Himmler and Heydrich: Hitler’s Lieutenants

NY Times ^ | January 6, 2012 | JACOB HEILBRUNN

[iowamark]

In June 1942, Thomas Mann, who was living in exile in California, delivered a commentary on a German-language BBC radio program that decried the sanguinary actions of the Third Reich in avenging the assassination of the leading SS official Reinhard Heydrich in Prague. After Heydrich’s elaborate funeral ceremony at the new Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Hitler screamed at the Czech president, Emil Hacha, “Nothing can prevent me from deporting millions of Czechs if they do not wish for peaceful coexistence.” It wasn’t an idle threat. “Since the violent death of Heydrich,” Mann lamented, “terror is raging everywhere, in a more sickly, unrestrained fashion than ever before. . . . An entire town, that supposedly sheltered the perpetrators, is massacred and razed.” Indeed, to honor Heydrich and help create what Hitler referred to as “Germany’s Garden of Eden” in the East, the Nazis chose the code name “Aktion Reinhard” for the extermination of two million people, most of whom were Jewish, in the General Government of Poland by the end of 1943.

None of Hitler’s paladins did more to realize the Final Solution than Heydrich and his superior Heinrich Himmler, who ran the SS and the Gestapo. This pair worked assiduously to expand their influence from modest beginnings to the establishment of the most powerful and fearsome security apparatus in the Nazi empire. Now two supremely enlightening biographies, Peter Longerich’s “Heinrich Himmler” and Robert Gerwarth’s “Hitler’s Hangman,” show how they did it. Longerich is a professor of history at the University of London and the author of several books on the Holocaust. Gerwarth is the director of the Center for War Studies at University College Dublin...

[PzLdr]

Didn’t do the Czechs much good. The hit was ordered by the government in exile in London [the Brits thought the Czechs weren’t doing enough], and the assasins were flown in. Aside from Lidice and a lot of dead Czech civilians, the principal accomplishment of Operation anthropoid was the almost total destruction of the Czech Resistance in Czechoslavakia.

[PzLdr]

Heydrich’s grandmother married [her second marriage] a man named Suess. He was no blood relation to Heydrich, and although the name was a fairly common Jewish name, Mr. Suess wasn’t Jewish. And Himmler knew it.

[cynwoody]

Himmler didn’t miss Heydrich, he always was suspicious that Heydrich had Jewish blood.

There is a funny story illustrating Heydrich's insecurity about that issue. Seems it drove him to waste a mirror one night:

Heydrich's ruthless diligence and the rapid success of the SD earned him a quick rise through the SS ranks - appointed SS Major by December, 1931, then SS Colonel with sole control of the SD by July of 1932. In March of 1933, he was promoted to SS Brigadier General, though not yet 30 years old.

The only stumbling block occurred as the old rumors surfaced about possible Jewish ancestry on his father's side of his family. Heydrich's grandmother had married for a second time (after the birth of Heydrich's father) to a man with a Jewish sounding name.

Both Hitler and Himmler quickly became aware of the rumors which were spread by Heydrich's enemies within the Nazi Party. Himmler at one point considered expelling Heydrich from the SS. But Hitler, after a long private meeting with Heydrich, described him as "a highly gifted but also very dangerous man, whose gifts the movement had to retain...extremely useful; for he would eternally be grateful to us that we had kept him and not expelled him and would obey blindly."

Thus Heydrich remained in the elite Aryan order but was haunted by the persistent rumors and as a result developed tremendous hostility toward Jews. Heydrich also suffered great insecurity and some degree of self loathing, exampled by an incident in which he returned home to his apartment after a night of drinking, turned on a light and saw his own reflection in a wall mirror then took out his pistol and fired two shots at himself in the mirror, uttering "filthy Jew!"

[ozzymandus]

“Low level of punishment for mid-level Nazis”?? You need to do some reading. How does 6,000 executions grab you?

[grame]

Standing at death’s door should be a sobering reality for all. How much more for one responsible for such despicable, unspeakable things. Try as he might he couldn’t kill his conscious, I guess.

[mosesdapoet]

Didn’t do the Czechs much good.
The Brits were very dismayed when the last of the group surrendered who may have collaboeated then executed ..It became a matter of trust with the Brits and possibly be why (as well as the strong pro Russian communist sympathys whom they didn’t trust) the only way one would know is look at the records which exist ...Plus logistics aircraft had great difficulty getting there.

One must understand the differences between the slavic groups in these amalgamated nations which Hitler did. The Czechs vs the Slovak, the Serbs vs Hervat (Croations) which he exploited. Today they are seperate identities which they allways considered they were.

One could even see what happened with the Saarland which went back to Germany after a post war plebicite at the same count 99%. I love the argument historians put up with this one .That if France moved militarilly into it that would have stopped Hitler. French knew they would lose but they kept Strassbourg and Alsass.

As far as Heydrich is concerned he was aware of the history of the place and the fact that Prague was the last seat of Roman Empire during which time one of its rulers created the Prussian capital of Koenigsberg. And conducted his court in that fashion. He encouraged classical music but excluded one piece, Smetana’s Die Mouldau. But a butcher Heydrich was.

There is a film recreation of the Heydrich episode that was I believe produced by the BBC but I can’t recall the title .

)

[Cronos]

well, God forgives. God knows, not us..

[Gaffer]

Oh no. Article is wrong. It’s Holder and Napolitano.

[IndyTiger]

I recently checked out the Heydrich book from the library and read it. A very good read, highly recommended for anyone interested in that period.

No question that Heydrich would have been on trial at Nuremberg and would have been hung, had he survived the war. Several of the other defendants, when talking about Kaltenbrunner, said that he was nowhere near as brutal as Heydrich.

[starlifter]

Did you actually read the post?

[Forward the Light Brigade]

They speculate he was shot with a bullet that was poisoned—some sort of germ warfare to ensure his death.

[Leaning Right]

I'm not suggesting that every mid-level Nazi got off, but too many did.

Joachim Peiper was convicted of the Malmedy massacre, got the death sentence, served 11 years.

Gustav Schluter was convicted by a French court for massacring civilians at Maille. But Germany refused to hand him over, so he didn't serve a day.

Hubert Lanz was convicted of the murder of hundreds of Italian prisoners at Cephalonia, was sentenced to 12 years, served 8.

The list goes on and on.

Yeah, I know the tired old defense, we needed Germany's help in the cold war. But I suppose that's not much comfort to the relatives of those who were massacred.

[Leaning Right]

To clarify my last post, my point is that too many Nazi criminals got off with too light a sentence, or in some cases no sentence at all.

Consider the examples I cited in my last post. Peiper only served 11 years for his war crime. That was outrageous.(But if you know Peiper's story, justice caught up with him in another form.)

And Schluter didn't serve a day for the deliberate massacre of French civilians, some of whom were children. Again, outrageous.

[ozzymandus]

Peiper served 11 years for a crime he did not order and was not present at, and was later murdered by French communists.
How many Allied and Soviet soldiers were prosecuted for killing German prisoners? None. Victor’s justice, just like the winners write the history books.

[ozzymandus]

Some criminals went free or got off easy, some innocent soldiers were hanged or imprisoned. How many Soviet generals who ordered their soldiers to rape and murder German women and children were tried? None. “Bomber” Harris publicly stated that his goal was to kill as many German civilians as possible, and the brits put up a statue of him. Who decides what “justice” is? The winners.

[Leaning Right]

Who decides what “justice” is? The winners.

Very very true. And as you said, no allied war criminals were ever prosecuted. For example, no Soviets were ever prosecuted for the mass execution of Poles in the Katyn Forest.

But that does not lessen the guilt of the Nazi middle-men.

[ozzymandus]

I’m going to drop this thread before some DB chimes in and calls me a “nazi” for telling the truth.

[Leaning Right]

Fair enough. By the way, I agree with your mentioning of Bomber Harris. Had an impartial panel investigated war crimes (a Swiss panel, perhaps?), Harris surely would have gotten a look.

[PzLdr]

Heydrich died from perionitis, caused by horsehair and pieces of the the metal springs from the car seat that entered his body after the bomb thrown by one of the Czechs exploded outside Heydrich’s car. the Sten gun, carried by the other Czech jammed, and failed to fire. If the Germans had had penicillin, Heydrich would probably have lived.

[PzLdr]

Actually, “Bomber” Harris became the orphan of Allied victory. He was the only senior RAF commander not raisded to the peerage. And despite the heaviest losses of the British [at least by percentage if not outright numbers], bomber command was the ONLY major unit never awarded a campaign star.