Reinhard Heydrich Was an Abject Failure

A genuine historian absolutely MUST NOT pronounce moral judgement (this is the job for priests and secular ethics professionals). It does not mean, however, that the historian must not judge (evaluate) Nazis at all. Including Reinhard Heydrich.

Historian must, of course. However, not Nazis as human beings (only the Almighty God has the right to do that), but their words, choices, decisions and actions. It is called “functional and legal judgement”.

And there is one and only one genuinely scientific procedure to do that.

1. Collect all relevant information about Nazis (internal) and their specific situation & environment (external). Their mentality, behavioral patterns, key problems, threats, opportunities, limitations, available resources, etc.

2. Identify all options (choices, alternatives) available to them in that situation at that time and in that environment.
Identify the best possible alternative (the best decision and/or action under the circumstances)

3. Compare this best alternative to actual decisions made and actions undertaken by Nazis in question.

4. Check whether one or more decisions and/or actions of the Nazi in question constituted a war crime or a crime against humanity according to a universally accepted definition

Obviously, to pronounce a functional judgement on the Nazis, one must use criteria (quantitative and qualitative KPI) relevant to their times, environment and situations – not to our times, of course.

That’s the only scientific (i.e., correct) way to do it. Anything and everything else are not science, not history but propaganda (either pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi). Politics (and management in general) is the art and science (sometimes more of the former, sometimes – of the latter) of making and executing the best possible decision in a specific situation. Period.

Thus, the only genuinely scientific way to evaluate and judge the Nazis (from Adolf Hitler to the lowliest SS-man) is whether they made the best possible decisions and/or undertook the best possible actions in their situation and environment. Nothing less, nothing more than that.

Now let’s evaluate Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich from this perspective. Obviously, his decisions (implemented by his subordinates and his partners) constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.

To put it simply, Heydrich was a serial mass murderer – cut and dry, plain and simple, loud and clear – one of the worst in modern history. He started with Night of Long Knives (about 100 victims); graduated to “pacification” of Poland (over 100,000 murdered); to “Holocaust by Bullets” (about 500,000 victims) and, finally, to “Holocaust by Gas” (over 3,500,000 gassed).

Whether mass murder of SA leaders and other political opponents of Adolf Hitler during the Night of Long Knives was a correct decision operationally (legally it was a capital crime worthy of death penalty for all killers), is subject to debate.

The verdict on “pacification” of Poland and the “Holocaust Project” is very different – both were far worse (for Germany) that horrific crimes (serial mass murders) which both were. They were catastrophic blunders.

More of that later… now I will briefly explain why Reinhard Heydrich was such an abject failure. He was such a failure because the failed miserably in all four of his endeavors (SD/Gestapo/RSHA), “pacification” of Poland, the “Holocaust Project” and in Bohemia and Moravia.

The latter is obvious: unlike the Poles, the overwhelming majority of Czechs were more than willing to cooperate with the Germans so there was little (if any) opposition to overcome… but he still got himself killed (a gargantuan failure for a chief of any occupation administration).

The so-called “Czech Resistance” failed to find even one radical in the Protectorate brave enough to shoot Heydrich, who traveled on a daily basis in open car with no security detail.

Still, Heydrich managed to get himself killed – literally – by engaging in a gunfight with the (almost totally inept, incompetent and impotent) assassins when all security protocols required him to get the Hell out of harm’s way pronto.

Worse, he ignored the clear sign that a mortal danger was coming (he was shot down while on a ground attack mission in the Easter front and barely escaped death) … but he continued to “live dangerously”. Insanely dangerously.

Even worse, he managed to become such a serious threat to his boss – SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler – that the latter ordered his personal physician to kill Heydrich (by withholding vital medicine). Now that mas a mammoth failure of Reinhard Heydrich the politician – and statesman.

Now let’s talk about his colossal failures as head of RSHA – essentially of the whole security system of Nazi Germany – SD (domestic and foreign intelligence) and Gestapo (political police).

True, he built – almost from scratch – the second (after Soviet NKVD) most powerful security service… but it failed miserably and utterly in several key cases (existential even – for the Third Reich).

First, it had no clue about the “Oster conspiracy” in September of 1939 – the conspiracy that almost killed Adolf Hitler and did away with his Fuhrerstaat (only Mussolini and Munich conference saved both).

Second, it completely missed “Elser conspiracy” – the “conspiracy of one” that almost killed Adolf Hitler (the latter was saved… well, miraculously). Elser constructed and placed a bomb near the platform from which Hitler was to deliver a speech in B;rgerbr;ukeller in Munich on November 8, 1939. The bomb exploded but did not kill Hitler, who left earlier than expected, but it did kill eight innocent people and injured 62 others (mostly innocent as well).

Third, it failed to uncover Soviet plans for an attack on German Army in occupied Poland (set for June 23, 1941). Only by another miracle, Wehrmacht pre-empted the Red Army by mere 24 hours or so – this saving Germany, Europe and (very possibly) the whole human civilization from being destroyed by Bolshevist hordes. Alas, the “brown medicine” was not always better than the “Red disease”.

True, Abwehr failed as well; however, for an entirely different reason. Unlike Ausland-SD (SS foreign intelligence), its top brass was too busy plotting to overthrow their commander-in-chief to do their job properly.

“Pacification” of Poland by serial mass murder (committed by Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen) failed miserably – and predictably. In February of 1940, the Polish Underground State was formed – complete with the underground Home Army.

Estimates of the Home Army’s 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made it not only Poland’s largest underground resistance movement but one of Europe’s largest World War II underground movements. The Home Army’s most widely known operation was the Warsaw Uprising.

The Home Army successfully sabotaged German rail- and road-transports to the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. It is estimated that one out of eight of all German transports to the Eastern Front were destroyed or substantially delayed due to Home Army operations – a significant blow to Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS war machine.

Holocaust (not surprisingly), was the most gargantuan blunder committed by Reinhard Heydrich – and other Nazi serial mass murderers. True, the Third Reich was fighting a genuinely existential was with the Bolshevist Soviet Union – and it is also true that the latter was created mostly by the Jews (just look at the list of its founders and leaders). Ditto the Soviet Bolshevist party.

However (contrary to what Heydrich and other Nazis believed), the Jews under German control were not the enemies of the Reich (as the former erroneously thought). In reality, Jews were their allies – because the Soviets severely and ruthlessly persecuted Jews as a nation (the idea of a “chosen people” fundamental to Jewish nationhood was anathema to “internationalist” Bolsheviks).

Millions of Jews under German control represented an invaluable human capital that could have very well made a crucial difference in the war. True, the Holocaust by itself did not lead to the defeat of Germany in the Second Great War – but it made a very, very significant contribution to this outcome.

For three primary reasons. First, instead of using Jewish human capital (which would have been a sensible thing to do), Heydrich and other Nazis stupidly (insanely, actually) destroyed it. Wasting on this destruction invaluable human and other resources vital for war effort (this is the second reason).

The third reason was that the Holocaust made it totally, absolutely, completely impossible (unthinkable even) for Germany to make peace on the Western front (to continue fighting – and most likely, winning – the war in the East even in 1943).

While as late as in spring of 1941 such peace agreement was still theoretically possible (the May mission of Rudolf Hess made a lot of sense, actually), by the end of summer of 1941, it was not.

No deal with serial mass murderers of that magnitude was possible – not with wholesale murderers of women, children and the elderly. No way. Ever.

So yes, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, chief of RSHA, Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, commander-in-chief of Einsatzgruppen (his brainchild) and CEO of the “Holocaust project” (ditto) was an abject failure in all four endeavors.

Yes, Reinhard Heydrich was a genius – but being a genius does not guarantee success (geniuses do make disastrous blunders). Two Nuremberg defendants were found to be geniuses and others were found to be of superior intelligence… however, it did not prevent them from failing miserably as well.