films about Reinhard Heydrich. Already in 1943, the American film "The Executioners Die Too" was released. Film about Reinhard Heydrichfilmed in Czechoslovakia. The military drama by Jiri Sekvens "Assassination" was released in 1964.
Reinhard Heydrich is mentioned in the film "17 Moments of Spring". Although the events take place after his murder, there are documentary footage of the funeral in the tape.
Anime character
In the anime, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich is the name of one of the characters in the Dies Irae universe. He is the commander-in-chief who created the 13th Order of the Spear of Destiny.
In the anime, Reinhard Heydrich is a 40 year old athletic man. He has golden eyes and hair. Reinhard Heydrich in the anime "Day of Wrath" plays one of the key roles.
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