Reinhard Heydrich Was an Evil Genius

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a genius. Period. Dark, evil, diabolical genius, sure – but a genius nevertheless. Because only an evil genius could have conceived, structured, planned and executes such a gargantuan diabolical project as Shoah.

Unlike Eichmann, G;ring (and possibly even Himmler), Heydrich was a true believer. He deeply, passionately, sincerely (and erroneously) believed that it was absolutely necessary to kill all Jews under German control. And he utilized all his talents, all his capabilities, all his resources and all his genius to making it happen… and was very close to success.

Reinhard Heydrich was highly driven, very determined, inhumanly disciplined, incredibly daring and totally committed to both of his highly patriotic (in his mind) fundamental objectives.

His first objective was to build a highly efficient – the best in the world – security service capable of protecting his beloved Germany from all domestic enemies. This objective was achieved on September 27, 1939 when RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) was born.

It merged domestic and foreign intelligence (SD), political police (Gestapo), criminal police (Kripo) and paramilitary death squads (Einsatzgruppen) into a highly efficient security system. Heydrich achieved this almost impossible objective when he was just 35 years old…

Another – incomparably more challenging and grandiose – objective of his was the “Holocaust Project”. The “final solution to the Jewish question”. Physical extermination of all Jews under German control (in this, thanks God, he was not completely successful).

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was born in 1904 in Halle an der Saale to composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Heydrich and his wife, Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia (a piano teacher).

Reinhard was a gifted musician – he developed a passion for the violin and carried that interest into adulthood; he impressed listeners with his musical talent. Some of those who heard him playing, were sure that, had he chosen music as his occupation, he would have become one of the best violin players in the world.

Reinhard was born in 1904, so he was far too young to fight in the Great War. He got his chance in 1919 when civil unrest—including strikes and clashes between communist and anti-communist groups—took place in Heydrich’s home town of Halle. Under Defense Minister Gustav Noske’s directives, a right-wing paramilitary unit was formed and ordered to “recapture” Halle.

Heydrich, then 15 years old, joined Maercker’s Volunteer Rifles (a paramilitary Freikorps unit). There is no evidence that he participated in the fighting (most likely, he was a courier delivering messages – like Adolf Hitler during the Great War), and when the skirmishes ended, he was part of the force assigned to protect private property.

In 1922, Heydrich joined the German Navy (Reichsmarine), taking advantage of the security, structure, and pension it offered. He became a naval cadet at Kiel, Germany’s primary naval base. In July of 1928, he was promoted to first lieutenant.

His career undertook a radical change after he entered into a romantic relationship with one Lina von Osten. She was a committed Nazi and an ardent anti-Semite and in no time made Reinhard into one.

Still, he could very well have stayed in the Navy… were it not for the commander of the latter, Erich Raeder. Heydrich was charged with “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” for a breach of promise, having been engaged to marry another woman he had known for six months before the Lina von Osten engagement. Raeder could have given Heydrich a slap on the wrist (it happened) – but he chose to dismissed Heydrich from the Navy instead.

Under the influence of Lina (or maybe just because he had nothing better to do or both), Heydrich joined NSDAP and the SS. In 1931, Heinrich Himmler began setting up a counterintelligence division of the SS.

Acting on the advice of his associate Karl von Eberstein, who was Lina’s friend and Heydrich’s godbrother, Himmler agreed to interview Heydrich, but cancelled their appointment at the last minute.

Lina ignored this message, packed Heydrich’s suitcase, and sent him to Munich. Eberstein met Heydrich at the railway station and took him to see Himmler. Himmler asked Heydrich to convey his ideas for developing an SS intelligence service. Himmler was so impressed that he hired Heydrich immediately.

On August 1, 1931, Heydrich began his job as chief of the new ‘Ic Service’ (intelligence service) which a year later was renamed the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). After the Nazis came to power, Heydrich (remembering his Freikorps service), expanded into police matters.

In 1933, Heydrich gathered some of his men from the SD and together they stormed police headquarters in Munich and took over the organization using intimidation tactics. Himmler became the Munich police chief and Heydrich became the commander of Department IV, the political police.

In April of 1933, Hermann G;ring founded the Gestapo as a Prussian political police force. A year later, he transferred full authority over the Gestapo to Himmler. Himmler named Heydrich to head the Gestapo on April 22, 1934.

Also in April, G;ring made Heydrich an advisor to the Prussian government with an appointment to the Prussian State Council. On 9 June 1934, deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess declared the SD (Heydrich was still in charge of the latter) the official intelligence service of Nazi state (prior to that it was the NSDAP agency).

Heydrich got a taste of mass murder in June of 1934 when the SS eliminated the SA leaders and a number of other political opponents of Adolf Hitler (about 100 were executed without trial).

In mid-1939, Heydrich created the Stiftung Nordhav Foundation to obtain and manage real estate for the SS and Security Police to use as guest houses and vacation spots. The Wannsee House, which Stiftung Nordhav acquired in November 1940, became the site of the Wannsee Conference.

When the Second Great War had broken out, Heydrich was impatient to see active service. He obtained permission to fly as a Luftwaffe Reserve Officer with Bomber Group KG55 and first saw action on 12th September 1939 as a gunner.

Heydrich piloted Bf-110, flying over England and Scotland on recon missions. During a mission in Norway, he over-flew a shot-up aircraft on landing and crashed, breaking his arm.

Both Hitler and Himmler were aware of his sorties as an arm in plaster was difficult to conceal, but he was at pains to show them his duties as Chief of RSHA would not suffer as a result. On Heydrich’s return to SS duty, he was proudly sporting a newly awarded bronze combat mission bar on his left uniform breast.

Heydrich’s next opportunity for aerial combat came during the Russian offensive. He flew numerous times over enemy territory (this time, in Bf-109) and was engaged in several dogfights behind the lines.

It was during one of these flights that he was forced to crash-land behind the Soviet lines, in the vicinity of Berezina. Eventually he was rescued by a German combat patrol. From then on, he was strictly forbidden to fly combat missions.

On September 27, 1939, the SD and SiPo – made up of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police, or Kripo – were folded into the new Reich Security Main Office or (RSHA), which was placed under Heydrich’s control.

On August 24, 1940, Heydrich became the president of the International Criminal Police Commission (later known as Interpol) and its headquarters were transferred to Berlin. He was promoted to SS-Obergruppenf;hrer on September 24, 1941.

Heydrich became the expert in serial mass murder after his Einsatzgruppen killed over 100,000 “potential Resistance activists” in occupied Poland. On a much smaller scale, mass murders continued in Bohemia and Moravia after he became their acting Reich Protector on September 27, 1941 (about 500 Czechs were killed).

Serial mass murders continued after the invasion of the USSR – by the date of Wannsee Conference reformed Einsatzgruppen (brainchild of Reinhard Heydrich) murdered hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews in the “Holocaust by Bullets”. Order Police battalions and local volunteers killed hundreds of thousands more.

In early April of 1941, Heydrich was tasked by Hitler (most likely, via Hermann G;ring) to come up with answer to the existential question: what to do with Jews in occupied Soviet territories after the invasion of the USSR.

Heydrich’s solution was simple and brutal – all male Jews of military age were to be ruthlessly shot. Himmler, G;ring and Hitler (in that order) agreed – and the first stage in the “Holocaust by Bullets” was the result.

After the invasion of the Soviet Union another existential question was asked by Der Fuhrer: what to do with ALL Soviet Jews: men, women, children and the elderly. Heydrich (predictably) gave the same answer: shoot them all.

Himmler, G;ring and Hitler (in that order) agreed – and Himmler (who had the authority over all security matters in the occupied territories of the USSR) tacitly approved mass murder of all Jews. In August of 1941, he made it official – issuing the order to that effect.

The next obvious existential question was: what to do with ALL Jews in ALL territories controlled by Germany or its’ allies (European Axis powers)? Heydrich already knew the answer – but this time he demanded a written request.

And he got one. On July 31, 1941, Hermann G;ring sent the written order (obviously, on behalf of Adolf Hitler) to develop and implement the “Final Solution to the Jewish question” in territories under German control. Which officially made Heydrich the CEO of this project.

The answer was the same – kill them all – however, this time it was obvious that “Holocaust by Bullets” was impossible both operationally and politically. Some other method had to be found… thankfully, on August 24, 1941 Hitler terminated (officially suspended) Aktion T4 – serial mass murder of mentally sick.

Which made the key resource – competent personnel – available to the “Holocaust Project”. Hence, the method became obvious: “Holocaust by Gas”. More specifically, it was to be a radically scaled-up (by a factor of 100+ in terms of “processing power”) reincarnation of Aktion T4 involuntary euthanasia program.

Six killing centers (death factories) were to be built in occupied Poland (which accounted for about half of Jewish population under German control) where all Jews in German-controlled territories (and those under control by other Axis powers) were to be gassed and their bodies ultimately created.

The first experimental gassing was done in Auschwitz; the first death factory (in Chelmno) became operational on December 8, 1941 and by the date of Wannsee Conference three more – Belzec. Sobibor and Treblinka were under construction. To that, Majdanek was added in spring of 1942.

In London, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile resolved to kill Heydrich. Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik headed the team chosen for the mission, trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). On December 28, 1941 they parachuted into the Protectorate, where they lived in hiding, preparing for the mission.

On May 27, 1942, they succeeded in wounding Heydrich. A Czech woman went to Heydrich’s aid and flagged down a delivery van. He was placed on his stomach in the back of the van and taken to the emergency room at Bulovka Hospital.

A splenectomy was performed and the chest wound, left lung, and diaphragm were all debrided. Himmler ordered Karl Gebhardt to fly to Prague to assume care. Despite a fever, Heydrich’s recovery appeared to progress well.

Hitler’s personal doctor Theodor Morell suggested the use of the new antibacterial drug sulfonamide, but Gebhardt thought that Heydrich would recover and declined the suggestion. He was wrong – dead wrong (literally).

On 3 June, Heydrich fell into a coma; he died the following day. An autopsy concluded that he died of sepsis. There were rumors that the assassins were allowed to operate unmolested on Himmler’s orders and that Gebhardt deliberately killed Heydrich (ditto) because the latter became a serious threat to SS-Reichsfuhrer. However, no evidence of that conspiracy has ever surfaced.