Reinhard Heydrich - Chief of SS Intelligence

[2RHPZ]

Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) - Chief of SS Intelligence (1932-42)

"The most brutal man I have ever met."
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris

His Fate

Early 1942 - Heydrich uses a carrot-stick policy in his governorship of Bohemia-Moravia, rewarding pro-nazi Czechs with special privileges and mercilessly butchering those who resist Nazi rule. Overcome by hubris, the immensely powerful young and intolerably arrogant Heydrich deliberately rides around in a covertible Mercedes without armed escort to emphasize his absolute mastery over the Czechs.

May 27, 1942 - SAS-trained Czech commandos ambush Heydrich's car along a curve on a country road near the town of Lidice. They shoot him and throw a bomb at his car but then flee in panic leaving him wounded but still alive. Himmler rushes his own private doctors to save Heydrich. Anti-biotics, had they existed then, would have saved him.

June 4, 1942 - Heydrich dies in hospital from blood poisoning caused by fragments of shrapnel still lodged in his spleen.

Hitler presides over Heydrich's funeral. Long-time rival and sworn enemy Abwehr Chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris also attends this state occasion. In Czechoslovakia, the Gestapo and SS slaughter thousands of suspected Czech anti-nazis. Nearly the entire population of Lidice is slaughtered and the town itself flattened and planted over, its name erased from all maps.
Heydrich's right-hand man, a Nazi lawyer and alcoholic, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, succeeds Heydrich as SS intelligence chief. But Himmler assumes most of Heydrich's powers thereby amassing ever more power. Kaltenbrunner and Eichmann continue the Final Solution program started under Heydrich's tenure.


During the war, Czechoslovak army units fighting abroad often parachuted foreign-trained Czech and Slovak soldiers into occupied Czech territory to perform special assignments. The most significant of these special assignments was the assassination, in 1942, of Reinhard Heidrich - the German Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia and one of the architects of the "Final Solution."

His assassination by two Czechoslovak parachutists on May 27, 1942 set off a reign of terror throughout the Czech lands. Martial law was declared and the Nazis conducted house-to-house searches looking for the parachutists and the members of the Czech resistance movement who had helped them. More than 1,600 people were executed and more were sent to concentration camps in the period immediately following the assassination.

The terror reached its height with the annihilation of the village of Lidice, where 339 men were executed and the women and children of the village were sent to concentration camps. A few weeks later, the village of Lezaky, where the Nazis killed 54 men, women and children, was also razed to the ground. By the time this terror - known as the "Heydrichiada" - was over, the Nazis had damaged the resistance movement so much that it was only able to resume its activities at the very end of the war.

[2RHPZ]

Rare video (bad quality) from Heydrich´s funeral at:

http://stevenlehrer.com/heydrich_wmv.htm

... and his speech at:

http://stevenlehrer.com/heydspch_wmv.htm

[oldsoak]

Glad the Czech's got him - and I hope they got the the guys who carried out Lidice.

[Ian H]

Wasn't he the head of the SD? Or is that what you meant by SS intelligence? I can't remember my A-Level history?

Heydrich was a thoroughly evil man, and its possible, had he lived, that he would eventually have ousted Himmler as head of the SS, as he was by all accounts far more ruthless.

[duck]

From thirdreich.net:

"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, Reinhard Eugen Tristan Heydrich was raised in a cultured, musical environment. His father founded the Halle Conservatory of Music and was a Wagnerian opera singer, while his mother was an accomplished pianist. Young Heydrich trained seriously as a violinist, developing expert skill and a lifelong passion for the violin.

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

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

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

The German defeat in World War One brought social chaos, inflation and economic ruin to most German families including Heydrich's. In March of 1922, at age 18, Heydrich sought the free education, adventure and prestige of 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 feet tall, a gangly, awkward young man who still had the high, almost falsetto voice. 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 classical music.

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

Heydrich also developed great interest in women and pursued *** with the same self-driven desire for achievement he applied to everything else. He had many ****** relationships and in 1930 was accused of having *** with the unmarried daughter of a shipyard director. According to popular Nazi legend, as a result of his refusal to marry her, Heydrich was forced by Admiral Erich Raeder to resign his Naval commission in 1931 for "conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman."

With his Naval career wrecked, his fiancé, Lina von Osten, an enthusiastic Nazi Party member, suggested he join the Nazi Party and look into the SS organization which at that time served mainly as Hitler's personal bodyguard and had about 10,000 members. "

[duck]

"Joins Nazi Party and the SS

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

An interview was soon arranged with the new SS Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler, who was seeking someone to build an SS intelligence service. During the interview Himmler posed a challenge to Heydrich by asking him to take 20 minutes and write down his plans for a future SS intelligence gathering service. 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 organization known as the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), or SS Security Service.

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

Heydrich also had a taste for gossip and maintained folders full of rumors and details of the privates lives and ****** 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 possible Jewish ancestry on his father's side of his family. Heydrich's grandmother had married for a second time (after the birth of Heydrich's father) to a man with a Jewish sounding name.

Both Hitler and Himmler quickly became aware of the rumors which were spread by Heydrich's enemies within the Nazi Party. Himmler at one point considered expelling Heydrich from the SS. But Hitler, after a long private meeting with Heydrich, described him as "a highly gifted but also very dangerous man, whose gifts the movement had to retain...extremely useful; for he would eternally be grateful to us that we had kept him and not expelled him and would obey blindly."

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

[duck]

"Dachau Founded

Following the Nazi seizure of power in January, 1933, Heydrich and Himmler oversaw the mass arrests of Communists, trade unionists, Catholic politicians and others who had opposed Hitler. The total number of arrests were so high that prison space became a problem. An unused munitions factory at Dachau, near Munich, was quickly converted into a concentration camp for political prisoners.

Once inside Dachau, prisoners were subjected to harsh military style treatment and beatings. Stealing a cigarette could bring 25 lashes. Other punishments included suspension from a pole by the wrists, incarceration in a stand-up cell or dark cell, and in some cases death by shooting or hanging.

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

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

Night of the Long Knives

Two months later, in June, Himmler and Heydrich, along with Hermann Göring, successfully plotted the downfall of powerful SA chief Ernst Röhm by spreading false rumors that Röhm and his four million SA storm troopers intended to seize control of the Reich and conduct a new revolution.

During the Night of the Long Knives Röhm and dozens of top SA leaders were hunted down and murdered on Hitler's orders, with the list of those to be murdered drawn up by Heydrich. As a result, the SA Brownshirts lost much of their influence and were quickly overtaken in importance by the black-coated SS.

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

By 1937, any remnants of civilized notions of justice were thrown out as the police, especially the Gestapo, were placed above the law with unlimited powers 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 legal recourse.

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

Criticizing the Nazis or even making a joke could land one in a concentration camp, never to be seen again. Some arrests were made under suspicion that a person might commit a crime in the future. The average German could trust no one as anyone, even a family member, might be an informant working with the 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-Nazis and also to enhance the immense personal power of Heydrich, now widely feared throughout Germany.

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

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

Heydrich was also a friendless man whose only companions were senior SS subordinates who accompanied him during drinking bouts and womanizing at a few favored night spots. Those few women who resisted his advances could likely expect a visit from the Gestapo. "

[duck]

"International Espionage

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kristallnacht

On November 9/10, 1938, Kristallnacht occurred with the first widespread attacks on Jews and mass arrests throughout the Reich. On Heydrich's order, 25,000 Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.

In January of 1939, Heydrich helped destabilize Czechoslovakia by inciting unrest in the eastern province of Slovakia and also sent in a sabotage squad to cause panic.

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

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

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

And more at http://www.thirdreich.net/Heydrich_Bio.html

[Kitsune]

Heydrich was the main mastermind behind the Holocaust. He was the chairman of the (today) infamous "Wannsee-Konferenz".
Another intersting point ist, that most of the Nazi bigshots were most probably not to sad about his passing. Heydrich had indeed been the head of the SS intelligence arm (and was therefore a rival of Canaris, head of the the Abwehr...the SS always wanted to have the German intelligence under their control, a wish that would be granted in 1944 when Canaris affiliation with the resistance movement became known) and had used his time there to aquire "interesting" information about almost all the other heads of Nazi Germany (who had their secrets...Göbbels for example had a jewish grandmother...not officially of course). With the typical intruiging and sniping going on among them, a situation that Hitler had encouraged (he was the only truly untouchable in the system) Heydrich with his knowledgable background and his legendary ruthlessnes, was dangerous for everyone.

[volfram]

There was rumors that Heidrich has jewish grandmother.Shelenberg,his right hand and next chief of SD,in his memories said that Canaris ,chief of Abwehra,reportadly has information about Heidrich jewish roots.Canaris was Heidrich greatest enemy.There is also theory that Haidrich was kiled to protect Canaris.

[sethen]

You know I have heard rumors that almost all the senior Nazi's had Jewish relatives/blood in them. If true wouldn't that mean these Nazi's were Jews!!! :lol: I mean they probably have as much Semitic blood as the average "Jew" of the day. If this is true then wasn't the Nazis behaviour typically...Jewish?????? Does anyone remember Torquemada, the head of the Spanish Inquisition, wasn't he of Jewish blood as well???? Does anyone see my point?

As for Heydrich I respect his evil ruthlessness. I worked for a Senior N.C.O (MSG) that was just like him. I actually hated the B@stard, but he got things done.

[WolverineBlue]

Thank God that that pig died. F*** you you Nazi scumbag.

[2RHPZ]

Major-General Rudolf Krzak

(Filed: 27/05/2004)

Major-General Rudolf Krzak , who has died aged 90, was the last of the plotters responsible for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
As Hitler's Reichsprotektor in Bohemia-Moravia, Heydrich was responsible for the murder of thousands of Czechs. Sixty-two years ago today, assassins attempted to shoot him as he was being driven through the streets of Prague. When the ringleader's sten gun jammed, one of his comrades lobbed a grenade into the car. Heydrich was wounded, and died in hospital eight days later.
The Nazis exacted a terrible revenge: the entire populations of two villages, Lidice and Lezaky, were wiped out, and their homes flattened.
Rudolf Krzak had helped to organise the plot from Britain, having fled from his homeland three years earlier. He had been born on April 6 1914 at Bernartice in Southern Bohemia, and graduated from the Hranice Military Academy in Moravia. After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, and dissolved its army, Krzak and a friend from his days at primary school, Rudolf Hrubec, secretly formed a group to escape to France.
To his colleagues' exasperation, Krzak insisted on carrying a heavy sackful of dictionaries, explaining that they would be invaluable in the countries they were planning to pass through. He also took three suits: one for daily wear, another as a reserve, and the third a smarter outfit in which he hoped to raise money to cover their living expenses.
The group travelled through Poland, then took a boat from Gdynie to Boulogne. They joined the French Foreign Legion, training in Algeria before being attached to the 1st Infantry Division in the south of France. Krzak's unit saw its first action in eastern France; he was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the first of 24 military honours he gathered in the course of his career. Exhausted from a series of battles in which they helped to cover the retreat of the French army, the Czech units (still in French uniforms) sailed to Liverpool.
Krzak then found himself based, with his fellow Czechs, at Leamington Spa. He was soon appointed a regimental sergeant major, but grew restive at the lack of action. He took a demotion, and, in January 1941, joined the 2nd MoD Department commanded by GS Col Frantisek Moravec, the chief of the Czechoslovak secret service between 1940 and 1945.
Krzak went to special group D as a deputy commander in charge of paratroopers who were to take part in special operations with the underground groups in occupied Czechoslovakia; this work was carried out at a training camp in Scotland.
The Heydrich mission encountered problems from the start. Because of the unpredictability of dropping men into Czechoslovakia, three groups were flown in to the country; subsequently, all three were to take part in operation Anthropoid, as it was codenamed - and all but two of the men involved lost their lives.
Bernartice was another place to become the object of the Nazis' revenge: 24 people there were killed within a fortnight of Heydrich's death, and 20 more sent to concentration camps. Krzak's mother, father and the rest of his extended family were shot, as were the family of his best friend, Hrubec. It was three years before Krzak learned of these events. He and Hrubec continued their work at Special group D until July 1944. On one occasion they were sent to the Italian Alps, where their mission was to recruit Czech soldiers, who had been conscripted into the German army, to fight with Italian partisans to help the Allied offensive from the south.
Each man commanded his own group, flying to Italy in separate aircraft; but Hrubec's crashed into a mountain in poor visibility, leaving no survivors. Krzak's group landed safely, but, waiting to come out after their mission was over, they were surrounded and pinned down by enemy fire. It was 11 days before an aircraft could fly them to safety - the two-seater plane taking off with Krzak hanging on to the fuselage.
Early in 1945 Krzak was posted to the Eastern front, and then to Slovakia to fight the retreating Germans. He finished the war as a commander of the 5th Infantry Brigade with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
After the war, he continued training paratroopers and studied at Staff College in Prague. However, his contentment was short lived: when the Communists took power in 1948, he was discharged from the army, and a year later he was arrested for "treason" and sentenced to nine years in prison.
In the event, he served four years, and on his release he took a job as a blacksmith, before moving into chemical production and geological drilling. During this period Krzak often lived in his Fiat car or in a Portakabin. In the Prague Spring of 1968 he returned to the army, and was promoted colonel. However, after the Russians invaded he was pensioned off, and returned to his drilling work.
With the "Velvet Revolution", Krzak was finally "rehabilitated". He was promoted to the honorary rank of Major General and became head of the Association of Antifascist Fighters.
He spent his last years as chairman of the Czech Legionnaires.
Rudolf Krzak died on April 22. He is survived by a son and a daughter.

[2RHPZ]

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton is a Conservative MSP for Lothians:


SIXTY-TWO years ago today, on 10 June, 1942, the entire village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia was deliberately destroyed. Some 173 local men were shot dead while the women and children were taken to concentration camps.

Apart, that is, from eight blond children considered suitable for adoption by the SS. Ultimately, 340 lives were lost and the few women and children who emerged at the end of the Second World War were forever traumatised by their experience.

This was Hitler?s revenge against the Czech nation because the SS chief, Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler?s deputy, had been killed by two Czech patriots in a British-inspired military operation. Heydrich was the man who was the architect and mastermind of the plans for the Holocaust. He took the chair at the notorious Wannsee conference at which he made clear his aim to commit genocide, murdering more than 11 million people of Jewish blood. (He was played by Kenneth Branagh, in a recent television film about the conference.)

On 27 May, 1942, at 10:30 in the morning, Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik lay in wait for Heydrich at a steep bend in the road where his car would have to slow down on its way into Prague. Trained in the Scottish Highlands, they had with them a British sten gun and two small British bombs.

When Heydrich?s car slowed down, Gabcik went forward to shoot him, whereupon his sten gun jammed. Heydrich ordered his chauffeur to stop, and rose in his seat, drawing his pistol to kill Gabcik, but at that moment Gabcik?s great friend, Kubis, threw the bomb. It was a less than perfect aim, but the explosion caused the horse hair from the seat in Heydrich?s car to be blown into his spleen under his bullet-proof protection. As a result, Heydrich died in agony of blood poisoning some days later.

On this anniversary date of the atrocity at Lidice, I address myself to the question as to whether the participants would have gone through with this mission if they had known how many innocent lives would be lost. Recently, I went with my wife and three sons to see the national war memorials at Lidice and at the church. The names of the victims are beautifully inscribed on the walls, but the sheer scale and enormity of what had happened was hard for the human mind to take in.

From everything that is known about Kubis and Gabcik, they would not have wished Heydrich to have had the opportunity to murder an extra 10,000 innocent civilians or 100,000 or one million. Nor would they have wished Heydrich to have implemented Hitler?s satanic wish to convert the synagogues of Prague into a museum for an extinct race. And they certainly would not have been impressed by the fact that Heydrich was regarded as Hitler?s potential successor.

Kubis and Gabcik believed quite simply that without Heydrich the world would be a better place. They were determined to go through with their mission "come what may".

The Czech president, Vaclav Havel, put this subject in perspective when he said in 1992: "It was one of the most significant acts of resistance on a pan-European scale. It was an act which had a significant influence on the decision to recognise our government in exile. It was an act which had much to do with the fact that we finished the war as a victorious state and not as a defeated one."

Today, when one visits the cathedral where Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik made their last stand, they are talked about as the heroes of the Heydrich terror. I read the book of tributes to them which were expressed in terms of unqualified admiration for the bravery and self-sacrifice of those concerned.

There was, however, one entry which I read many times. Inscribed on the paper was the Star of David and opposite were written these words: "This is hallowed ground where men died in the cause of freedom, justice and humanity."