Reinhard Heydrich was one of the most feared men in Nazi Germany, an appalling figure even by the standards of the Nazi leadership he so dutifully served. At the height of his power, Heydrich was Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, the Gestapo, and Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia). Heydrich was also, at Hermann Goering's behest, the architect of the "Final Solution," the machinery intended to annihilate the Jews of Europe. When Hannah Arendt wrote of the "banality of evil" to describe the Nazi's coldly and deadly efficient administration of the Final Solution she no doubt had not only Adolf Eichmann in mind but Heydrich as well. From behind his desk and shielded by the ruthlessly efficient bureaucracy he built Heydrich shouldered a major share of responsibility for some of the Nazi's worst atrocities.
Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 by Czech partisans parachuted into Czechoslovakia with the assistance of the British. For his assassination the Nazi's exacted a horrific revenge. Historians have since debated the wisdom of the operation to remove him. That debate continues.
Heydrich has received remarkably modest attention by historians. Robert Gerwarth's biography changes that. Gerwarth weaves together little-known stories of Heydrich's private life and explores fully his progression from privileged middle-class youth to rapacious mass murderer. Gerwarth sheds new light on the complexity of Heydrich's adult character, his motivations, his incremental steps that led to unimaginable atrocities, and the consequences of his murderous efforts towards recreating the entire face of Europe.
Superb biography.
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