Reinhard Heydrich: Biographie by Robert Gerwarth

by Robert Gerwarth

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the twentieth century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo, ruthless overlord of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia, and leading planner of the "Final Solution," Heydrich played a central role in Hitler's Germany. He shouldered a major share of responsibility for some of the worst Nazi atrocities, and up to his assassination in Prague in 1942, he was widely seen as one of the most dangerous men in Nazi Germany. Yet Heydrich has received remarkably modest attention in the extensive literature of the Third Reich.

Robert Gerwarth weaves together little-known stories of Heydrich's private life with his deeds as head of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office. Fully exploring Heydrich's progression from a privileged middle-class youth to a rapacious mass murderer, Gerwarth sheds new light on the complexity of Heydrich's adult character, his motivations, the incremental steps that led to unimaginable atrocities, and the consequences of his murderous efforts toward re-creating the entire ethnic makeup of Europe.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, World War II, Holocaust, Germany, War

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Robert Gerwarth is a Professor of European history, with an emphasis on German history. Since finishing a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oxford, he has held fellowships at Princeton, Harvard, the NIOD (Amsterdam) and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Western Australia.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Wherever this killer went, blood flowed in rivers. Everywhere, even in Germany, he was simply called: the Hangman.”
- Thomas Mann’s obituary for Reinhard Heydrich, delivered on BBC radio, June 1942

“Heydrich’s life…offers a uniquely privileged, intimate and organic perspective on some of the darkest aspects of Nazi rule, many of which are often artificially divided or treated separately in the highly specialized literature on the Third Reich: the rise of the SS and the emergence of the Nazi police state; the decision-making processes that led to the Holocaust; the interconnections between anti-Jewish and Germanization policies; and the different ways in which German occupation regimes operated across Nazi-controlled Europe. On a more personal level, it illustrates the historical circumstances under which young men from perfectly ‘normal’ middle-class backgrounds can become political extremists determined to use ultra-violence to implement their dystopian fantasies of radically transforming the world…”
- Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich

Close your eyes. Are they closed yet? Good. Now imagine a Nazi.

Open your eyes.

You just imagined Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich.

The Butcher of Prague. The Blonde Beast. The Hangman.

Tall. Yellow-haired. Blue-eyed. A hat decorated with a skull tilted jauntily on his head. Even in the murderous, psychopathic, utterly bankrupt regime of the Nazis, Heydrich stood out for his misdeeds. Hitler and Himmler don’t really frighten you. They are twisted little creatures. Hitler, scrawny and trembling. Himmler, chinless and bespectacled. Heydrich is different. He is a killer and looks the part.


A butcher and a riddle. A face that is remarkably unperturbed about being as deadly is smallpox

Heydrich was such a noted disease that – in the midst of all the horrors of the Second World War – the British Special Operations Executive trained two young Czech agents to kill him, and parachuted them into German-occupied Czechoslovakia. On May 27, 1942, these two men met Heydrich while his car rounded a bend, a rendezvous with vengeance that would have disastrous consequences.

***

For me, the chief mistake that Robert Gerwarth makes in Hitler’s Hangman is to put this thrilling, almost cinematic sequence into the first chapter. While it’s a nice hook, it also delivers the biggest dramatic moment right at the start, after which the narrative has no place else to go but down.

This is a literary criticism, not a historical one, but it defines my feelings here. Hitler’s Hangman is factually sound, well-researched, and has a bibliography that goes on for pages. Gerwarth has been praised for his diligent search for sources, aided by the fact that he is German-born and able to read many documents that would otherwise have to be translated.

Yet for all that, Hitler’s Hangman did not move me. Despite Gerwarth’s prodigious efforts in creating this book, the passion does not shine through. At the end of the story of one of history’s most terrible villains, I should probably feel something.

***

At less than 300 pages of text, Hitler’s Hangman is rather concise. Partly this appears a function of reality, as Heydrich left behind fewer documents to mine for clues. Unlike Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels, for instance, Heydrich did not keep a diary. Nevertheless, the briskness is also a reflection of Gerwarth’s narrow scope. He does not spend a lot of time on the overall context or develop the secondary characters of Heydrich’s life. Most of the people that surround him remain shadows.

***

After opening with Heydrich’s richly-deserved death, Gerwarth backtracks to the life of “young Reinhard.” These early chapters are a bit dull. Heydrich was a mediocrity, with no exceptional talents or skills. Moreover, Gerwarth makes no attempt to imbue these passages with any extra insight.

With that said, there are a couple interesting takeaways. Heydrich’s father ran a renowned music conservatory, a position Heydrich might have taken had the world broken differently. Heydrich was also tossed out of the Weimar Republic’s neutered Reichsmarine for breaking off an engagement with a woman in order to pursue an entirely different one.

The Nazis provided Heydrich with an opportunity. Jobs were scarce, his father’s conservatory was going bankrupt, and he’d lost his naval career. When he secured a position in the growing fascist movement, he did so for the paycheck. In short, Heydrich – one of the most vicious and rabid Nazis – did not start as an ideologue. Somewhere along the path, though, he transformed into an ethnic cleanser of enormous magnitude.

***

The best parts of Hitler’s Hangman – the parts that make it valuable to students of World War II and the Holocaust – document Heydrich’s role in the Final Solution. Gerwarth traces Heydrich’s career arc as he morphs from a non-dogmatic functionary trying to climb the corporate ladder to devoted mass-murderer, beloved by Himmler and Hitler.

In doing so, Gerwarth also does a good job presenting the unfolding of the Holocaust in increments. The Final Solution was not birthed fully formed. It proceeded in fits and starts. The Nazis took baby steps towards the void, and every time they got away with something, they got a little closer to chambers pumped full of Zyklon B. There were wild colonization schemes, ad hoc pogroms, un-systematic shootings, and mobile gas vans, all this culminating in the death factories at Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Auschwitz-Birkenau, those menacing places that force us to question humanity to this very day.

***

Heydrich was squarely in the thick of things, right up to the moment that Jozef Gabčíc and Jan Kubiš caught him at a hairpin turn in Prague. Following his death, the Holocaust reached its most lethal levels, in an operation appropriately named for him. Among the victims were thousands of Czechs murdered in wholesale reprisals for Heydrich’s killing. Gerwarth succeeds admirably in explaining Heydrich’s role in – and importance to – the Nazi’s fatal scheme.

In my opinion, Gerwarth is less successful in giving the reader any idea of Heydrich’s mindset. The book flap of Hitler’s Hangman promises to investigate the complexity of Heydrich’s character, but I didn't see any of that. I have no idea what any of this meant to him. Did he eventually come around to the belief that all Germany’s problems could be solved by annihilating Jews? Did he believe in Himmler’s breathtaking plans for remaking eastern Europe? Or was he just a psychotic striver, willing to do anything for a promotion, a raise, a pension?

Perhaps these questions are ultimately unanswerable. But they should be grappled with in some way. Gerwarth barely feints in that direction. The result is a rather straightforward bio that – unintentionally, of course – normalizes Heydrich. By treating him as just another run-of-the-mill historical figure, by checking off the highlights of his life, you start to forget that – holy crap! – this guy oversaw the deaths of millions of people. Millions. Of. People. And we don’t even know if he ever lost a wink of sleep. Obviously, Gerwarth is constrained by the record, but I needed him to try to forge some deeper connection between the criminal and his crimes. Without that, this remains a solid volume that does not feel vitally necessary.

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

He was the Nazi the other Nazis were afraid of. Goebbels considered him “the most radical and successful persecutor of all enemies of the state.” Hitler called him “the man with the iron heart.”

He was head of Reich Security (the “political police,” the Nazi FBI and CIA combined), commander of SS terror units at home and Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) abroad, Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia), and the man Goring chose to craft the “Final Solution.”

He was not a reader, unless you count detective novels. He was no Aryan racial theorist either, in fact, no kind of theorist at all. Just a practical man, eager to carry out—in vicious, appalling detail—every evil idea the Nazis dreamed of.

He might not have been a Nazi at all if his career in the Navy had prospered. But, having compromised a young woman of good family, he defended himself so selfishly and callously before the Navy tribunal, that its officers—men of the world, typically inclined to excuse “affairs of the heart”—dismissed him summarily from the service. Fortunately (I use the term advisedly), his fiancee Lina, well connected in the National Socialist movement, referred him to Heinrich Himmler, who hired the young man on the spot. And the rest—as they say in hell—is history.

Robert Gerwarth’s Hitler’s Hangman is exhaustive, and occasionally exhausting. Its scope is comprehensive, its prose dry. (Gerwarth was the first Heydrich biographer to gain access to certain Nazi archives, and he makes extensive—perhaps too extensive—use of them.) Still, I enjoyed this book because it led me to contemplate, how—given one or two great moral blindspots—grandiose dreams and limited virtues may combine to unleash extraordinary evil. This is true of the Final Solution, and true of the character of Heydrich himself.

After reading Hitler’s Hangman, I’ve come to realize that the “Final Solution” was not merely a euphemism but was indeed a “solution.” The problem? How to bring about the following three desired outcomes: 1) safeguard “greater” Germany and its Aryan people—including Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia—from all genetic impurity (which necessitated of course the absence of Jews), 2) acquire lebensraum, territory that could provide Germany with necessary food and raw materials, and 3) promote the spiritual health of the Aryan person, particularly the German soldier.

If all Jews could have disappeared from Germany with a simple snap of the fingers, I believe every dedicated Nazi would have snapped his fingers without hesitation, but—absent such fanciful solutions—they were content to rely on the less disruptive, less violent method of emigration. But emigration had its limits, and—worse—as the imperialist German army advanced to the east to acquire lebensraum, they also acquired—in Poland, in Hungary, in Russia—an even greater number of Jews. Large massacres by German troops (like the one at Babi Yar) were clearly bad for the morale of the average soldier, so the Einsatzgruppen were regularly employed for such grim tasks instead. But all this murder soon sickened even Heydrich’s professional killers, and so mobile Zyklon B vans—and later, concentration camp gas chambers—were devised and employed as a substitute.

It is somehow fitting that this bright three-fold dream of Aryan purity, lebensraum, and perfect morale was pursued stoically by the practical Heydrich, a man with no dreams at all. The Final Solution was, for him, just that—a solution—and the frightful details can be observed in the minutes of the meeting at Wannsee.

It is troubling to acknowledge, but undeniable, that Heydrich had his virtues. He was cold-hearted, true, but he loved his wife and children, and he was brave. A trained fighter pilot, he would on occasion—against the wishes of his superior Himmler, who held him in great esteem—advance to the front to play cards and fly missions with his fellow pilots. On one occasion, however, things didn’t go smoothly for Heydrich:

The fighter squadron’s mission was to secure a strategically vital bridge over the Dniester River. . . . On 22 July, shortly after 2 p.m, the squadron encountered heavy Russian flak. Heydrich’s aeroplane was hit and the engine malfunctioned. An emergency landing left the pilot stranded . . . behind Russian lines. . . . Only a few hours later, an infantry officer called to report that an advance patrol had rescued a downed pilot. The pilot of the plane was seemingly uninjured, but had clearly suffered some brain damage since he kept insisting he was the head the the Reich Security Main Office.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drinking from the Poisoned Cup

When we think of the Nazi leadership at the apex of the Third Reich, names such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Herman Göring or Heinrich Himmler first come to mind. Reinhard Heydrich isn’t usually at the top of the list. So if he wasn’t the most famous, he was certainly one of the most dangerous. The direct subordinate of Himmler, part of the SS, he helped to design and pursue the final solution, the Nazi answer of what to do about the Jews in Europe. But as Robert Gerwarth explains in this fascinating book, he wasn’t born antisemitic or a monster, somewhere along the way he was taken up by the hysteria of post war Germany.

He was the son of Bruno Heydrich, a middle class composer who set up a successful musical school called the Orangery. An ex-student took revenge against Bruno for being expelled by writing an article that Bruno was in fact Jewish and his real name was Süss. Bruno’s mothers second husband was a Süss, but not his father or Jewish. Bruno won the libel case, but the rumours never seemed to die and followed the younger Heydrich around forever. Born too young to fight in the Great War but old enough to feel the shame of not doing his bit, the younger Heydrich joined one of the many paramilitary groups in the aftermath of the collapse of the monarchy looking to tussle for power. He was from a respectable catholic family, tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, a ladies man and sportsman. He was also largely apolitical in the beginning.

The fall of the old regime meant financial worries for the young Heydrich who first joined the disgraced navy and then was kicked out for an alleged affair. His solution was to become a professional Nazi. From here he worked his way up the chain, becoming close with Himmler. Earning a decent wage, he finally married Lina von Osten and settled into the ideal of Nazi home life. From there he went down the political rabbit hole, with no way back. Once the poison from cup was drunk, like all top Nazis there was no redemption or hope. Heydrich was at the top of the final solution, the question of what to do with the international Jewry. Once failure to pacify the United Kingdom had occurred in the wake of the Battle of Britain, placing them all on the inhospitable island of Madagascar was off the cards. Stalin refused to take them in the brief interlude of the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This left little choice but to indict the systematic murder of the innocents stuck in Eastern Europe.

Hitler’s Hangman starts with the ending, with the botched but surprisingly successful assassination of Heydrich in 1942 by two Czech soldiers, Josef Gabčik and Jan Kubiš, selected by the British Specialist Operations Executive. This in itself is a crazy tale, they were seen parachuting in, left and easily traceable trail, living with locals, borrowing bikes, heading to SS HQ and sleeping with local women. When the time came Gabčik’s sten machine gun failed and Kubiš’ grenade missed its target. The explosion on the less did the required damage. The Nazis in typical fashion took revenge with one of the main aftershocks being the complete destruction of Lidice village. 340 people including 82 children were killed. Hitler’s Hangman has great scope, shows the horrors of the eastern theatre of WWII and the holocaust in full effect. It also highlights how normal men were sucked in by the ideology and became delusional and complete monsters who imposed unimaginable horrors on innocent people. Heydrich went down this path and one way or another the war was going to take him. I recommend this book.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

UPDATE 1/2/18 ...

The sections of this book covering the years from 1939 to 1942 provide a sickening portrait of Heydrich using mass murder of Jews as a means of career advancement ... Poland, Russia, Wannsee, Auschwitz

... Heydrich understood better than some of the Wehrmacht's senior officers that those implementing the policies most attuned to Hitler's wishes would be rewarded with enhanced powers to enforce them.

... Heydrich's Gestapo and SD had prepared for war against Poland since the spring of 1939. The Security Police would ‘neutralize’ centres of potential resistance and destroy those classes of society thought to be carriers of Polish nationalism. The card index was used to compile a ‘special arrest list’, which carried the names of some 61,000 Poles to be arrested or killed immediately.

... Behind the regular troops, Heydrich's SS task forces swiftly moved across the border and descended on Poland's civilian population, informing Heydrich personally of the ‘progress’ of their work through daily reports. The conquest of Poland, widely perceived by the Nazis as a racially inferior country, significantly expanded conceptions of what was possible and permissible.

... Of the 16,000 Polish civilians killed during the first six weeks of the war, 5,000 were Jews. ... within the first few months of 1940, Eichmann was to ensure that 600,000 Jews from the annexed territories, ‘without regard to age and gender’, were deported into the General Government.

... The Wehrmacht successfully used the Polish (SS) atrocities as an argument against any SS involvement on the Western Front. ... Nazi Germany's victorious campaigns in Western Europe thus constituted a setback for Heydrich.

... new opportunity arose following Hitler's decision to attack the Soviet Union. Heydrich was determined not let this opportunity pass him by ... On 22 June 1941, a historically unprecedented invasion army of 3 million German soldiers … Heydrich's Einsatzgruppen followed in the armies’ rear, grimly determined to excel in carrying out their orders.

... by the end of 1941, Germans and their local helpers had murdered between 500,000 and 800,000 Jewish men, women and children in the former Soviet territories, often between 2,700 and 4,200 per day, with most of the deaths resulting from shootings at close quarters.

... Göring authorized Heydrich to make ‘all necessary preparations’ for a ‘total solution of the Jewish question in the German sphere of influence in Europe’. … he empowered Heydrich to submit a ‘comprehensive draft’ of a plan for the ‘final solution to the Jewish question’.

... On 20 January 1942, a snowy Tuesday morning, Heydrich gathered fourteen senior Nazi civil servants, party officials and high-ranking SS officers in a former industrialist's villa on the shores of Berlin's Lake Wannsee. As Heydrich indicated in his invitation letter of late November 1941, the purpose of the meeting was to establish ‘a common position among the central authorities’ in regard to the final solution

... Heydrich outlined the scale of the task that lay ahead of them. Roughly 11 million Jews – including those living under German occupation, the Jews of neutral European states such as Turkey, Ireland and Sweden and those living in states still at war with Nazi Germany, such as Great Britain – would be affected by the final solution.

***

UPDATE 7/14/16 ...

I just read the sections covering Reinhard Heydrich's activities from when Hitler became Chancellor in Jan 1933 until he helped Hitler murder over 200 opponents in what is known as the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.

Gerwarth provides a very well done picture of Heydrich's role in the Nazi transition to a state were open opposition led to imprisonment and death and all good Germans were encouraged to spy on and denounce each other.

Heydrich, who was briefly introduced in Book One of A FLOOD OF EVIL (just published) will be a central character in Book Two which I have just started writing.

***

I read the parts that correspond to the time line of my novel, ie, before spring 1933. Very well written. Of course the man is despicable.

[Marquise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very streamlined and doesn't cover much of the surrounding historical context or Heydrich's circle.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reinhard Heydrich was labelled "Hitler's Hangman" by Thomas Mann after his assassination, at the age of thirty eight. This excellent biography actually begins with his death in Prague, May 1942. The background to the assassination is examined in great detail, with the Czech underground under pressure to perform, despite (quite rightly as it turned out) fearing reprisals if Heydrich was the target.

The book then turns to Heydrich's early life. He was born into a musical family of good financial means and social standing. During WWI his father was mentioned in a German encyclopaedia of music and musicians, published in 1916, as a Jewish composer. It turned out a former pupil of his fathers musical conservatory had inserted this as revenge for being expelled and it was removed from the next edition, but rumours of a Jewish background would plague Heydrich throughout his life.

Rather than running his fathers business, Heydrich turned to the navy and found the rumours of a Jewish background followed him, making him an outsider - although playing the violin probably also helped to mark him out as different. However, he became a second naval liutenant and was both ambitious and arrogant. He met his future wife, Lina Von Osten in 1930, whose brother was an early member of the Nazi party. However, the relationship eventually led to his dismissal from the navy and left Heydrich at a loose end.

It is hard to say whether, had Heydrich remained in the navy and not met Lina, he would have simply remained a career officer. However, an interview with Himmler changed his life. Himmler gave him a chance and Heydrich remained conscious of the debt he owed him and gave total loyalty. He was less qualified than the other applicant, but used his love of crime and spy novels to impress Himmler so much that he was offered the job of creating the SS intelligence agency.

This biography looks at Heydrich's early career in the SS. Securing control over the Gestapo, the night of the long knives in 1934, kristallnacht and Heydrich's attacks on the church, the communists, the Jewish population and others. With the invasion of Poland, Heydrich unleashed a campaign of terror which exceeded anything he had managed before. He was also given the responsibility, by Hitler, of the maintenance of order in Germany 'at all costs'. In 1939 he issued the "Principles of Inner State Security during the War" and a ruthless approach to the threat of defeatism.

Heydrich was convinced that only he could deal with the 'Jewish problem' and appointed Eichmann as special advisor carrying out evacuations in the East. He favoured a Jewish reservation in Madagascar, but this plan was dropped when sea routes could not be secured. The book goes on to look at the Wannsee Conference in 1942, set up by Heydrich when Goring authorised him to make "all necessary preparations" for a "total solution of the Jewish question." Wannsee affirmed Heydrich's overall authority in dealing with the Jews, a responsibility he seems to have embraced without any kind of difficulty or being troubled about what he was asked to do.

Hitler then decided to replace Baron von Neurath, his 'weak' representative in Prague with Heydrich. This was a man whose power was constantly growing - he had wealth, power and was the only leading SS officer occupying key positions at both the centre of the Nazi empire and on the territorial periphery. He travelled regularly between Prague and Berlin, taking up new challenges without meaning to lose any of his previous responsibilities. His time in Prague dealt huge blows to the people. He saw the Czech people as a race of slaves, considering education an unnecessary luxury and attempting to undermine and eradicate Czech culture and national identity. He pushed for cultural Germanization and stamped on resistance movements with harsh measures.

When Heydrich was assassinated, his funeral was stage managed by Goebbels and the Nazi's sought revenge. The most well known act of retaliation was the complete annihilation of the Bohemian village of Lidice, where the assassins allegedly received support. Himmler also ordered his subordinates to take less risks, saying, "after all we want to kill our enemies; our enemies are not supposed to kill us." The author goes on to tell us what happened to the assassins, the implications of the death of Heydrich and what happened to the people involved after the war. Lina, who survived, never expressed any regret or remorse for her husbands crimes. It is interesting to speculate on what would have happened had Heydrich survived - suicide in 1945 or Neuremberg perhaps? Either way, that the well brought up son of musicians ended up steeped in such savagery - embraced such violence - is staggering and this is a very well written and interesting account of his life and his death. Highly recommended.

[Jill H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing biography of one of the most evil men of the Third Reich who surprisingly has not had as much written about him as have Hitler's other acolytes. Reinhard Heydrich came from an upper middle class, cultured, and musical family but turned to the Nazi party in 1931 and became one of the most violent and virulent anti-Semites in the party leadership. On his shoulders rests, at least in part, the responsibility for the "final solution" (more commonly known as The Holocaust) as he and his minions devised a plan for "racial cleansing" which has continued to horrify the world to the present day. He was assassinated in Prague in 1942 and his death caused Germany to visit mass retaliation on Czechoslovakia, especially the murder of all the citizens of Lidice and the razing of that village to the ground.
The author had access to notes, diaries, meeting minutes and other documents to put together this unbiased and chilling biography of a man, who if he hadn't been assassinated, would have stood in the dock at Nuremberg and without a doubt been sentenced to death.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Gerwarth’s Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich, is arguably, to date, the most comprehensive biography of one of the cruelest leaders in the Nazi regime, Reinhard Heydrich. For those who recognize his name, it is most often in occurrence with his May 1942 assassination in Prague and the merciless retribution upon his death. He is also remembered for being one of the cruelest, most tyrannical Nazi leaders, whom was second only to Heinrich Himmler in the initial planning of the final solution (more on Himmler in a moment).

Although many prominent critics sing Gerwarth’s praises for ”explaining persuasively what motivated Heydrich to model himself into the perfect Nazi” (Richard Evans of Times Higher Education) and the Sunday Telegraph mentions how ”Gerwarth has gone digging in the sources to root Heydrich more firmly in the context that gave rise to some of the worst crimes of the modern age”, one can’t help but feel a slight disappointment at the conclusion of the book, which still does little to explain the mindset, events, and reasoning behind Heydrich’s rapid radicalization into Nazism.

It’s all the more frustrating because it would appear Gerwarth truly did utilize every source possible. He notes in the preface how he searched archives ”in Germany, Britain, the United States, Russia, Israel and the Czech Republic, which revealed many more sources on Heydrich’s life than are often assumed to exist.”

However, it’s obvious through the materials he did find that Heydrich was a very private individual in which personal records were scarce. Unlike his Nazi compatriots Goebbels and Himmler, he kept no diary, and most of his private correspondence only survived in fragments following the end of WWII.

What does become immediately obvious from the beginning of the book was that despite Heydrich’s macabre nickname and reputation for extraordinary cruelty, he remained a wholly unremarkable figure from his childhood, through his ascent in the Nazi Party, up until his death.

During childhood, he grew up amid relative prosperity, his parents owning a musical conservatory (with 400 pupils in 1911 at its record high enrollment). At age 4, a young Reinhard moved into a three-story home in an exclusive location. He vacationed with his family during the summer on the coast of the Baltic Sea, took up a wide range of sports (despite his very frail figure) and was among the mere 10% of privileged, elite males who went on to secondary schooling in the early 1900s (90% of German students in this time period finished their education after primary school).

His grades were above average, but despite his talents and abilities (or lack thereof), his ambitions and unrelenting desire for success remained a key element of his personality.

After being kicked out of the Marines for a behavioral issue (he was seeing another girl while reported to be engaged to one back home) he despaired at the thought of working a low-paying, low status job.

Fortunately for Heydrich, his soon-to-be-wife, Lina, and her parents, were huge early supporters of the Nazi Party. Lina and her family were very much driven by zealous ideology, while Heydrich was drawn in by much more practical considerations - well-paying, stable careers in this new Party’s bureaucracy - a chance to gain back what he thought he may have permanently lost after being discharged from the military.

The book continues on like this, speaking mostly of mundane, straightforward details concerning Heydrich’s engagement, marriage, and rapid ascent to the top of the party hierarchy - he was personally interviewed and hired by Heinrich Himmler, who would remain a lifelong friend and mentor (despite claims that the two were often at odds with one another).

The details provided are, of course, interesting - especially in the first chapter’s account of the assassination plot in Prague successfully carried out against him, as well as his meetings and proposals on how to resolve the “Jewish Problem” and his contributions to the Final Solution, which would be implemented in haste after the humiliating defeat in Stalingrad.

Conspicuously absent from these accounts were any attempts by the author to explain Heydrich’s motivations and increasing racial hatred, based on interpretation of available sources. While it was clear Heydrich was an opportunist, and had initially taken the job out of the power it would grant him, what is less clear is how it came to be so much more than simply a job for him.

In this, I wish Gerwarth had made more of an attempt to explain these frenzied shifts from seeing Nazism as an opportunity for career advancement, to viewing it as his entire life’s purpose, a cause he was willing to die for (which, of course, he did). By the end of the book I knew more about Reinhard Heydrich’s upbringing and career, but my questions as to how he justified so many of his actions went unanswered.

I’d still recommend reading this book for the all the important facts pertaining to Heydrich’s life. However, the reader needs to be aware they’ll have to draw their own conclusions on his mindset and reasoning, from limited information concerning his opinions and experiences.

It is mostly implied that out of his need to always maintain order and the image of a perfect and top employee/leader, he was willing to do unspeakable things which many other Party members shied away from. And no other real reason than that. This willingness of his to follow orders to a T is what made him uniquely important to Hitler.

Thus, the Czech citizens and nascent underground movement were right to worry about Hitler’s retribution if the assassination plan was to be carried out - the British were applying pressure to the Czech government-in-exile to call upon two volunteers to carry out this plan.

Their claim was that each Allied nation needed to do their part in fighting the Nazi occupation, and that Czechoslovakia had done very little to help in this effort. This was because the Czechs had ineffective military might, along with very small and disorganized resistance forces - which they knew would be wiped out entirely if this plan was successful.

Britain should have listened to the Czechs. Over a thousand civilians died as punishment for the death of Hitler and Himmler’s “beloved Heydrich”, the lovely little village town of Lidice being destroyed, entirely razed to the ground. Lidice forever. 🇨🇿

PS - My great-grandfather wrote a book on Lidice right after the horrific incident - I’m half Czech - called Lidice Forever, but I do not believe it was mass published. Also, it was very short in length - perhaps 90 pages? I do think if you look at my photos, you can see an editorial he wrote for the New York Times on the anniversary of the Lidice massacre and the importance of remembering the innocent victims.

Again, excuse any grammar mistakes or possible repetition … I cannot seem to write a brief review, and as I am writing quickly, there’s likely some mistakes. I do intend to look these reviews over later and make any needed corrections after they’re all posted.

[Steven Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

How does one write a biography of a butcher, someone who committed atrocities? The author notes at the beginning that it is a difficult task, but one must understand the subject of a biography--even if the subject produces loathing. Robert Gerwarth's answer regarding Reinhard Heydrich, "Hitler's Hangman," is what he calls "cold empathy"--(Page x): ". . .an attempt to reconstruct Heydrich's life with critical distance, but without reading history backward or succumbing to the danger of confusing the role of historian with that of a state prosecutor at a war criminal's trial."

This is, then, the story of one of Nazi Germany's most infamous figures. The story begins at the end of Heydrich's life, and then tells the tale from his childhood until that point in time. The story is well detailed; Gerwarth has mined the records well to come up with a full picture of Heydrich. His childhood certainly did not contain harbingers of the extermination of huge number of people for whose deaths he was responsible.

His early career, too, did not suggest what he would become. His military career crashed and burned; he married well. Then, partially as a result of his wife's family, he began to be involved in the Nazi regime. Because of his competence and certitude of his own talent, he rose through the ranks. As he rose, he became more fanatical in his ideology and helped lead toward the effort of a "final solution" to the "Jewish problem" (or the Gypsy problem or the Czech problem or. . .). The book details his ferocious political infighting to maintain and expand his power. It chronicles his political victories--and defeats.

In the end, this is a powerful biography. If one wants to understand Heydrich the Hangman, this is a terrific resource, so well documented. Five stars.

[G.d. Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wish Robert Gerwarth had written this book earlier.

I’ve spent much of the past six years writing a novel about Heydrich’s 1942 assassination. I thought I’d read everything there was to read on the man and the topic, and when I finally noticed this book this year, I figured it couldn’t tell me anything new. I’m both disappointed and pleased to discover that I was wrong—disappointed because I wish I’d had this work as a reference material, and pleased because it opened up new insights on a man and a topic I thought I already knew.

Not that Heydrich is a man most of us would want to know. As head of home security for the Third Reich, he was responsible for much of the police state apparatus of Nazi Germany—one subordinate referred to him as the “hidden pivot” of the Third Reich. He was one of the most powerful men in the SS; many insiders reportedly said: “Himmler’s Hirn heist Heydrich,” which means “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich.” To the Czech exiles behind his assassination, he was “The Butcher of Prague.” But Gerwarth titled his book after a nickname coined by one of Heydrich’s most vocal German opponents, Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann. Mann was able to speak freely by virtue of the fact that he was an exile; his verdict is perhaps more pithy and more true than any of the above appellations. He referred to Heydrich simply as “Hitler’s Hangman.”

Gerwarth’s chief virtue is his willingness to look beyond such popular judgments at the historical truths that lay beyond—truths that are far too often distorted, warped, or enlarged by the imperfect lens of collective memory. And he does this for both the major areas and the minor ones; for Gerwarth, truth is something to be sought in matters as large as the Holocaust and as small as the musical career of a composer who might easily have been forgotten but for his infamous son. (Heydrich’s father is often reputed to have been a third-rate composer, and most authors, including yours truly, have parroted that lazy judgment, but Gerwarth makes it clear he was more of a musician’s musician, a talented man whose skills never translated into public acclaim, but who nonetheless opened a conservatory of some renown.)

Obviously, the former area’s far more important; the quest to know the truth about Heydrich is, in many ways, an attempt to understand the nature of evil; we are looking through history’s lens at something that’s ugly and misshapen to begin with. And here, too, Gerwarth looks away from the easy judgments. Popular history suggests that the Holocaust was a smoothly orchestrated mass-murder that unfolded according to a clear master plan. In some ways, it’s a comforting notion; the more abnormal the Holocaust appears, the easier it is to relegate it to glossy coffee table books, to look at it from a safe distance and tell ourselves nothing of the sort could happen again. Whereas Gerwarth makes it clear that history’s never so easy or comforting. There was bureaucracy and systematization, but there was also the confusion of a hateful ideology struggling to turn its thoughts into deeds amidst the chaos of a war it had started but couldn’t control. The Holocaust was deliberate, but it was also messy, unfolding in fits and starts, composed of disparate parts hastily sewn together, jerking and lumbering like Frankenstein’s monster through a series of ever-more-frantic and horrifying actions, from harassment to expulsion to haphazard murder to systematic extermination.

And yet the person who did so much to set this monster in motion was, after all, a man; he lived, he breathed, he died. And while we would like to think an early death would be the best possible end for someone who took so many lives, it’s difficult to see what good came of Heydrich’s assassination. While it (and the German reprisals afterwards) brought moral clarity to the Allied war effort, it also spurred the monster towards more frantic and horrifying exertions; at the time of Heydrich’s death, roughly 3/4ths of the Holocaust’s victims were still alive, but nine short months later, 3/4ths of the Holocaust’s victims were dead.

Gerwarth could have done a little better at presenting these facts more smoothly; he spends just enough of his narrative flashing forward to future events that the reader misses something that the best biographies and histories give—the sense of being in another time, seeing only what our subjects saw and knowing only what they knew, and having their same uncertainty about events that are in their future but our past. (On a side note, while the book itself is worthwhile, the e-book is atrociously formatted. E-books usually start out as an .html document so as to allow the text to display properly on various e-readers and at various text sizes. Depending on the .html encoding encoding used, certain characters may end up unreadable, particularly Czech and Polish characters such as č and Ƚ. The publishers’ answer to this problem seems to have been a 2-part solution. Part 1, presumably, was to insert those characters as little tiny .jpgs or .bmps, which causes them to display on their own line, even if they’re in the middle of a word, which makes for difficult reading. Part 2, or so I’m guessing, was to price the e-book exorbitantly high so as few readers as possible would notice.)

Still, these deficiencies are made up for by some thorough and compelling original historical research. (Another quick aside: I love scholarly books such as this, and their extensive footnotes, in part because I always forget that I don’t actually have to read all the footnotes. I always reach the early end of the narrative with some surprise; it’s like running a marathon and getting to mile 19 and having someone tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, you’re done. Good job, buddy!” Granted, I usually read enough footnotes to find out where the author’s being original and where he’s building on the work of others, but still. O.K., enough digressions.) Gerwarth does a great job of presenting these uncomfortable facts in a manner he refers to as “cold empathy.” While Heydrich obviously isn’t a likeable person, we do at least get some understanding to go along with history’s judgment; we don’t get excuses for his inexcusable deeds, but we do at least get explanations—a much-needed opportunity to understand both the man and his frightful legacy.

[Luka Novak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heydrich is one of those Nazis who played an important role but held second level positions and are as a result mostly ignored by historians. Unlike Hitler, Speer, Goering or even Himmler there is little biographical work on Heydrich and he is either relegated to playing Himmler's talented sidekick or as head of SD in books dealing with that organisation.

Gerwarth tries to correct that and does a decent job. Not great, mind you, but good enough. Book starts with Heydrich's assassination in 1942, rewinds to his childhood and teenage years, follows his rise through Nazi party hierarchy and involvement in repressive machinery, relations with key players in that field (Himmler, Hitler, Goering) and ends with Nazi retaliation for his death.

Gerwarth doesn't put forward any controversial subjects or adresses any conspiracy theories such as had Himmler had a hand in his death (that is interfered with his post-assassination treatment) because he feared him as a rival, was his dismisal from navy part of Canaris' plot to gain inside man in Nazi security aparatus.... He simply collects and presents information about his life, his work and consequences.

I assume it was hard for author to write biography of such a man and not pass judgement but Gerwarth managed to pull it off. Book presents action and allows reader to draw his own conclussion and judgement, something for which author should be commended.

Mind you, this book does not uncover and new parts of Heydrich's life. Most of it was written in one form or another either in books covering Himmler's life, Nazi security aparatus (Heydrich's brainchild SD, SS, RSHA....) or Holocaust. It's worth noting that book goes in greater detail about his work as Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, the remains of Chechoslovakia left after 1938 Munich agreement and Slovak secession. While his rule is often described as carrot-and-stick Gerwarth argues it was plenty of a stick and little carrot.

Overall a book that concentrates on the man himself, placing him in centre and not as head of organsation book covers or somebody operating some distance away from other person book deals with. Also worth reading if you are interested in second tier officials who held great degree of power but were conmstanly locked in struggles with people in similar positions in jungle that was Nazi Germany state bureaucracy.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chilling biography on one of the most evil of hitlers henchmen!! Reinhard was a true example of evil and was at the very heart of terror for the Third Reich! A great read for WW II historians and historians alike!

[Viktor Stoyanov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Животът и краят на един SS кариерист.

Райнхард Хайдрих не е първото име, което изплува в съзнанието при споменаването на националсоциелистическа Германия, а очудващо колко много "работа" е успял да свърши в кратките години, всъщност десетина, на "шеметната" му кариера.

Семейството, най-вече баща му, се е занимавало с класическа музика. Открили са дори консерватория за преподаване, която е била успешно начинание до гладните за немците години преди възхода на Райха. Така, тази книга започва с класическа музика, с Вагнер, с концерти и едно съвсем нормално социално-културно семейство.

Решаваща за по-нататъшната му съдба се оказва едно уволнение от флота, само година преди да бъде освободен с пенсия и почести ... поради женкарство. Дори е нямало да бъде уволнен, ако не се е дървил на комисията, която разглеждала случая му. Така остава безработен, с план за брак (семейството на жена му са привърженици на партията на Хитлер) и с разбито достойнство. Буквално се затворил вкъщи и плакал след инцидента.

И ето, че се отдава възможност отново да бъде в подобие на сили за сигурност, да зарадва семейството на годеницата си, да заработи някой (мизерен в началото) лев (така де, райхс марка) и да се види облечен в униформа - тази на SS.

Така започва стремглавата му кариера в нещо като изпълнителен директор на Химлер, в няколко различни силови структури, няма да си правя устата да ги изброявам - занимавали са се все с едно - репресии, побоища, агентство и далеч по-лошо. Определено не е бил идеолог, а прагматик. Дори преди да се присъедини към SS не е чел "Моята борба" и не е симпатизирал (дори се подигравал) на партията на Фюрера. Човекът си е гонил кариера и постигнал всичко с педантична работливост. В някакъв момент се замесва с "еврейския въпрос" и по-нататък ще е с ключова роля в решението му, поради прагматичните коравосърдечни предложения и планове, които прокарва. В началото говори за изселване, но с напредването на войната започва да се обсъжда всякакво "решение". Учудващо високи постове е заемал и се е постарал да оправдае повишенията си. Толкоз, повече не ми се говори за персоната, дори за атентата срещу него, защото сетне за наказание избиват цели поселища.

Първа среща с Герварт. Няколко впечатления:
Пише като историк, изчистено, педантично, с много цитати, където е нужно да се цитират точните думи на един, или друг, точния термин от документ. В този смисъл, може и да не е най-увлекателното четиво, ако предпочитате по-разказвачески тип документалистика. Колкото е издържано четивото, толкова и на места ми се искаше да чуя размислите и трактовките на Герварт за събитията, но това си остана само блян. Предпочитаният стил (поне в тази книга) е вие сами да си извадите поуките, размислите и всичко останало. Първата половина на книгата за ранните му години разкрива много нюанс на състава на бъдещата наци машина.
Втората е не толкова за човека, колкото за събитията около развоя на войната и еврейския въпрос. Неизбежно е било, за да се даде контекст, но и малко отклонява от представата ми за биография. А и събитията не могат да се обемат в един такъв формат, щеше ми се да се концентрира повече върху погледа към тях през индивидуалната перспектива на "Палача".

Със сигурност ще се спра и на друго от Герварт, а тази препоръчвам на по-тясно интересуващите се от история и конкретно периода преди и по време на WWII.

[KOMET · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first became aware of Reinhard Heydrich in 1975 when I (still in grade school) read Gunter Peis' book "The True Story of the Man Who Started the War." In it, Heydrich, as one of the luminaries in the SS, was the boss of Alfred Naujocks (upon whom the book was focussed) who was tasked with staging an "incident" along the German-Polish border, which Hitler would use as a pretext for invading Poland in September 1939. Even then, Heydrich struck me as a sinister figure. But it would take years of self-study of the Third Reich and the Second World War before I could begin to grasp the enormity of the crimes this man committed for "Führer und Vaterland".

This is perhaps likely to be the most comprehensive biography of Reinhard Heydrich. It has an 88-page bibliography, which attests to the author's diligence in gathering a complete portrait of a man who became for the Nazis one of its 'patron saints' after his death in June 1942 from an assasination attempt.

Heydrich was born in Halle in 1904, the son of a composer of operas who enjoyed some measure of acclaim in Wilhelmine Germany. His father founded the Halle Music Conservatory, where Reinhard's mother taught piano. The Heydrichs were Catholic (a minority group in Halle) and enjoyed a comfortable, bourgeois existence prior to the First World War. Young Reinhard learned to play the violin with some skill. Shortly after the war, he joined a Freikorps unit in Halle (one of the many right-wing paramilitary units formed in the immediate postwar period to stamp out the spread of Communism in Germany), Later, he joined the "Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund (The National German Protection and Shelter League)", which was an anti-Jewish organization.

Like many Germans in the early postwar years, the Heydrichs suffered materially from the ravages of hyperinflation during the early 1920s. Reinhard gained admittance as a cadet in the Navy in 1922 and threw himself into a military career. Politics at that time seemed not to figure in his life. But as he advanced in rank, Reinhard acquired a reputation for arrogance and engaging in numerous affairs. This proved to be his undoing. Prior to meeting his future wife, Lina von Osten (who was a virulent anti-Semite and fervent Nazi) in 1930, Reinhard had been engaged to another woman and broke it in haste. Soon thereafter, he became engaged to Lina. The Navy, however, looked askance at Reinhard's cavalier behavior. Reinhard refused to apologize for his conduct, and was dismissed from the Navy in April 1931 for "conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman."

Now without a career and prospects, Reinhard was devastated. But he went on to marry Lina, who later prodded him to join the SS, which at the time when Reinhard applied to join it in the summer of 1931 was the smallest organization in the National Socialist movement. (The SA or "Brownshirts" were Hitler's defacto army, with a membership larger than the 100,000 man Reichswehr, the Garman Army in the Weimar Republic.) He was personally interviewed by Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, who was impressed with him and immediately offered him a job.

In little more than a year, Heydrich developed an intelligence-gathering network of spies and informers to ferret out any "traitors" in the Nazi Party and keep tabs on its external enemies throughout Germany. At this time, rumors were spread about Heydrich's alleged Jewish blood and as a result, he was subjected to an extensive search into his family tree. Exonorated and declared a "true Aryan", Heydrich felt chastened and became more committed to the Nazis and their anti-Jewish philosophy. Indeed, "by the mid-1930s, Heyrich had successfully reinvented himself as one of the most radical proponents of Nazi ideology and its implementation through rigid and increasingly extensive policies of persecution."

Upon the outbreak of war, Heydrich created the Einsatzgruppen, militarized units of SS men who closely followed the German Army as it proceeded into Poland. There, the Einsatzgruppen rounded up as many Polish intelligensia and Jews they could find, and executed them in large numbers. The same modus operandi would be carried out on a much larger scale (with help from local auxiliaries) in the immediate wake of Operation Barbarossa, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

All the while persecution against the Jews (and other perceived enemies of the Reich) proceeded apace in Germany and the countries (e.g. Austria) it either subsumed into the nation proper or conquered between 1939 and 1942, there hadn't been a concerted plan for a Jew-free Europe via genocide. The expectation until Germany suffered its first serious setback on the Eastern Front in December 1941 was that most of Europe's Jews could be settled in Madagascar under SS management. And at the same time, the areas in the East under German control would be cleared of its people who did not meet the Nazi criteria for acceptability and replaced with Germans and ethnic Germans. What Heydrich regarded as "Germanization." But as the European War became a full-fledged world war with the entry of the United States into the conflict, the Germans re-evaluated its policies against the Jews to date. Heydrich convened a conference at Wannsee in Berlin, in January 1942 to hash out ideas and develop a workable, comprehensive plan for "the Final Solution to the Jewish Question."

Heydrich, unlike most of his Nazi contemporaries, proved to be a zealous and tenacious practioner of Nazi policies in his exercise of power within the police and security apparatus he controlled with an iron hand. That is why he was marked for death by the British, who sent in a couple of Czech parachutists into the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Heydrich was appointed by Hitler as its administrator in September 1941) to assassinate him, and thus breathe new life into the Czech resistance, which had been a feeble force in 1941 and early 1942, relative to the other anti-German resistance groups in Occupied Europe.

Simply put, Reinhard Heydrich became the personification of the "face of evil" in the Third Reich, a functionary, who, without the slightest compunction or remorse, carried out Hitler's genocidal policies.

[Steven Z. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until 1942, the year of his assassination Reinhard Heydrich was the chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service and the Gestapo. He played a significant role in the planning of the "Final Solution" and was responsible for many of the atrocities implemented by the Nazi hierarchy until his death. In this new biography, HITLER'S HANGMAN: THE LIFE OF HEYDRICH by Robert Gerwath, the Director of the Center for War Studies at the University College Dublin,the reader is presented with the most complete study of this perpetrator of evil that has been written to date. Heydrich was the "complete" ideological Nazi. One who grew up in a privileged middle class family and the narrative and analysis follows his career progression to the point of becoming one of Hitler's most trusted policy makers. Gerwath presents the inner workings of the Gestapo and other Nazi police organs. The reader witnesses the complexities of the Nazi secret police, the personal conflicts and power struggles and the resulting affects on its victims. It is a study that explores the personal and public character of its subject and leaves no doubt that the Holocaust was greatly facilitated by the former overlord of Bohemia and Moravia. His assassination (the topic of a fascinating new novel, HHH by Laurent Binet) by a Slovak and a Czech recruited by the British secret service in 1942 did the world a service by ending the cruelty of the "butcher of Prague." The book is designed for the general reader as well as an academic audience and is very well written and well worth the time if one is interested in this type of subject matter.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched and very informative! I have been reading about Heydrich for some time now and ‘Hitler’s Hangman’ filled in a lot of missing detail, including some light being thrown on his wife and her family, and some insight into the 'growth' his antisemitism. On the negative side, it was a pretty dry read. Getting through it, despite the welcome revelations, was a bit of a chore.

[Cam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book about the life of one of Hitlers most powerful men.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really splendid biography of a truly awful man but a biography which I can't see being superseded, certainly in English, anytime soon. I had read and greatly admired professor Gerwarth's excellent history of the German revolution of 1918 and his thought provoking and incomparable 'The Vanquished: Why the First World War Never Ended' so I was not surprised at this books depth nor his in depth knowledge of sources and archives. That it is also immensely readable is a pleasure but also of great importance. Figures like Heydrich attract an awful lot of popular and pseudo historians, writers whose experience of archives is as slim in proportion to the size of the fantastic theories that they espouse. Bringing Heydrich back into back into the realms of reality makes him all the more disturbing.

There was a time not so long ago when Heydrick and the whole Naxi period were written of as part of German exceptionalism that placed men like Heydrick and everyone and thing to do with Nazism as part of a twisted divergent path unique to Germany's failure to grow into a proper state like the UK or France (a divergent take on an older school of history which rooted Germany's failure to become a proper nation state on the inadequacies of the Holy Roman emperor's). Thankfully that time has passed and while we still look upon what happened under the Nazis with abhorrence the Germans are no longer looked uniquely as uniquely evil - indeed the more time passes the easier it is to see that it doesn't take it doesn't even take the loss of a war to pervert a country; winning one may do that as well.

That doesn't make how men like Heydrich became executors of such a murderous regime any less fascinating. If anything Heydrich's lack of any background or interest in right wing, nationalist, or racist/volkish politics is all the more interesting. Also his life and career provides interesting sidelights on men like Speer who have gathered about them a retrospective sympathy and respect with regards to their work in Hitler's government. Speed certainly found nothing objectionable about working with Heydrich, in fact he was the sort of Nazi he could do business with. The fact that Heydrich was so often willing to defer to Speer's opinions no doubt helped.

The same could be said for Canaries the abwehr spy master who attracts apologists and fantasists in equal numbers. He worked with Heydrick for years and also socialised with him and his family and in many respects regarded him as a friend. Canaries, like Stauffenberg and the other July plotters against Hitler, may have turned against Hitler, may have plotted with the allies, no doubt took risks and were brave but it was late in the day, long after Hitler had ceased winning, and it was that more than morality which influenced them. It is amazing what paper trails reveal, the idea that documented can all be made to disappear is the fantasy of those who have never worked in government office or organisation. Truth is to be found not just in what people say or remember afterwards; but what they say and do at the time. Memos, like emails today, will always reveal more than people want. In fact Nazi Germany and WWII is a testament to the durability of archival truth. You have only to go to one of the many depositories of captured German documents to be astounded at how much survived the deliberate attempts to destroy never mind the destruction by air raids and battle.

This is a first rate biography a man who played a crucial part in Germany's and Europe's history and I particularly welcome the reminder of just what the Nazi's did to and planned for the Czech people.

[Ellie Midwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this biography a long time ago but only now realized that I never wrote a review for it. "Hitler's Hangman" is a very well-written biography which, what's more important to me as a historian, paints an objective portrait of one of the most feared men in the history of Nazi Germany. I must admit, I hate it when certain historical figures are painted purely black and white because I personally want to see all of the shades that were in between; what made the killers into what they are; what turns their lives made that took them to a dark path leading to inhumanity and atrocities... "Hitler's Hangman" shows all of these shades with brutal honesty. It's a story of a man who started his career in the Himmler's apparatus purely out of the calculation, and whose views on National Socialism were actually first influenced by his new spouse, Lina. It was actually rather fascinating watching a young man born into a middle-class family with a good name and social standing slowly transform into someone, who even Hitler called "the man with an iron heart" - an ultimate killing machine responsible for the Final Solution and war crimes that took millions of lives. What's even more fascinating, were the little snippets of Heydrich's ordinary life that R. Gerwarth presents to the reader, which allow an intimate look into the "normal" life of Heydrich: a caring husband, a doting father to his new daughter Silke, a talented musician who played beautiful serenades to his guests after returning from his office, where he had just signed another order for the mass extermination of the ones, whom the Nazi regime deemed not worthy living... A riveting read explaining in detail the circumstances that made a rather ordinary man into a true monster.
A meticulously researched, dark and haunting at times, this biography is definitely a must-read for anyone who's interested in the history of Nazi Germany and WW2.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent biography that was incredibly well researched on a tough subject. The author places Reinhardt Heydrich under the microscope and attempts to psychoanalyze the motives and character traits of the sinister Nazi Senior Official/Gestapo Head.

This book is not light reading, as a matter of fact, it is unsettling for how it showcases German moral decay during this time period and how far detached one can become. It also sheds light on the underreported Central European theatre of war and notably German imperialistic plans upon Czechoslovakia which Heydrich oversaw with his tyrannical police state apparatus.

The best part of this book explained Heydrich's formative years leading up to him joining the Nazi party in 1932. Reinhardt was a well educated individual born into a family of music instructors that owned a prestigious German music academy. Life however would dramatically change after World War 1 for all within Weimar Germany and Reinhardt Heydrich's family was no exception as they fell upon economic straits both personally and professionally.

To make a name for himself, Reinhardt sought a greater purpose joining the German Navy in the late 1920s but that would lead to an early dismissal. Finding himself unemployed amidst a growing Nazi party and hyperinflation; Heydrich sold himself and his knowledge of security (gleaned from detective fiction he read and his Naval experience) to party official Heinrich Himmler. This interview served as the basis of the Nazi police state/Gestapo because a growing role in a political party gave the unemployed Heydrich the status and the warped sense of meaning he desired.

Details like this are plentiful in this haunting book about a significant figure within Nazi Germany that is overlooked. It should be read to understand the inner workings of the Nazi terror state but also to dive into the psyche of an individual who was self-servingly numb to the significant nfluence he had in the Holocaust, Gestapo, and Czech imperialistic designs.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most of us recognize that the German National Socialists (Nazis) were evil and quite brutal. Within their top ranks some stand out as worse than the normal villains and that list would have to include Reinhard Heydrich. The author provides the results of his detailed research and analysis to explore the life of this cold-blooded killer from his rather ordinary middle class beginnings to the influences, including his wife, that turned him into one of the most devoted-to-the-cause Nazi killers. He became the head of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo. He was one of the main players who devised the "Final Solution" to rid the continent of the Jewish population and had a pivotal role in Hitler's Nazi Germany. As the Nazis invaded and occupied surrounding countries, Heydrich was put in charge of Moravia and Bohemia where he implemented policies that forced the local population to comply or face the consequences of detention all the way to murder. The author provides facts and information about Heydrich's family life as well as the brutal murders he was responsible for and details the plot and his assassination by partisans and the retribution the Nazis took as payback. A definite recommendation for World War II and Nazi handling of the Jews and other undesirable populations.

[Geli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally, a comprehensive biography of Reinhard Heydrich! Previous books about Heydrich have dealt more with his assassination and its aftermath. Gerwarth's bio delves more into the man himself. Despite the dearth of information on Heydrich (compared to some of his contemporaries, including Himmler, who kept a diary), the author's extensive research has brought new information and insight into his subject. In addition to being extremely well researched, the notes in this book are some of the best and easiest to follow that I've ever seen. The author also somehow manages to remain objective about Heydrich, never resorting to the histrionics that are all too easy to fall into when writing about infamous top level Nazis. Heydrich's actions and evil speak for themselves, with no need for embellishment.

Edit: I also recently watched a fictionalized movie version of the events following Heydrich's assassination, "Hangmen Also Die", the script was written by Bertold Brecht. Worth seeing for some of the interesting performances!

[Diane Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically, what this guy doesn't know about Heydrich isn't worth knowing. Great read! A sad waste of a life serving a murdering dictator.

[Kevin Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fancied reading about some history, and how circumstance and times can dictate a human beings life by a mixture of all what is man made, things like beliefs, flags, borders and money of which all can contrive to take over and use a human beings natural born instincts of feelings, passion, heart and soul. Reinhard Heydrich is I believe circumstantial evidence of such a process of that work.
A man who wanted to be successful in what ever he attempted to do and a working class man who loved to provide for his proud family.
Rejected from the navy for being to up himself and insubordinate ways of always trying to be the big I am, Heydrich loved to be more intelligent than the opposition, who doesn't.
When at a loose end, with no job and trying to save face a new idea was formed in Berlin in the 1930's a new radical way of thinking, a new group formation was put together that had no powers what so ever but had a political briefing and experimentation of how it would work and move forward, it was known as the SS.
Heydrich liked a uniform, even thou the pay was very low, it showed his wife and family that he would try his best to provide and to have employment with a responsibility politically and for his country. Heydrich being very loyal and intelligent rose up and up in his new employment, but so did at the time did someone called Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party of which the SS adopted its backing.
I knew this story would obviously be very horryfrying, graphic and detailed but I also knew Heydrich was murdered before the end of World War Two. The information with in this book is second to none, the in house arguments, the status of Nazi hierarchy clashing or knowing it was best to agree to get along is astonishing.
Their is no happiness in this book about a dedicated, loving family man, but their is truth, lots and lots of truth and realities.
For me this book served a great purpose of how a hard working class human with intelligence and a big heart can be totally immersed by years of war, politics, proudness, beliefs and to provide for his family and be made into over night into one of the most persecuting of people ever in the history of planet Earth to serve out the severest punishments, brutality, torture, horrific murders on a industrial scale with no compassion what so ever.
Just in case you ever come across gun shots and shouting in your street and you witness uniformed people kicking in front doors, dragging people outside and shooting people straight in the head dead, as they move onto the next house to do it all over again and again and again, don't just wait inside your home thinking you have not done anything wrong to deserve that, just get out the back door and run, run as if your life depended on it and don't ever look back.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Heydrich and Himmler had set out to address the largely imagined problem that Germany was a 'people without space', but what they effectively did was to create spaces without people."
Robert Gerwarth
This book was kinda disappointing. I found this as an audiobook on Scribd, narrated by Napoleon Ryan. Being a comedian, I think that he was purposely using an ultra sinister deep voice throughout the book to be funny. I wish Napoleon would have narrated Peter Longerich's Himmler book because that book was extremely dry, and I probably could have made to the end. I probably wouldn't have made it through Heydrich if Napoleon Ryan hadn't made it more interesting.
This book wasn't very in depth. It left much to be desired. First of all, starting out with the most interesting chapter, the death of Heydrich, wasn't a good plan. It took a nosedive after chapter one. I already knew about how Heydrich died, so it wasn't like a spoiler, but it was the best written chapter in the book.
This book was kind of dry as well. I didn't learn very much that was new to me. Other characters did not really come alive. As good of a narrator as Napoleon Ryan is, I found myself listening at 2.5 speed towards the end. Frankly I was bored.

[Zanne Raby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hitler's Hangman details Reinhart Heydrich's life, concentrating (naturally) on the period of WW2. I enjoyed the book quite a bit, although it does get into the weeds at times. What I found fascinating is how this man developed from a normal young boy into a creature with few emotions.
I am not giving anything away when I mention that Heydrich was born into a world in turmoil. Too young to be in WW1, he must have had hero envy of those who fought for the fatherland. With Germany at its knees, his family falls into financial ruin, and the boy who played the violin with such feeling figures out that his career path is in the navy. But due to his pride and arrogance, as well as a fickle heart, he finds himself out of a job. And deep in love. What does he do to win the heart of the women he wants? Did you say, "join the Nazi party"? Well, he does. The arrogant, ambitious man throws himself into any task that he is given, thirsting for power and prestige. What will he stop at to get to the top? How does his arrogance lead to his demise?
"Hitler's Hangman" will reveal all of this. It is very well researched with copious footnotes. If you are interested in understanding how a seemingly normal young boy is transformed into a soulless bureaucratic murderer, this book is for you.

[Ghost of the Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

The topic is without a doubt uncomfortable, to put it very mildly, but the book is very well written and researched, and frankly at times impossible to put down even if you do know how it all ends.
Kudos to the author, this is a very good (and necessary)work on a man who, revolting though his actions may have been, would have been 300 times worse had he not died when he did.
A must for any WWII geek/nerd!

[Xanthi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audiobook. The narrator was excellent.
The book covers its subject's life from before he was born (parents, society, political atmosphere) through to his assassination and beyond. To say Heydrich "drank the Kool aid " would be an understatement. From being a late comer to Nazidom to full blown anti Semetic ideals with murderous intent, this book describes the journey this man undertook.
Well written, with a lot of detail.

[Jack Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lena Heydrich remained steadfast that Reinhard was a
"Victim of the political and cultural structures that surrounded him"

His failed navy career and trying to impress his Nazi parents in law basically led him down the path of Nazism.

Reinhard 'Ratboy' Heydrich.

4/5

[Szymon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading 'The life of Heydrich'. It is written by Robert Gerwath and tells the whole life of Rheinhard Heydrich. It is very thorough, every detail has its own place here.
I wasn't bored during reading and I liked this book. Though it is long, it is read very fast, because of the connection between events and that it is writtenn in a good style to readf. If you are interested in history it can really be a position which grants a lot of knowledge. One thing I didn't like about it was that in the end, it started to come back to some events from past, and so it was harder to orient which of the events at the end was before another. But this book strengthened my opinion that Polish historical books are written a bit differently than those from the west. In Polish books different part of history is told, and greater preassure is put only on events that happened in Poland. We can't read in most books about WW2 a very detailed fall or occupation of France, Belgium, Netherlands or Yugoslavia. The west books put greater impact on the whole history. That's why it is so interesting to read theese west books.
Book is about life of Rheinhard Heydrich, SS officer, man responsible for "Final solution of Jews" plan. His youth didn't show that one day he will be man giving orders to kill hundreds of thousands of Jews and Slavs. He was even Catholic in his youth. But when he claimbed higher in SS formations, he was forgetting about his family. The plot also follows the growth of SS during the Nazi times.
I recommend this book to every fan of history, because it is an important person, and his behaviour clearly shows why he gave the "Final Solution" order.