Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (born March 7, 1904 - died June 4, 1942) - Head of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security (1939-1942), Deputy Imperial Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (1941-1942). SS Obergruppenfuehrer and Police General (from 1941)
After Himmler introduced the 26-year-old Heydrich to Adolf Hitler, he, when they were alone, said in thought:
- This is a very capable, but also very dangerous person.
Strange, isn't it? And this despite the fact that there was absolutely nothing villainous in the appearance of the young SS man. Compared with the same bestial Rem, Heydrich looked like a real angel. It is noteworthy that one of the nicknames of Heydrich, which, of course, was bestowed on him behind the eyes, colleagues, was precisely the word "angel", however, with the addition of the epithet "fallen."
It turns out that Adolf Hitler, who in Soviet literature and the press was called nothing else than "possessed", was a good physiognomist and understood people. At least all of his, as they would say, "promoted" - Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, and the future Minister of Armaments and Ammunition Albert Speer (architect in civilian life), and the same Heinrich Himmler - coped with their duties very successfully … With the exception of Hermann Goering, who lost his authority by the middle of the war. But the Reichsmarschall, strictly speaking, was not Hitler's nominee, he himself achieved his position as "Nazi number Two" already in the early years of the movement.
What was Reinhard Heydrich
So, Reinhard Heydrich … Subsequently, someone in the know said that it was around this person that the entire state machine of the Third Reich revolved. And the special services - even more so. In our time, Heydrich is rarely remembered, perhaps because he died in the late spring of 1942, when the main battles of World War II were still ahead and nothing yet foreshadowed the imminent collapse of Nazi Germany.
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Reinhard was born in 1904 in the city of Halle in the family of a composer and director of the local conservatory. The whole family was musical, and he played the violin beautifully from childhood. (Hence his second nickname in the SS - "Violinist".) Experts predicted a bright future for him in this particular field …
Later, enemies and envious people slandered that Jewish blood allegedly flows in Heydrich's veins. Already after the war in the Soviet Union there were rumors that, they say, in the safe of the chief of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, there was a photograph of the tombstone of the grandmother of the chief of the SD with the inscription "Sarah Heydrich". Meanwhile, the name "Sarah" is only in Russia an indispensable attribute of the female character of Jewish anecdotes. In the West, it is as common as any other biblical name. Sarah, for example, was the name of Churchill's daughter. After all, it never occurs to anyone to consider millions of Russians Ivanov and Mari "persons of Jewish nationality" just because these names are also Hebrew … (Besides, none of Geidrich's grandmothers was called Sara!)
… Another hobby is sports. Unlike his puny boss Himmler, Heydrich jokingly fulfilled all the necessary standards for the SS sports badge with the highest scores, moreover, he was an excellent horseman and one of the strongest fencers in Germany.
Reinhardt had an unusual appearance: a long narrow face, a thin hump nose, close-set eyes, a strong figure, however, with a few wide hips, naturally well-developed hands with long tenacious fingers of a violinist and swordsman. Most of all he was struck by his voice - two octaves higher than the average male, or treble, or even female.
Reinhard's mental abilities, too, could only be envied if they were aimed at good, not evil. But that was the case.
In other words: a lot of virtues and abilities, but in the complete absence of any moral principles. An extremely dangerous combination.
A rather expressive and, perhaps, exhaustive in accuracy description was given to his boss by the former SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Wilhelm Hettl:
“He was, without a doubt, an outstanding personality and leader - and not only from the point of view of National Socialism, but also from the point of view of a totalitarian state. As a historical dialogue, perhaps one can speak of Caesar Borgia. Both did not recognize any ethical values, both aspired to power, had a cold intellect and a cold soul, both were distinguished by prudence and ambition and had a spectacular appearance of a fallen angel. Maybe Heydrich and felt at times a sense of guilt, but this is problematic. Far from a Christian understanding of ethics, he was prone to the most elementary and instinctive feelings.
Not the state, but power - his personal power - was his god. He was a type of person characteristic of the era of Caesar, when the question of the object of power did not arise, since it itself was perceived as an object. He was far from ideology and did not fill his head with moral values, considering them only as an instrument of leadership and control of the masses. Everything in his mind was subordinated to the seizure and use of power. Truth and virtue had no meaning to him. He also saw them as a tool for acquiring even more power. Everything was right and good that served this cause. Politics was also for him nothing more than a step on the path to power. He considered it simply stupid to think about the legitimacy of this or that action and did not even ask such questions.
As a result, his whole life was a continuous chain of murders - murders of people he disliked, rivals in the struggle for power, people who were in opposition to him, as well as those whom he did not trust. Added to the murders were intrigues no less serious than the murders, and carried out with devilish sophistication. In the eyes of Reinhard, a person's life was of no value, and if someone stood in his way to power, he was sentenced. He was, in fact, a nihilist in the broadest sense of the word. His crimes were not impulsive, but were dictated by the most precise calculation, which was not influenced in any way by emotional impulses or remorse. No wonder the Fuhrer called Reinhard Heydrich "a man with an iron heart." An ordinary person would never do as much evil as Heydrich:such monstrous crimes are only capable of a person with an extraordinary intellect"
Heydrich … naval officer
As a teenager and youth, Heydrich was already a member of youth nationalist organizations. Spring 1922 - he enrolled as a cadet in the navy - kriegs marine. After 4 years he was promoted to lieutenant of the fleet. Then he served on the cruiser "Berlin", senior assistant commander.
Then Reinhard completed a full course of study at the school of maritime communications and continued to serve as a liaison officer at the naval station "Ostsee", on the cruiser "Braunschweig", on the flagship "Schleswig-Holstein". 1928 - he was promoted to the chief lieutenant of the fleet and … on this his career in the Kriegsmarine, unfortunately, ended. Unfortunately … It would be better if this man made it to the admiral than to the SS Obergruppenführer. I would have done less and less evil, and would have lived longer and died a natural death, surrounded by children and grandchildren inconsolable in grief.
A fatal role in his life was played by an excessive addiction to women, more precisely, a real sexual obsession. 1931 - Heydrich became engaged to a girl from a wealthy family, a certain Linda von Osten, his future wife. But at the same time, he broke his promise to marry another girl. A scandal broke out. Among naval officers, such an act was a gross violation of the corporate honor code. In April of the same year, the court of honor of the fleet, chaired by the future Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, proposed that the chief lieutenant of the fleet immediately resign.
In December, Heydrich nevertheless married Linda, a passionate admirer of Hitler (and it should be noted, no matter how surprising it sounds today, but the Fuhrer enjoyed tremendous success among women, reaching fanatical adoration among many). According to some biographers of Heydrich, it was under the influence of the bride in July 1931 that Heydrich joined the Hamburg branch of the SS.
Joining the Black Order
Heinrich Himmler at the time was quite concerned about Hitler's instructions to create his own special service. 1930, November 7 - the Fuhrer gave a direct order: "The task of the SS will henceforth include the police service within the party." The Reichsfuehrer was therefore in dire need of people capable of creating and launching such a service.
In the "Black Order" then there were not so many persons from among the highly professional career officers of the new generation, especially sailors. The newly converted rank and file member of the SS caught the attention of the Reichsfuehrer. 1931, June 14 - their personal meeting took place. When Himmler asked what his military specialty was, Heydrich answered in one word: "Nachrichtenoffizier", that is, "liaison officer." But the fact is that this term in the German military vocabulary has another meaning: "intelligence officer." And Himmler understood Heydrich's answer precisely in this sense!
The delighted Reichsfuehrer immediately invited the retired chief lieutenant of the fleet to take up the organization of the security service and immediately awarded him the title of SS Sturmfuehrer!
Rapid career
Heydrich zealously set to work and soon presented Himmler with a draft of the future security service - Sicherheitsdienst-SD - under the Reichsfuehrer SS. Himmler was very pleased with the excellent job done by his new employee. Still would! Indeed, as early as January 25, 1932, Hitler had already appointed him head of the SS security service, which was located in the "Brown House" of the party headquarters - a rebuilt palace at 45 Brynnerstrasse, in Munich.
Naturally, Heydrich became Himmler's deputy in this position, and then his successor. Thus, the violinist, swordsman and sailor found their true vocation - all-encompassing espionage and terror.
At first, the departments of the new service were called according to the army model - 1C, the corresponding abstracts had to be created in each SS standard. Heydrich's mania was secrecy. Therefore, he was not satisfied with being even at the party headquarters. Soon he moved into a 2-room apartment in a private house at 23 Turkenstrasse, near the university. Then he changed the address again - the new address of the SD was Zukkalishtrasse 4. It was already a small detached villa. Heydrich himself and his wife lived there, in the basement.
Reinhard Heydrich's career developed rapidly. 1932, July - he was already an SS Standartenführer, in 1933 - SS Brigadeführer.
Initially, the SD was a department within the SS Directorate. After Hitler came to power, the department was expanded into the Directorate, and in 1934 into the Main Directorate of the SD.
The heart of the SD was the information divisions formed at all the district departments of the SS. At first, the SD tasks looked relatively harmless, and at least not illegal: counteracting the penetration of hostile or simply “alien” elements into the LAP NS, as well as identifying and expelling those who have already penetrated. In this work, the future "higher SS and police officers" were filling their hands.
Who owns the information, he owns the world
Reinhard began with the basics - drawing up dossier cards on "suspicious" persons. They say that the first SD card file was housed in several shoe boxes …
Heydrich immediately and firmly understood what was imputed to his new responsibilities, which coincided with his own plans and aspirations. As a result, the card index of the actual chief of the SD began to be replenished daily and hourly. Potential hostile and suspicious elements were easily identified without much difficulty or publicity. First of all, almost all prominent stormtroopers and too popular leaders of the party itself turned out to be like that, even possible candidates for the role and post of Fuhrer - the brothers Georg and Otto Strasser.
It would seem that it is possible to stop at this, but Heydrich sensitively grasped what the Reichsfuehrer and simply the Fuehrer would need tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. So in his data bank, carefully hidden from prying eyes, cards began to appear with the names of persons who had never even thought of infiltrating the ranks of the NSDAP and the SA: famous communists, socialists, trade union and church leaders, functionaries of other political parties who had a negative attitude towards the Nazis, prominent journalists, literary and art workers.
A foreign department also appeared in the card index: at every opportunity, any data on foreign political and public figures who were hostile or simply critical of the National Socialists or personally of the Fuhrer were recorded. And on the contrary: Heydrich noticed all foreigners noticed in sympathy for the "movement" or Hitler. Some of them will later actually become a hidden "agent of influence" or simply recruited agents of Hitler's special services. The future German spy might not even have guessed that his surname appeared in the SD card index 5 years before formal recruitment. (The most prominent of the mighty of this world who sympathized with Hitler was … the English king Edward VIII, after voluntarily leaving the throne - the Duke of Windsor!)
To this day, historians have not come to the same opinion, how many real and imaginary opponents of the Fuhrer were killed by the SS Himmler in the "Night of the Long Knives" on June 30, 1934. The difference in numbers is quite impressive. But there was a person who, long before St. Bartholomew's Night of the XX century, knew exactly how many people would be liquidated and who exactly. This man was Reinhard Heydrich. It was he who, in the quiet of his office, drew up the proscription lists. Maybe a few lucky ones managed to avoid reprisals, but several people were killed "by mistake" - they turned out to be namesakes to be destroyed or simply unwanted witnesses.
In parallel with the development and strengthening of the SS as a whole, Reinhard created a network of informants in all strata of German society, and also - looking far ahead - also abroad. He recruited these agents primarily from among ethnic Germans who remain in touch with the Vaterland, as well as people of non-German origin, but who share the Nazi ideology. Such were found even among the British aristocracy and the Arab clergy.
Thus, in the depths of the NSDAP by 1933-1934, the nucleus of a real special service was formed, which later and very soon would become one of the most effective and cruel in the world.
In recent years, there have been several attempts to put the SD and the USSR state security organs on the same level. With a certain similarity in working methods, they were still very different organizations.
After 1933, the NSDAP was the only ruling party in the world that, in the presence of state special services (political and criminal police, military counterintelligence - the Abwehr) had its own special service, serving through the mediation of the Reichsfuehrer SS personally Adolf Hitler, who is also the Reich Chancellor, that is, the head of government, and the Fuhrer of the party. After the death of Hindenburg, Hitler refused the opportunity to take the chair of the formal head of state, instead he officially accepted the title of "Fuehrer" as the leader of the entire German people, and not just the leader of the ruling party.
Being a powerful foreign and domestic intelligence service, the SD, however, has always remained a purely party organ, it did not formally possess any power of authority, for example, it could not conduct searches, detentions, arrests, issue orders for preventive imprisonment in a concentration camp, etc. …
True, the SD did not particularly need this. The fact is that the leaders of both state police with such power - the chief of the Gestapo Heinrich Müller and the chief of the criminal police (kripo) Arthur Nebe - were themselves high-ranking SS officers in the rank of Gruppenführer. In addition, later they already and directly began to obey Himmler, when he became the chief of the entire German police, and … Heydrich, when, in addition to SD, he headed the state police (zipo), which included the Gestapo and Kripo.
The secret services of the USSR have always been precisely state organizations, obeying state laws and government decrees. The corresponding decisions of the so-called "instances" were necessarily formalized subsequently either by laws adopted by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, or by Decrees of its Presidium, or by resolutions of the Council of People's Commissars (Council of Ministers), as a rule, passed jointly with the Central Committee of the party.
The system of activating the mechanisms of special services and repression in the Soviet Union and the Third Reich nevertheless differed significantly in direct dependence on the specifics of the social and state system, the role, places and goals of the ruling party, and much more.
Heydrich was well aware that it would be very problematic to find people suitable for delicate professional work among ordinary SS men. And he turned his gaze to where loud-voiced Nazi orators rarely looked: in universities, scientific centers and societies, in the circles of the legal, creative and technical elite. It was here that he found a whole cohort of young gifted people, perhaps not personally and selflessly loyal to the NSDAP Fuhrer, but deliberately decided to stake on him, to put it another way, to link their career with the "movement". In fact, Reinhard Heydrich himself was just such a person.
These cynical pragmatists, deprived, due to many circumstances, of objective and subjective reasons of any persistent moral foundations, did not risk too much - it was already clear with the naked eye that Hitler's coming to power was a matter of time, and not at all distant. Well, finding such people after January 30, 1933, in general, became just a matter of technology.
Later, this new breed of Nazis was aptly called "intellectual gangsters." Their most prominent representatives were - of those who made a serious career - Walter Schellenberg and Otto Ohlendorf, of mid-level officers - Adolf Eichmann.
At the same time, Heydrich trained groups of people in many ways directly opposite to those just named. Namely - just gangsters who can willingly take on any dirtiest job. They were given two tasks that were similar in execution, but divided in time. The first is the suppression of current political rivals and opponents by methods of physical violence. The second is also the physical destruction of any enemies, but after the conquest of power.
This category of SS men was most fully represented by Alfred Naujoks, and later by Otto Skorzeny.
Death of Reinhard Heydrich
Everyone knew that Heydrich was a brave man. The last time he proved this was when he flew as a fighter pilot over the coast of Norway, while shooting down 7 British planes. And this was done by one of the most powerful people of the Reich! In Prague, however, the fearless Heydrich traveled constantly along the same route in an open Mercedes without an escort. Apart from him, in the car, as a rule, only his personal experienced chauffeur Willie was. But on the tragic morning of June 27, another man was driving his car - Oberscharführer Klein.
The assassination attempt took place at a slow bend. A running man blocked the way for Heydrich's car. An experienced Willie would immediately notice the danger and drown his foot into the gas pedal. But Klein is driving. He braked in spite of Heydrich's shout: "Press full." The pedestrian threw off his raincoat and pointed the muzzle of the machine gun at the Mercedes, pulled the trigger, but the machine gun jammed. But then the second man runs up and throws a grenade under the car. The blast wave knocked out windows in nearby houses.
The criminals began to run away, but a pursuit was organized after them. Who took part in it? The first is followed by the uninjured Oberscharführer Klein, but he does not run for long - soon he will be lying on the sidewalk with two bullets in his chest. After the second, the one who threw the grenade, the wounded Reinhard Heydrich himself ran with a heavy "parabellum" at the ready. He shoots on the move and falls exhausted, having managed to wound his killer in the back.
“Report to the Grad,” the lying protector wheezes to the first of those who dared to approach him. These were the last words of Reinhard Heydrich, who was then only 38 years old. About a week later, on July 4, 1942, Heydrich died in one of the Prague hospitals, several operations performed did not help him - he died of blood poisoning, never regaining consciousness.
Revenge for this crime was not long in coming. In search of murderers, the Germans drenched Czechoslovakia with blood and, with the help of a traitor-Czech, got to the murderers.
T. Gladkov