Reinhard Heydrich
The Wannsee chair
Bureaucratised the 'Final Solution.'
Reactionary NaziOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Nazi hall →- Role
- RSHA chief
- Era
- 1904–1942
- Region
- Germany
- Social band
- Reactionary
- Placement
- +22 · +96 · −80
§ Where Reinhard Heydrich stands
3 axesHeydrich's economics served race and war. The Reich Central Office for Jewish Emigration, set up under him in Berlin in 1939 on Eichmann's Vienna model, stripped Jews of their assets as the price of leaving, and in occupied Bohemia he raised rations for Czech armaments workers to keep war plants such as Škoda producing. Private industry remained the backbone of the system he policed, placing him slightly right of centre.
Heydrich built and ran the machinery of the Nazi police state. He created the SD from 1931, helped plan the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, and from 1939 commanded the RSHA, which united the Gestapo, criminal police and SD. His men staged the fake Polish attack on the Gleiwitz radio station used as a pretext for war, and in Prague he declared martial law and ordered mass executions.
Heydrich was a cold racial ideologue who turned antisemitism into administration. During the Kristallnacht pogrom of November 1938 he ordered the arrest of as many Jewish men as the prisons could hold, and some 30,000 were sent to concentration camps; Göring's commission of 31 July 1941 charged him with a 'total solution' of the Jewish question, and the Wannsee Conference he convened listed some 11 million European Jews for destruction.
How close are you to Reinhard Heydrich?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
HistoricalReinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (1904–1942) headed Nazi Germany's security apparatus and was one of the chief organisers of the Holocaust. Born in Halle into a musical family, he served as a naval officer until he was dismissed in 1931 for conduct unbecoming an officer, then joined the SS, where Heinrich Himmler asked him to build an intelligence service, the SD. He rose to command the Gestapo and the whole Security Police, and in 1939 the new Reich Main Security Office, or RSHA.
Heydrich organised the Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing squads that followed the army into Poland and the Soviet Union, where they shot more than a million Jews. On 20 January 1942 he chaired the Wannsee Conference, which coordinated the deportation and murder of Europe's Jews. As acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia from 1941 he ruled by terror, and he died in Prague in June 1942 after Czechoslovak soldiers trained in Britain attacked his car. In reprisal the Germans destroyed the villages of Lidice and Ležáky.
Notable for
- 01Chaired the Wannsee Conference
- 02Headed the RSHA
- 03Assassinated in Prague, 1942
Key works & moments
- 1931Dismissed from the navy, joins the SS and builds Himmler's intelligence service, the SD.
- 1939Stages the Gleiwitz radio-station raid used as a pretext for war; takes charge of the new RSHA.
- 1941Commissioned by Göring on 31 July to plan a 'total solution'; becomes acting Reich Protector in Prague.
- 1942Chairs the Wannsee Conference on 20 January to coordinate the murder of Europe's Jews.
- 1942Fatally wounded in Prague on 27 May by Czechoslovak parachutists; dies on 4 June.
- 1942In reprisal, German forces raze Lidice, shooting its men and deporting its women and children.
§ Minds closest to Reinhard Heydrich
All minds →
§ Also in the Nazi hall
Enter the hall →§ Common questions
4 answersWhat was Reinhard Heydrich's political ideology?
Reinhard Heydrich was a Nazi: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reactionary Nazi. Economically he sat slightly right of centre (+22), policing a war economy built on private industry while organising the expropriation of Jews. On governance he was at the authoritarian extreme (+96) as head of the Gestapo, SD and Reich Main Security Office, and socially he was at the reactionary pole (−80), a racial ideologue who administered genocide as a bureaucratic task.
Was Reinhard Heydrich left-wing or right-wing?
Right-wing, on the far right. Heydrich came from a nationalist middle-class background, joined the SS in 1931 and devoted his career to destroying the regime's enemies, beginning with Communists and Social Democrats and ending with the systematic murder of Europe's Jews. He had no interest in redistributing wealth or abolishing private property; his loyalty was to the racial state and its leader, the defining commitments of the extreme authoritarian right.
What was the Wannsee Conference?
It was a meeting of fifteen senior Nazi officials, chaired by Heydrich at a villa on Berlin's Lake Wannsee on 20 January 1942, to coordinate the 'Final Solution of the Jewish question'. Mass shootings in the Soviet Union and the first gassings had already begun; the conference secured the cooperation of ministries and party offices in deporting Jews from across Europe to their deaths. Its minutes, kept by Adolf Eichmann and found after the war, are among the most chilling documents of the Holocaust.
Which minds are closest to Reinhard Heydrich?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Reinhard Heydrich are Joseph Goebbels (100% alike), Hans Landa (99% alike) and Heinrich Himmler (99% alike). The furthest is Emma Goldman (0% alike).