The First In-depth Look at a Nazi 'God of Death'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,787747,00.html

09/19/2011

Reinhard Heydrich Biography

The First In-depth Look at a Nazi 'God of Death'

By Georg Bönisch

As the chair of the Wannsee Conference and head of the Reich Main Security Office, Reinhard Heydrich was the personification of the cruelest aspects of Nazi Germany. But the first scholarly biography of him finds that a combination of shame, love and luck -- rather than purely inherent evil -- led him to pursue a path of Nazi terror.

The site for the assassination was carefully chosen at a point where a steeply sloping street in Prague's Libe district made a hairpin turn, forcing approaching cars to slow down considerably. This is precisely what the driver of a heavy convertible Mercedes did as his vehicle climbed toward the curve at approximately 10:30 a.m. on May 27, 1942.

Behind the driver sat his boss, one of Adolf Hitler's most devoted followers. The man was a veritable Aryan poster boy, tall, blonde and blue-eyed, the ideal image of an SS leader. He was also the person whom one British officer referred to as the "mastermind."

That man was none other than Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), the body charged with fighting all "enemies of the Reich" within and outside German borders, and one of the principle organizers of the Holocaust. Just months earlier, he had chaired the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, during which plans for the murder of what would turn out to be approximately 6 million people were discussed.

[sarge43]

1. I hope there will be a good English translation. n/t

[tuckessee]

2. It's about time.

Heydrich is one of the more mysterious figures of the TR era. Why he was the only one who the British assassinated is quite puzzling. Hopefully this book will explore his long, close relationship with the anti-Hitler head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris.