Heydrich Was Raised by a Pious Catholic Mother

The Heydrich family’s daily life ran according to precisely determined and consistently maintained rules. Elisabeth Heydrich took both religious education and active participation in church life extremely seriously.

Hence, religion remained an important aspect of Heydrich’s early life – to put it mildly. Elisabeth, a pious Catholic, led the children in their evening prayers and on Sundays the whole family attended Mass. Reinhard (no surprise here) served as an altar boy in the local Catholic church.

Two irrefutable facts. First, Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich became in many aspects the worst serial killer (serial mass murderers, to be more precise). Second, many serial killers were born and raised by strict, domineering mothers in staunchly religious families.

H.H. Holmes had devoutly and strict religious parents, his mother would often lock her children in the attic without food as a means of punishment for even the smallest of “sins”. John Wayne Gacy was raised into a devout Catholic family, went to private Christian school, and aged 18, even thought about becoming a priest.

Jeffrey Dahmer – born into a devout family of the Stone-Campbell denomination known as the “Churches of Christ”, he was an active churchgoer until around the age of 5. Renounced his religion (possibly owing to his sexuality) but was re-baptized during his incarceration.

Many of the mission-oriented serial killers – Reinhard Heydrich was a textbook one – claimed that they were doing God’s job. Peter Sutcliffe (The Yorkshire Ripper) claimed he was “on a mission from God” to rid the streets of prostitutes.

Joseph Franklin murdered people “on behalf of God”. Samuel Little said God put him on the earth to kill people (up to 90 of them). Arthur Shawcross claimed God wanted him to kill prostitutes because they spread AIDS.

Hence, there is an existential question: to what (if any) extent did Reinhard Heydrich piously Catholic childhood contributed to him becoming a serial mass murderer of Jews? Did he believe that he was doing God’s job (serving God) by killing Jews – men, women, children and elderly?

We will never know for sure, but, yes, it is possible. Likely even (I will elaborate on this possibility in one or more next chapters).