Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942)

SS-Obergruppenführer (General). Head of the Security Police and the SS’s internal security service, the SD, from 1936-1942. Heydrich was originally trained as a naval officer, but was dismissed in 1931 because of a scandal involving a woman. Shortly after, Heydrich was introduced to Heinrich Himmler, who hired him to develop the SS’s new security service, SD. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, Heydrich also became head of the political police in Bavaria. He was one of the organizers of the ‘Night of Long Knives’ on 30 June 1934, where almost the whole of SA’s leadership was murdered.

In 1936 Heydrich was promoted to head of the Gestapo (the Secret State Police) as well as the criminal police, while he continued to head the SD.

In 1939 Heydrich was appointed head of the newly created RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt – the ‘Reich Security Main Office’), where all security services within the Nazi regime were now coordinated with the purpose of combating internal enemies. Within the framework of RSHA, Heydrich was made responsible, by Hermann Göring, for the Nazi regime’s Jewish policies and thus later for the systematic extermination of the European Jews. It was in this capacity that Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942.

At the end of 1941 Heydrich was appointed Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia-Moravia, thus assuming complete responsibility for the civilian administration of the present day Czech Republic. While residing in Prague, he fell victim to an assassination attempt, carried out by members of the Czech resistance, and died on 4 June 1942. The Nazis took revenge by murdering all the residents in the town of Lidice.

Heydrich was widely considered a potential successor to Hitler within the Nazi regime. ‘Operation Reinhard’, the extermination of the Polish Jews, was named after him.