Hitler's Hangman (72 page)

that led to the destruction of European Jewry and the murder of hundreds

of thousands of Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Czechs and Germans deemed

294

HITLER’S HANGMAN

politically or racially dangerous. Heydrich’s central role in devising these

policies, and his degree of ‘success’ in implementing them, makes him

one of the key figures of the Third Reich and its murderous policies of

persecution. This alone demands an effort to understand the events and

forces that shaped his life, from its origins in a highly cultured and stable

bourgeois household to its violent ending at one of the darkest moments

in Europe’s history.

Notes

Abbreviations

AMV

Archive of the Ministry of the Interior

DÖW

Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, Vienna

GStA

Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Berlin

IfZ

Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich

IMT

International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg
, 42 vols (Nuremberg, 1947–9)

OA

Osoby Archive

PAAA

Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin

StaH

Stadtarchiv Halle

USHMMA United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archive

VfZ

Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte

Introduction

1. The most widely known popular accounts of the Heydrich assassination are Callum

MacDonald,
The Killing of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich: 27 May 1942
(London,

1992); Hellmut Haasis,
Tod in Prag. Das Attentat auf Reinhard Heydrich
(Reinbek, 2002);

Miroslav Ivanov,
Der Henker von Prag. Das Attentat auf Heydrich
(Berlin, 1993); Jiří Fiedler,

Atentát 1942
(Brno, 2002); Michal Burian, Aleš Knížek, Jiří Rajlich and Eduard Stehlík,

Assassination: Operation Anthropoid 1941–1942
(Prague, 2002). For a helpful survey of

the extensive Czech literature on the assassination up until 1991, see Zdeněk Jelínek, ‘K

problematice atentátu na Reinharda Heydricha’,
Historie a vojenství
40 (1991), 65–101.

2. On Himmler, see Peter Longerich,
Heinrich Himmler. Biographie
(Munich, 2008); Richard

Breitman,
The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution
(New York, 1991); Peter

R. Black,
Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Ideological Soldier of the Third Reich
(Princeton, NJ, 1984); on

Best, Ulrich Herbert,
Best. Biographische Studien über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und

Vernunft, 1903–1989
(Bonn, 1996); on Eichmann, David Cesarani,
Becoming Eichmann:

Rethinking the Life, Crimes and Trial of a Desk Murderer
(Cambridge, MA, 2006).

3. Shlomo Aronson, ‘Heydrich und die Anfänge des SD und der Gestapo, 1931–1935’, PhD

thesis, FU Berlin, 1967; subsequently published as Shlomo Aronson,
Reinhard Heydrich

und die Frühgeschichte von Gestapo und SD
(Stuttgart, 1971). See, too, the shorter essays

of Charles Sydnor, ‘Reinhard Heydrich. Der “ideale Nationalsozialist”’, in Ronald Smelser

and Enrico Syring (eds),
Die SS. Elite unter dem Totenkopf. 30 Lebensläufe
(Paderborn, 2000),

208–19; idem, ‘Executive Instinct: Reinhard Heydrich and the Planning for the Final

Solution’, in Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck (eds),
The Holocaust and History:

The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed and the Re-examined
(Bloomington, IN, 1998),

159–86.

296

N OT E S to pp. x I V – x V I I

4. Charles Whiting,
Heydrich: Henchman of Death
(Barnsley, 1999); Charles Wighton,

Heydrich: Hitler’s Most Evil Henchman
(London, 1962); Günther Deschner,
Heydrich: The

Pursuit of Total Power
(London, 1981); Edouard Calic,
Reinhard Heydrich: The Chilling Story

of the Man Who Masterminded the Nazi Death Camps
(New York, 1985); Mario Dederichs,

Heydrich: The Face of Evil
(London, 2006); Joachim Fest, 'The Successor', in idem,
The Face

of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership
(New York, 1970), 98–114.

5. Carl Jacob Burckhardt,
Meine Danziger Mission, 1937–1939
(Munich, 1960), 57.

6. Statement on Heydrich by Dr Werner Best, 1 October 1959: IfZ, ZS 207/2.

7. Wolff ’s post-war testimony: IfZ, ZS 317, ff. 34f.; Walter Schellenberg,
The Labyrinth: The

Memoirs of Hitler’s Secret Service Chief
(London, 1956), 36. For a similar account, see Walter

Hagen (alias Wilhelm Höttl),
Die geheime Front. Organisation, Personen und Aktionen des

deutschen Geheimdienstes
(Linz and Vienna, 1950), 27; on Höttl and his account, see Thorsten

Querg, ‘Wilhelm Höttl – Vom Informanten zum Sturmbannführer im Sicherheitsdienst der

SS’, in Barbara Danckwortt, Thorsten Querg and Claudia Schöningh (eds),
Historische

Rassismusforschung. Ideologie – Täter – Opfer
(Hamburg and Berlin, 1995), 208–30.

8. Hagen,
Geheime Front
, 21.

9. Felix Kersten,
Totenkopf und Treue – Heinrich Himmler ohne Uniform
(Hamburg, 1952), 128.

See, too, the memoirs of Hans Bernd Gisevius,
Bis zum bitteren Ende. Bericht eines

Augenzeugen aus den Machtzentren des Dritten Reiches
(Hamburg, 1954), 118.

10. Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘Introduction’, Felix Kersten,
The Kersten Memoirs, 1940–1945,
ed.

Hugh Trevor-Roper (London, 1957); Fest, ‘Successor’, 139ff.; Karl Dietrich Bracher,
The

German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Consequences of National Socialism
(New

York, 1970), 60. The myth of Heydrich’s alleged Jewish family background continues to

resurface periodically. See Dederichs,
Heydrich
, 69; Michael Puntenius, ‘Das Gesicht des

Terrors. Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942)’, in idem,
Gelehrte, Weltanschauer, auch Poeten.

Literarische Porträts berühmter Hallenser
(Halle, 2006), 199–201, here 200; and Paula Diehl,

Macht – Mythos – Utopie. Die Körperbilder der SS-Männer
(Berlin, 2005), 163, n. 51. The

myth of Heydrich’s Jewish descent has been convincingly disproved by Aronson,

Frühgeschichte
, 18f., 24, 63f.; and Karin Flachowsky, ‘Neue Quellen zur Abstammung

Reinhard Heydrichs’,
VfZ
48 (2000), 319–27.

11. Fest, ‘Successor’, 139. On the idea that Heydrich wanted to succeed Hitler, see, too, Horst

Naudé,
Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse als politischer Beamter im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren

(Berlin, 1975), 145; and Gisevius,
Bis zum bitteren Ende
, 264.

12. Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
(London, 1963).

13. The most influential interpretation along these lines was Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of

the European Jews
(London, 1961).

14. Cesarani,
Eichmann
, 4; the best known example is Zygmunt Baumann,
Modernity and the

Holocaust
(Ithaca, NY, 1989).

15. Deschner,
Heydrich
. The myth of Heydrich’s lack of ideological conviction originated in

Werner Best’s post-war statement on Heydrich of 1 October 1959: IfZ, ZS 207/2.

16. Jens Banach,
Heydrichs Elite. Das Führerkorps der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 1936–1945

(Paderborn, 1996); George C. Browder,
Hitler’s Enforcers: The Gestapo and the SS Security

Service in the Nazi Revolution
(New York, 1996); Friedrich Wilhelm,
Die Polizei im

NS-Staat. Die Geschichte ihrer Organisation im Überblick
(2nd edn, Paderborn, 1999);

Herbert,
Best
; Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul (eds),
Karrieren der Gewalt.

Nationalsozialistische Täterbiographien
(Darmstadt, 2004); Michael Wildt,
Generation des

Unbedingten. Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes
(Hamburg, 2002); Cesarani,

Eichmann
; Götz Aly and Susanne Heim,
Vordenker der Vernichtung. Auschwitz und die

deutschen Pläne für eine europäische Ordnung
(Frankfurt am Main, 1993); Harald Welzer,

Täter. Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenmörder werden
(Frankfurt am Main,

2005).

17. Edouard Calic,
Reinhard Heydrich. Schlüsselfigur des Dritten Reiches
(Düsseldorf, 1982).

18. Peter Hüttenberger, ‘Nationalsozialistische Polykratie’,
Geschichte und Gesellschaft
2 (1976),

417–42; Hans Mommsen, ‘The Realization of the Unthinkable: The “Final Solution of the

Jewish Question” in the Third Reich’, in Gerhard Hirschfeld (ed.),
The Policies of Genocide:

Jews and Soviet Prisoners of War in Nazi Germany
(London, 1986); Martin Broszat, ‘Hitler

und die “Endlösung”. Aus Anlass der Thesen von David Irving’,
VfZ
25 (1977), 739–75; Ian

N OT E S to pp. x V I I –6

297

Kershaw, ‘“Working towards the Führer”: Reflections on the Nature of the Hitler

Dictatorship’,
Contemporary European History
2 (1993), 103–18.

19. For clear and careful y argued syntheses, see Christopher R. Browning,
The Origins of the Final

Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942
(Lincoln, NB, 2004);

Peter Longerich,
Politik der Vernichtung. Eine Gesamtdarstel ung der nationalsozialistischen

Judenverfolgung
(Munich and Zurich, 1998); Saul Friedländer,
Nazi Germany and the Jews
,

vol. 1:
The Years of Persecution, 1933–1939
, and vol. 2:
The Years of Extermination, 1939–1945

(New York, 1997 and 2007); Donald Bloxham,
The Final Solution: A Genocide
(Oxford, 2009).

20. Cesarani,
Eichmann
, 5.

21. Aly and Heim,
Vordenker
; Karl Heinz Roth, ‘Konrad Meyers erster “Generalplan Ost”

(April/Mai 1940)’,
Mitteilungen der Dokumentationsstelle zur NS-Sozialpolitik
1 (1985),

45–52; Isabel Heinemann,
‘Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches Blut’. Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt

der SS und die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas
(Göttingen, 2003).

22. Longerich,
Himmler
, 766.

Chapter I: Death in Prague

1. Deschner,
Heydrich
, 240.

2. MacDonald,
Killing
; Haasis,
Tod
; Ivanov,
Henker
; Burian et al.,
Assassination
; Fiedler,
Atentát 1942
; Chad Bryant,
Prague in Black: Nazi Rule and Czech Nationalism
(Cambridge,

MA, 2007), 167ff.

3. Extensive material on the planning of the assassination issue can be found in SOE’s

‘Detailed Report on Operation Anthropoid’ (30 May 1942), in National Archives, Kew, HS

4/39, as well as in the German Criminal Police’s own extensive investigative report of 1942,

in BAB, R 58/336.

4. National Archives, Kew, HS 4/79.

5. Frantisek Moravec,
Master of Spies: The Memoirs of General Frantisek Moravec
(Garden City,

NY, 1975), 196. On Beneš, see Zbyněk Zeman,
The Life of Edvard Beneš 1884–1948:

Czechoslovakia in Peace and War
(Oxford, 1997).

6. On Beneš’s post-war ambitions, see Richard J. Crampton, ‘Edvard Beneš’, in Steven Casey

and Jonathan Wright (eds),
Mental Maps in the Era of the Two World Wars
(Basingstoke,

2008), 135–56.

7. IfZ, OKW T-77/1050, 6526169–70, NA.

8. MacDonald,
Kil ing
, 97, 118ff., 142f.; Detlef Brandes,
Die Tschechen unter deutschem Protektorat
,

2 vols (Munich, 1969 and 1975), vol. 1, 251ff. See, too, Václav Kural,
Vlastenci proti okupaci.

Ústřední vedení odboje domácího 1940–1943
(Prague, 1997); Jan Němećek, ‘Německá okupaćní

politika v protektorátu a ćeský protiněmecký odpor’, in
Historické, právní a mezinárodní souvis-

losti Dekretů prezidenta republiky
(Prague, 2003), 21–40.

9. Hugh Dalton,
The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton 1940–1945,
ed. Ben Pimlott

(London, 1986), 329.

10. Stephen Twigge, Edward Hampshire and Graham Macklin,
British Intelligence: Secrets,

Spies and Sources
(Kew, 2008), 167–210.

11. National Archives, Kew, HS 4/79. On the SOE in Czechoslovakia, see Michael R. D. Foot,

SOE: An Outline History of the Special Operations Executive, 1940–1946
(London, 1984),

199–202; Twigge et al.,
British Intelligence
, 167–210.

12. National Archives, Kew, HS 4/79; Lieutenant Colonel Peter Wilkinson, Staff Officer, Czech–

Polish Section, SOE HQ, London, as quoted in Roderick Bailey,
Forgotten Voices of the

Secret War: An Inside History of Special Operations during the Second World War
(London, 2008),

111.

13. Hansjürgen Köhler,
Inside the Gestapo: Hitler’s Shadow over Europe
(London, 1941), extracts

in Heydrich’s SOE file, National Archives, Kew, WO 208/4472.

14. National Archives, Kew, HS 4/39.

15. Peter Wilkinson (MX) to Colin Gubbins (M), and Peter Wilkinson (MX) to AD/P, 25 July