Hitler's Hangman, The Life of Heydrich

He described himself as being "the binman of the Reich" Gerwrath very well illustrated the total departure between the values to which he had been raised as a child and those which he had adopted and become so totally devoted to, Heydrich was totally aware of nature of his directives but like so many, he had divorced himself from the basic humanity involved. he said that " we should have sympathy only for our German people and not for the Jews". For him, the aims and outcomes justified the means and like Himmler, he recognised the need for secrecy and that the German people did not need to know the nature of their " Final Solution".
Kershaw pointed to the "protogenocidal aspect of Hitler's being an example of which was his saying " And when we have won, who will question the means".
Gerwarth points to early May 1942 as being the approximate time period when genocide was officially adopted as being a ( secret) State Policy, they had largely gone down this pathway already as a means of achieving other ends and solving what were regarded as "local problems" which had to a great extent been the result of the racial policies of the Nazi State.
Wansee was a means of exerting control over the Final Solution, the nature of this solution was officially defined and actioned by Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and later senior Ez.Gruppen leaders. (A series of meetings, not all attended by Hitler) but it would appear genocide by nature of the camp system stemmed from these meetings.
Those who would deny the Holocaust and insist that " there must be a written order and that without such an order no one can implicate Hitler" take no account of the need to know nature, Hitler's having learned from T4 that others existed to take his order and that if it was ever written this was now destroyed and that it not being in existence does not follow that it was never given. (eg Irving's "$1,000 " reward", this crew ( Mattogno) has simply now moved on to deny the killings of the Einsatzgruppen and the records generated by Heydrich's office. Historical dishonesty of the worst kind).
Also see Peter Longerich's "The Unwritten Order".

 

I try to be a compassionate person. I try to be better than I am.

Sadly, I continue to rejoice in Heydrich's assassination and slow death by sepsis. He deserved such a foul fate. (I know I'm a lesser man for saying so.)

I will say that he displayed a commendable valor in confronting his assassins. He did not lack for courage. Fortunately, neither did Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík.

 

Many think there is a connection between the declaration of war to the USA. The Jews in the USA no more were a problem to the holocaust.

 

Also some think he was a spy for Kriegsmarine why he was sacked and joined the SS.

 

Heydrich had no training at all nor did he have any expertise in espionage or counterintelligence and when you consider he was head of RSHA it does make you wonder how. ( Himmler likewise had no experience or expertise in this field of any kind. A love of spy novels and Sherlock Holmes was Heydrich's grounding, he was an extremely intelligent individual but he was no expert as far as intelligence and spying went, he was a rank amateur.
His vast volumes of files on his peers, his being groomed to succeed Hitler, his looking to take Himmler's job, the conflict between HH and RH are all without any foundation.

 

.....didn't they have assistants do to the work? if you're intelligent, I would think you don't need a background to succeed ..presidents/heads of states/etc don't have backgrounds in many areas....
....besides, didn't they have a more ''simple''/less complicated system of counterintelligence in that they tortured/murdered/etc to get information? I thought Himmler knew about Canaris? etc?...how did he get that information?

 

Being cruel and planning the killings was good enough. Was Hitler taught to be a leader. A corporal?? Using plain cruelty and violence is how they ruled in Germany and elsewhere. For instance in Reichstag in the 1930´s they had SA men behind politicians to get their goal. The profefessors were changed to nazi pro professors as well the police chiefs. It was not a move with changing better people to positions, it was thugs to replace more clever people. It was pure violence not better people instead. And BTW HH and Canaris hated each other. A chicken farmer as the SS leader?? NOOOOOOOO way.

 

. Heydrich’s “Salon Kitty” his high class bugged “knocking shop” never produced anything of note. HH and he totally missed Elser’s bomb planted to kill Hitler and they caught him by chance, or rather a border guard did. Heydrich assumed on no proof at all that he was a British agent or was in the pay of British intelligence. He seemed to have no insight into how intelligence gathering worked. The Venlo incident was as a result of Heydrich’s belief the British had tried to kill Hitler.

 

....there were a lot of intelligence failures on all sides....I didn't think Heydrich had as much to do with that as Schellenberg did.....I never read that about the Venlo Incident .....what was Heydrich's motive to kidnap them? revenge?/retaliation?..

 

Elser was a madman who missed by Hitler´s timetable. The only thing I wonder why in July 20th 1944 Himmler gave Stauffenberg the admisssion to leave the bombing site.

 

Heydrich refused to believe that an unknown cabinet maker acting alone nearly killed Hitler for him this was inconceivable, he had to have help and for him, it had to be the British. He had Schellenberg kidnap the two British agents from the then neutral Netherlands and returned them to Berlin for interrogation.
Intelligence failures impossible to catch everything some major boobs on all sides.
For someone like Heydrich, it would be hugely humbling if an average man acting on his own managed to construct, place a bomb, the time it correctly and do this in the face of the security which surrounded Hitler, pure luck saved Hitler.
"Salon Kitty", as far as I am aware it was largely if not totally Heydrich's idea, his efforts to set up an international espionage network came to nothing and there was an ongoing battle to wrest responsibility and power from the Abwehr.
For his talents, work ethic, cultured background, and intelligence Heydrich was a flawed individual. ( Vain, extremely competitive, overly confident, omnipotent, driven, he was sometimes unable to be objective reasonable*, yet men like Speer found he could question decisions defend his views yet when faced with reasoned sound counterviews would change his position. *( He along with Heydrich was willing to dump Jews and the unwanted into the General Government area - that Frank could not accommodate them and lacked the resources did not trouble him, this was not his problem and if Frank was failing it presented an opportunity for the SS to intervene and relieve him of his authority).
He was not above manipulating the facts to serve his own purposes, he overstating a situation to get his own way and to enhance his own authority, reporting only that which showed him in a good light, he was also able to develop working relationships with difficult people eg Bormann and Goering but with his peers was a man who did not like to be challenged and he was a man who would harbour a grudge if you crossed him once he would never forgive you.
He was a radical individual and amongst his few friends was Herbert Backe who was equally radical in his approach to policy and developing it to accommodate the power and influence of the SS - eg Backe's "Hunger Plan East". Heydrich very much admired this commitment and willingness to be uncompromising.

 

what? you mean when Stauffenberg left the Wolfsschanze?....he left on his own, I thought

 

I am not sure that Elser was a mad man, certainly made the most determined effort to kill Hilter and but for a short notice change of travel arrangements on Hitler's part ( due to weather and his desire to fly back to Berlin that evening) he would have succeeded.
That he was acting alone worked in his favour, but beyond the time ( approx. , date and venue he had no intell. on Hitler's movement.

 

Else just missed his time period. Stauffenberg? With good co-operation they could have won still