LAWRENCE: Historian describes life of ‘Hitler’s Hangman’

By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
   The path to genocide during World War II was anything but straightforward, and the path that led Reinhard Heydrich — a prominent Nazi — to become an architect of mass murder also was not exactly straightforward.
   Historian Robert Gerwarth explored the life and times of Mr. Heydrich in a scholarly biography published last year, and he shared some of those findings with about 100 audience members at Rider University’s 20th annual Emanuel Levine History Lecture on March 7.
   Dr. Gerwarth is a professor of modern history at University College Dublin in Ireland. He is also the director of the Dublin Centre for War Studies, and the author of “Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Reinhard Heydrich.”
   Although Mr. Heydrich is not as well known as Nazi leaders Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler or Joseph Goebbels, he played a key role in developing Nazi policies, Dr. Gerwarth said. He bears responsibility for being the chief architect of the Holocaust — the Nazis’ “final solution to the Jewish problem,” the historian said.
   ”Reinhard Heydrich was the arch iconic villain of the 20th century, in a century that has no shortage of villains. (His) was a most remarkable transformation from an apolitical figure, to perhaps one of the most radical figures in the Nazi regime in the span of about 10 years,” Dr. Gerwarth said.
   But a cursory examination of Mr. Heydrich’s childhood would not lead one to believe that he could have developed into such a monster, Dr. Gerwarth said. Mr. Heydrich was born in 1904 and grew up in a wealthy Catholic family. His maternal grandfather operated a music conservatory, and Mr. Heydrich and his brother and sister had a full-time nanny.
   Mr. Heydrich was “remarkably apolitical” throughout World War I and the 1920s, which makes him an unusual figure to become a Nazi, Dr. Gerwarth said. Most of those who became Nazis or Nazi sympathizers were already politically involved, he said.
   Unsure of his future, Mr. Heydrich became a German naval officer. But an affair with a young girl led to his dismissal from the German Navy in 1931, which could not have occurred at a worse time — the Great Depression. That dismissal was a turning point for him, as his life began to fall apart because of his own actions, Dr. Gerwarth said.
   After his dismissal from the navy, Mr. Heydrich searched for jobs. About that time his fiancee, Lina von Osten, who came from a family of ardent Nazi sympathizers, convinced him to meet with Heinrich Himmler to seek a job as a staff officer in the SS.
   He quickly rose through the ranks and by time he was assassinated in 1942, the 38-year-old Nazi had accumulated several important positions within the Third Reich.
   There was never any doubt that the Nazis wanted to rid Germany of its Jews, but until 1939, no one in the SS leadership had considered mass murder as a serious option, Dr. Gerwarth said. Initially, efforts were made to encourage the German and Austrian Jews to emigrate. They were “marginalized” by society, which the Nazi leaders hoped would encourage them to leave on their own, he said.
   But when that strategy failed and the Nazis found themselves with even more Jews under their control as they conquered European countries, they came to the conclusion that systematic mass murder was the best way to achieve the goal of eliminating the Jews and other undesirables, Dr. Gerwarth said.
   The Jews were rounded up and shot to death by firing squads, but it was time-consuming, he said. The Nazi leadership decided that a combination of working to death some of the Jews, and sending others to gas chambers en masse, was the quickest way to rid themselves of undesirables. It was up to Mr. Heydrich to carry out those orders.
   It was also part of the Nazis’ long-term goal to “Germanize” the rest of Europe through ethnic engineering, which meant selecting those whom the Nazis considered to be the best human specimens among the conquered populations and killing the rest to provide “living space” for the Germans, Dr. Gerwarth said.
   Mr. Heydrich and Mr. Himmler tried to demonstrate their commitment to the concept of “Germanizing” east and central Europe, which was to be accomplished by selecting those who were — or could become — “Germanized.” But they knew they would have to wait until after the war was won, he said.
   However, Mr. Heydrich did not live to see the unraveling of that plan, he said. The Nazi leader was assassinated by two Czechs who were parachuted into Czechoslovakia. They tried to shoot him, but when the gun jammed, a hand grenade was tossed at the car and seriously wounded him. He died of blood poisoning several days later.
   The aftermath of Mr. Heydrich’s death resulted in speeding up the Holocaust, Dr. Gerwarth said. Mr. Himmler was convinced that the Jews were behind the assassination and within one year of Mr. Heydrich’s death, millions of Jews had been killed.
   Writing a biography of Mr. Heydrich — whom he called “a monster” — was not an easy task, Dr. Gerwarth said, noting that no one had written a scholarly biography of him until now. Mr. Heydrich did not leave a diary, as other historical figures have done, he said.
   And the material that was available about Mr. Heydrich was inaccessible until the 1990s, he said. The material was scattered all over Europe, but the end of the Cold War meant the archives would be opened up.
   Another reason that biographies had not been written about Mr. Heydrich is that “no one wanted to spend six years of their life on him. You have to live with that person (the subject of the biography) for an extended period of time,” Dr. Gerwarth said.
   ”It was clear to me that writing a biography (of a Nazi figure) has specific challenges” — from mastering the literature on the person to the “peculiar problem of (writing about) someone who is unlikely to become my best friend,” he said.
   A historian must develop some degree of empathy for his subject, Dr. Gerwarth said, adding that he sees his role as reconstructing the person’s life — in this case, Mr. Heydrich — while maintaining some distance from it.
   ”Modern biographies show that these historical figures were at least as much products of their time, social background and historical circumstances in general,” he said. “What matters more these days than an individual figure is what he or she as an historical person tells us about the times they live in.”
   ”The case of Reinhard Heydrich illustrates that men from normal backgrounds can become politically extreme,” Dr. Gerwarth said. Given certain circumstances, people such as Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler can make “terrible decisions” and become monsters, he said.