Reinhardt Heydrich
Heydrich was born in the German city of Halle, near Leipzig on March 7, 1904, He was raised in a cultured, musical environment. His father was an 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.
He intensely self-driven.He excelled at academics and also displayed natural athletic talent, later becoming an award winning fencer.
At the age of 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 Volk movement and its belief in the supremacy of the blond haired, blue eyed Germanic people.
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.
By 1926 he rose to the rank of second lieutenant, serving as a
signals officer attached to Intelligence under Wilhelm Canaris.
In 1930 was accused of having sex with the unmarried daughter of a shipyard director. Admiral Erich Raeder forced Heydrich to resign his Naval commission in 1931 for "conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman." This was the End of Heydrichs Naval career
The Early SS Years
With his Naval career
wrecked, his fiance, Lina von Osten, (pictured left with
Heydrich), was an enthusiastic Nazi Party member she 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. In 1931, at age 27, Heydrich joined
the Nazi Party and became a member of the SS.
A short time later Heydrich was called to an interview with the SS Reichsfuhrer, Heinrich Himmler, who was looking for 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 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.
The SD began in a small office with a single typewriter but Heydrich worked tirelessly building up a huge network of informers that built dossiers on anyone who might oppose Hitler. In fact Heydrich kept dossiers on almost anyone friend or foe this made him a very dangerous and powerful man.
The Rise
Hydrich rose rapidly
through the ranks of the ss. By the end of 1931 he earned the
rank of SS Major. He rose to the rank of SS Colonel by mid 1932
where he took complete control of the SD.
In March 1933, he was promoted to the rank of
SS Brigadier General, he was not yet 30 years old.
Hitler described him as "a highly gifted but also very dangerous man, whose gifts the movement had to retain".
In 1933 The Nazis siezed power. Heydrich and Himmler oversaw the mass arrests of Communists, trade unionists, politicians and others who had opposed Hitler.So many people were arrested that prison space became a problem. An unused munitions factory at Dachau, near Munich, was quickly converted into a concentration camp for political prisoners.
In 1934 Himmler took control of the newly created Secret State police (Gestapo) with Heydrich as his second in command (who actually ran the organization).
Night of the long Knives
The Nazis were far from a United
organization in 1934 and there were a lot of back stabbing and
intrigues going on. The Chief of the SA a man called Ernst Rohm
was a thorn in the side of Himmler's. Himmler turned to Goring
and Heydrich to help bring about the downfall of Rohm.
They started the rumor that Rohm intended to sieze power with his four million SA storm troopers. Ernst Rohm (left) and scores of the top SA leaders were hunted down and murdered on Hitlers orders. The list of those to be killed were drawn up by Heydrich. The Brownshirts lost much of their influence and the SS took over.
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 Reichsfuhrer Himmler, who now answered only to Hitler.
Heydrich answered only to Himmler this made Heydrich one of the most powerful and feared men in Nazi Germany.
Pre-war Heydrich
Heydrich was a master of intrigue.He is mainly remembered for his exploits during the war as head of the RSHA( Reich Main Secutity office ) and one of the Chief architects of the Holocust.Before the war he was involved deeply in International Espionage.
In Austria, Heydrich worked behind the scenes to encourage pro-Nazis there to spread unrest and commit sabotage.In March, 1938 the Nazis annexed Austria
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.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. Hitler sent in the German Army to "stabilize" a situation the Nazis themselves created and took over the rest of what was then Czechoslovakia.
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
