The topic I would like to know more about is Reinhard Heydrich’s involvement in the final solution and his hatred towards the Jews, as well as his assassination history. Reinhard Heydrich was a high-ranking Nazi official and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He was born in 1904 in Czechoslovakia to a Protestant family, and his father was an influential officer in the German army. Heydrich joined the Nazi party in 1931 and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming one of Adolf Hitler’s most trusted advisors. In 1942, he was appointed head of the Gestapo, Nazi Germany’s secret police force, and he also served as Deputy Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia (a region in Czechoslovakia that had been annexed by Germany). Moreover, Heydrich’s role in the Holocaust was primarily as the head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), which oversaw all Nazi security services and was responsible for implementing the “Final Solution” (Steinback 160). Heydrich took part in final solution because he supported Hitler and Nazi party, while his Jews hatred was mainly due to their domination in Germany, which eventually led to his assassination.
Concerning the final solution, Reinhard Heydrich involved himself in two main ways. Firstly, Heydrich was a brutal and ruthless leader known for his cold-blooded disregard for human life. He was responsible for numerous atrocities during World War II, including the massacre of Czech civilians in Lidice and Oradour-sur-Glane (Allred 15). Reinhard Heydrich was the mastermind behind two heinous massacres of Czech civilians during World War II. The first destruction of the village of Lidice, was ordered as retaliation for the assassination of Heydrich himself. Many people in the village were shot, and all women and children were deported to concentration camps, while the village itself was burned to the ground. The second massacre, conducted in Oradour-sur-Glane, was even more horrific. Six hundred forty-two civilians, including women and children, were rounded up and herded into a barn that was then set on fire (Allred 14). Only few people survived, both massacres were considered war crimes and punishable by death.
Secondly, Heydrich was an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party and was one of the earliest members of the SS. Heydrich’s support for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party contributed to his involvement in the genocide of millions of Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals (Russell 26). Heydrich believed wholeheartedly in the Nazi ideology of racial purity, and he was convinced that Jewish people posed a grave threat to the German race. He saw it as his duty to do whatever he could to annihilate all Jews from Europe and implement Hitler’s vision for a “Jew-free” continent. Adolf Hitler insisted in his Jew-free vision because to him, Jews represented everything that was wrong with the world. He believed that they were responsible for all of society’s problems and that by getting rid of them, he could create a perfect world free from corruption and greed (Arad 5). Additionally, Hitler saw the Jews as a threat to Germany’s national security. He thought that they were planning to take over the country and enslave the German people.
Reinhard Heydrich’s hatred for Jews was due to several reasons. Reinhard Heydrich felt that the Jews were responsible for the death of his father. Reinhard Heydrich believed that Jews were responsible for the death of his father because he blamed them for the First World War. Heydrich was convinced that the Jews had orchestrated the whole thing in order to create a Jewish state in Palestine. In his eyes, they were a race of parasites who were determined to destroy everything that was good and pure (Arad 5). Therefore, when his father was killed in action on the frontlines, Heydrich held the Jews accountable.
Similarly, he thought and felt that Jews were dominating Germany. There are a few reasons why Jews dominated Germany leading up to and during the Holocaust. First, they were one of the only groups that were able to own businesses and hold positions in Germany. Second, they were highly educated and had strong institutional networks. For example, Jews controlled almost half of the department stores and grocery stores in Germany by 1931 (Kreutzmüller 99). Likewise, earlier, Ludwig Wassermann became the first Jew to be appointed as a judge on the Reichsgericht, the highest court in Germany. Lastly, from 1919 to 1933, there were several Jewish members of the German parliament (the Reichstag). Third, they kept to themselves and did not assimilate with the rest of the population, which made them easy to target (Yonkman 39). Finally, they were seen as a threat to the Nazi regime because they represented different values and ideologies.
In addition, Heydrich believed that the Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I and that they had deliberately sabotaged the war effort. Heydrich was convinced that the Jews had betrayed Germany- they were to blame for the country’s economic problems and military defeats. For example, he believed that the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was funded and organized by Jews (Arad 12). Similarly, he blamed the Jews for Germany’s economic problems; he felt that they were not contributing their fair share to the economy and were taking advantage of the Germans’ goodwill. This idea of Jewish treachery was popular among many Germans in the 1920s and 1930s. Anti-Semitic propaganda circulated throughout the country, painting Jews as evil, cunning manipulators who were out to get Germany. The Nazis used this propaganda to fuel their campaign against the Jewish people, culminating in the Holocaust.
At the end, in 1941, British intelligence hatched a daring plan to assassinate Nazi Germany’s Deputy Führer, Reinhard Heydrich. The man chosen for the task was Jan Kubis, a member of the Czech resistance. On May 27, 1942, Kubis and his colleague, Jozef Gabčík, succeeded in killing Heydrich with a bomb planted inside his car (Allred 15). The assassination sparked retaliatory measures by the Nazis that led to the deaths of thousands of Czech civilians. Despite this, the assassination is considered to be one of the most successful acts of sabotage against Nazi Germany during World War II. There were a number of factors that led to Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination. One was his role in the Holocaust, another was his involvement in the Czech resistance, and yet another was the bounty that had been placed on him (he had a very high profile).
In conclusion, Reinhard Heydrich was one of the main architects behind the Holocaust and the genocide of European Jewry. He was a key figure in Nazi Germany’s SS and Gestapo and played a leading role in planning and carrying out the “Final Solution.” Although his role in the Holocaust cannot be excused, it is worth noting that Heydrich was also responsible for some significant wartime achievements. Some of these accomplishments includes shutting down Czech resistance groups, capturing Parisian saboteurs, and reorganizing German intelligence. Nonetheless, his central role in orchestrating genocide makes him one of history’s most notorious villains.
Works Cited
Allred, Etienne G. “SOE and its Contribution to the Allied War Effort during the Second World War”, 2021.
Arad, Yitzhak. The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. University of Nebraska Press, 2020.
Kreutzmüller, Christoph. “Picketing Jewish-Owned Businesses in Nazi Germany: A Boycott?” Boycotts Past and Present. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019.
Russell, Nestar. Understanding Willing Participants, Volume 2: Milgram’s Obedience Experiments and The Holocaust. Springer Nature, 2019.
Steinback, Athahn. “Dark Apostles–Hitler’s Oligarchs: Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich and Revolutionary Totalitarian Oligarchy in the Third Reich.” History in the Making, 2017.
Yonkman, Michaela. “The Treaty of Versailles and the Rise of Nazism in Germany, 1918-1933”, 2021.
Young, Harry F. Maximillian Harden: Censor Germaniae the Critic in Opposition from Bismarck to the Rise of Nazism, Springer, 2013.