REINHARD HEYDRICH

BLONDE BEAST OF THE SS

Nazi Germany threw up more than its fair share of monsters, but Reinhart Heydrich has some claim to being the worst of the worst. His enemies called him Hangman and even among the SS he was known as the Blonde Beast

Heydrich was the epitome of the new Nazi Germany. Tall and blonde, he appeared to be a perfect German, he could ride, fence, ski and pilot a plane. His only fault was a high voice. But this is what you saw on the outside.

Underneath, he was cold, calculating, cynical, completely amoral, a sexual predator with an insatiable lust for power. Born on 7^th March, 1904, in Halle, Saxony, he joined the Navy in his 20s and although thought highly of by his superiors, the crews thought him overbearing and brutal.

In 1931 he joined the Nazi Party and via his wifes contacts was introduced to Himmler, the head of the SS. He became a valuable assistant, helping to set up the SD. In 1934 he played a leading role in Night of the Long Knives in which Hitler used the SS to eliminate the leaders of the Nazi Partys mass movement, the SA who were the only threat to Hitlers power.

In 1936, he was made head of the Security Police and the SD. In 1938, he established the Office of Jewish Emigration, putting Adolf Eichmann in charge The aim was to persuade the Jews to leave the country but not before taking all the possessions they could first.

In 1939, following the invasion of Poland, he became head of the RSHA. This combined every security force in the Reich into one body and which controlled a programme of mass murder on a scale never before imagined.

One of his first jobs was to destroy the Polish Nation. His SS special Action Groups had one plan to eliminate the educated population of Poland. They sort doctors, professionals, teachers and the clergy and when they were found they were shot.

With the exception of the Jews, the rest of Poland was enslaved. There were 3 million Jews in Poland and when not being shot, they were deprived of all rights and in 1941 were forced into ghettos.

There was a suggestion that he himself, had Jewish blood, and Hitler and Himmler were aware that although he was efficient, ruthless and energetic, he suffered from a self-loathing, probably caused by his fear of his ancestry. One man recalls after a drunken evening, Heydrich saw himself in the mirror and promptly fired two shots into the reflection saying Ive got you now, you scum

But no self-doubt stopped him carrying out his destruction of the Jews. He also hated the churches and looked forward to after the war when they could be dealt with as well.

By 1941, he was also having people with the slightest resistance to the German laws, shot or sent to concentration camps. Because the weapon making in the Czech republic, that the government in exile in London decided that Heydrich must die. On May 1942, his car was blown up and Heydrich died on June 4^th.

More than 10,000 people were shot in retaliation for the killing of Heydrich. The village of Lidice was raised to the ground and every citizen shot or depoted.

As head of the security services, he had been asministrator of the concentration camps but in 1942, he chaired the Wansee Conference, which set in motion the Final Solution of the Jewish Question

This involved the new extermination camps of Eastern Europe, Chelmno, Belzac, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and the biggest one of all Auschwitz/Bikenau.

These  had only one purpose, the genocide murder of as many as 6 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists and other sub-human people by the Third Reich.