Line #50 UsefulNotes/ReinhardHeydrich


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/heydrich.jpg]]
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3	->''"Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich"''[[note]]''"Himmler's brain is called Heydrich"''[[/note]]
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5	Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (March 7, 1904 - June 4, 1942) was one of the key figures of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. Most infamously, he was one of the main architects of UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust along with his immediate superior UsefulNotes/HeinrichHimmler. Many historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite, the one most closely resembling the Nazi Aryan ideal of being tall, blonde haired, blue eyed, athletic, intelligent, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick power hungry, utterly ruthless and merciless]]. UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler described him as "the Man with the Iron Heart", while his enemies and victims referred to him as "The Hangman", "The Butcher of Prague" and "The Blonde Beast", among other self-explanatory monikers.
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7	Heydrich was born in city of Halle, near Leipzig, to composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Heydrich and his wife, Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia Heydrich (née Krantz). Richard came from a Protestant family, but he had converted to Elisabeth's Catholic faith upon marrying her. The Heydrich family were firmly planted the local upper middle class, being quite well-off both in terms of financial means and social standing. Richard had been a co-founder of the local Halle Conservatory of Music, where he and Elisabeth also lectured students, and with Reinhard being the oldest son, they expected him to follow in his father's footsteps and go into a career of performing and teaching music. Richard was also noted to be a staunch nationalist and a strict man, who frequently instilled patriotic ideas in his three children.
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9	In his youth, Heydrich was known to be athletic, and especially enjoyed swimming and fencing, [[WickedCultured as well as classic music, ballroom dancing, and playing the violin]]. He was also notably shy, and was held in at least some degree of contempt by his peers, who were known to mock him behind his back for his lanky build, his slight tendency towards being cross-eyed, and, not least, his [[VocalDissonance notably high-pitched voice]] and rather unusual laugh which was described as sounding like "braying", which earned him the not very flattering nickname "Die Ziege" (the Goat). Heydrich was so ashamed of these traits that he for his entire life refused to hold public speeches, fearing that his voice would reduce him to a laughingstock. His youth was also marked by bullying due to his family being devout Catholics living in a predominantly Protestant city, something was probably also at least partially the root of recurring rumors that suggested that the Heydrich family had some Jewish ancestry, something that resulted in yet another rather unflattering nickname for the young Reinhard: "Moses Handel".
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11	After being dismissed from the German Navy,[[note]]He was charged with "conduct unbecoming to an officer and gentleman" for breaking an engagement with a woman he had known for six months before--by ''inviting her to his upcoming wedding''. To make matters worse, the spurned girl's [[PapaWolf outraged father]] was a personal friend of Heydrich's boss, Erich Raeder, so what did Heydrich really expect?[[/note]] he joined the Nazi party in 1931 (his wife Lina, née von Osten, was already a member and encouraged him) and became the head of the ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD, ''Security Service''), the intelligence gathering service of the SS within the party, which became a StateSec once Nazis took power in January 1933. He went on to head the ''Reichssicherheitshauptamt'' (RSHA, Reich Main Security Office), which merged the SD with the ''Sicherheitspolizei'' ([=SiPo=], Security Police) and was deemed to [[FinalSolution solve the problem]] of the "enemies of the Reich". To reach that goal, Heydrich supervised the creation and actions of the ''Einsatzgruppen'' ("deployment groups") death squads in Eastern Europe, which ended up massacring over 1 million people in the wake of the [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons Wehrmacht]] on the Eastern front during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the majority of them being Jews.
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13	He projected the next step in industrialized murder -- the deportation and gassing of millions in specifically designed camps in UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} -- and presented it to his peers at the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942. He was also a major in the Luftwaffe, flying nearly 100 combat missions until 22 July 1941, when his plane was hit by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Heydrich made an emergency landing behind enemy lines, evaded a Soviet patrol and contacted a forward German patrol. After this, Hitler personally ordered Heydrich to return to Berlin to resume his SS duties. He became acting ''Reichsprotektor'' of the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia (basically the governor of the ''de facto'' occupation of what is today the UsefulNotes/CzechRepublic) in September 1941. Upon his arrival in Prague, Heydrich sought to eliminate opposition by suppressing Czech cultural elites and deporting and executing members of the Czech resistance, while making sure the local population remained productive for the German war effort.
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15	He became probably the most famous target of assassination during World War II (next to UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler naturally, although all of the attempts on the latter were unsuccessful). Two Czechoslovak soldiers in exile, Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš, were trained in Great Britain and targeted Heydrich in Prague with the help of local resistance operatives on 27 May 1942, in an operation known as Anthropoid, which aimed at "shaking up" the Czech [[LaResistance resistance]] against Nazi Germany. Heydrich didn't directly die in the attack,[[note]]Gabčík's Sten submachine gun jammed at the worst moment and Kubiš threw a grenade at Heydrich's staff car; Heydrich was caught in the blast and both assassins fled after a brief firefight with Heydrich and his driver[[/note]] but succumbed to his wounds becoming infected afterwards, and resigning himself to death, during a bedside visit by Himmler, he supposedly recited a line from one of his father's operas; [[LastWords "The world is just a barrel-organ which the Lord God turns Himself. We all have to dance to the tune which is already on the drum."]] He slipped into a coma he never woke up from the next day, dying in hospital on 4 June 1942.[[note]] Despite his personal fury at Heydrich for carelessly travelling in an open-topped car, making him an easier target, for propaganda purposes, Hitler had Heydrich given a state funeral.[[/note]] The commando squad was hunted down and all of its members ended up dead,[[note]]After one of their own betrayed them for amnesty as well as the bounty being offered, the commandos responsible for the attack on Heydrich retreated into the crypts of the Ss. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Prague, where they were either killed or committed suicide when the Nazis stormed the church[[/note]] and a horrific wave of reprisals claimed the lives of at least 5,000 people,[[note]]Hitler initially wanted to execute 10,000 Czechs at random in retaliation, and was only persuaded not to when his advisers insisted such a swathe of executions would be too detrimental to Czechoslavkia's ability to supply the German war effort.[[/note]] including the population of the villages of Lidice and Ležáky, which were razed to the ground.[[note]]This was actually the intended outcome, [[VictoryThroughIntimidation designed to horrify the Czech populace out of opposing Nazi rule]]; many of the local resistance members who helped the assassins had no idea of their actual mission and were actually aghast when they learnt their intent to kill Heydrich, as they knew full well the type of vengeance the Nazis would seek.[[/note]]
16	----
17	!! Works portraying him:
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19	[[foldercontrol]]
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21	[[folder: Comic Books ]]
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23	* ''ComicBook/Block109'' - A French AlternateHistory comic book in which he is alive after June 1942 due to history being altered following the assassination of Hitler in 1941. He becomes Reichsführer-SS after the death of Himmler in 1947 and by 1953 the SS finds itself in an InterserviceRivalry with Hochmeister Zytek's New Teutonic Order for supremacy over Nazi Germany while the war against the USSR becomes more and more hopeless.
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25	[[/folder]]
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27	[[folder: Films ]]
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29	* A number of movies have been made about Operation Anthropoid, some of them were even [[DuelingWorks released months apart]]:
30	** ''Film/HangmenAlsoDie'', 1943 - American movie. The first piece of fiction to ever feature him, filmed only a couple of months after his death, and [[InNameOnly very loosely based on the events]]. Heydrich was played by exiled anti-Nazi German actor Hans Heinrich von Twardowski.
31	** ''Film/HitlersMadman'', 1943 - American movie. A ''slightly'' more faithful version than ''Hangmen Also Die!''. Portrayed by Creator/JohnCarradine.
32	** ''Film/{{Atentat}}'', 1965 - Czechoslovak movie. Portrayed by Siegfried Loyda.
33	** ''Sokolovo'', 1974 - Soviet–Czechoslovak movie. Portrayed by Hanjo Hasse.
34	** ''Film/OperationDaybreak'', 1975 - Czechoslovak-American movie. Portrayed by Creator/AntonDiffring, who [[RoleReprise reprised the role]] after the 1965 series ''Interpol''.
35	** ''The Butcher of Prague'', 2001 - Czech movie.
36	** ''Lidice'', 2011 - Czech movie about the attack and its horrific aftermath, namely the massacre and destruction of the village of Lidice as reprisals. Portrayed by Detlef Bothe.
37	** ''Film/{{Anthropoid}}'', 2016 - British movie that focuses entirely on the operation from the point of view of the Czechoslovak resistance protagonists who carried out the attack. Heydrich only shows up for the attack scene, played by Detlef Bothe, [[RoleReprise once again]].
38	** ''Film/TheManWithTheIronHeart'', 2017 - French movie based on Laurent Binet's novel ''[=HHhH=]''. For a large part it is very much a {{biopic}} about Heydrich's life from his rise FromNobodyToNightmare to his death, with the assassination scene as the central point separating the depiction of his life and Operation Anthropoid in AnachronicOrder, with the second act focusing on the Czechoslovak resistance protagonists. Portrayed by Creator/JasonClarke.
39	* The other kind of movies where he has a prominent role usually depict the infamous Wannsee Conference, where the "FinalSolution to the [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust Jewish Question]]" was agreed upon:
40	** ''Film/DieWannseekonferenz'' (1984), played by Dietrich Mattausch.
41	** ''Film/{{Conspiracy\|2001}}'' (2001), played by Creator/KennethBranagh.
42	** ''Die Wannseekonferenz'' (2022), played by Philipp Hochmair.
43	* ''Film/{{Canaris}}'', 1954 - West German movie about Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, that is, military intelligence-a rival agency to Heydrich's SD. Heydrich suspected Canaris of being a DoubleAgent working for the German resistance, which he indeed was. Portrayed by Martin Held.
44	* ''Sokolovo'', 1974 - Czechoslovak-Soviet movie. Portrayed by Hannjo Hasse.
45	* ''Salon Kitty'', 1978 - {{Nazisploitation}} movie. Commander Biondo (played by John Steiner) is an {{Expy}} of Heydrich.
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48	[[folder: Literature ]]
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50	* ''[=HHhH=]'' - Biographical/historical novel by Laurent Binet about Heydrich's life and Operation Anthropoid. The title is an acronym, it means "Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich" ("Himmler's brain is called Heydrich"), a quip said to have circulated in Germany at the time.
51	* ''Literature/TheManWithTheIronHeart'' - Alternate history novel by Creator/HarryTurtledove where Heydrich survives the attempt on his life and leads Nazi resistance to the Allied occupation after the war's end.
52	* ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'' - Alternate history novel by Creator/PhilipKDick. Although never seen in person, it's stated that Heydrich is still alive in 1962. Interestingly, and in contrast to how most fiction portrays him, he's also presented as a ''lesser'' evil to other factions in Nazi Germany because he opposes a nuclear war of annihilation against Japan. Notably, the TV series adaptation [[AdaptationalVillainy changes this]].
53	* Heydrich pops up in several novels in the Literature/BernieGunther detective series, as Bernie is a police detective and Heydrich is in charge of all police services. In ''Literature/MarchViolets'' Heydrich appears in one chapter. He's particularly terrifying in a cultured and well-mannered sort of way, as he calmly tells Bernie that he is sending Bernie to Dachau, as an inmate, in order to find another inmate who has incriminating documents. In ''Literature/ThePaleCriminal'', in the scene where Heydrich is strong arming Bernie into returning to the police force, Bernie calls him "the crown prince of terror." In ''Literature/PragueFatale'', Heydrich calls Bernie to Bohemia to investigate plots against Heydrich's life. ''Literature/FieldGrey'' has Heydrich sending Bernie off to France in 1940 to find fugitive German communist Erich Mielke (another HistoricalDomainCharacter). ''Literature/PrussianBlue'' finds Heydrich sending Bernie to investigate a murder at the Obersalzberg, Hitler's vacation home in the Alps.
54	* The AlternateHistory series ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'' diverges shortly after his assassination, so he is not alive in the series proper, but the news announcement of the attack and reprisals serves to establish the setting at the opening of the first novel. In the ''Colonization'' sequel series, numerous characters express their relief that the Race did not invade a few weeks earlier or they may have wound up with Heydrich in charge in Nazi Germany after dealing with a leadership succession crisis.
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56	[[/folder]]
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58	[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]
59	* ''Armstrong Circle Theatre'', 1960 - TV series, episode "Engineer of Death: The Eichmann Story". Portrayed by Alvin Epstein.
60	* ''Das Kriminalgericht'', 1963 - West German miniseries. Portrayed by Malte Petzel.
61	* ''Interpol'', 1965 - TV series, episode "Geld, Geld, Geld". Portrayed by Creator/AntonDiffring.
62	* ''Series/{{Holocaust}}'', 1978 - TV series. Portrayed by Creator/DavidWarner.
63	* ''Film/DieWannseekonferenz'', 1984 - West German TV movie. Portrayed by Dietrich Mattausch.
64	* ''Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil'', 1985 - TV movie. Portrayed by Creator/DavidWarner, [[RoleReprise once again]].
65	* ''Heydrich � Final solution'', 2011 - Czech TV series.
66	* ''Series/TheManInTheHighCastle'', 2015-2016 - Alternate history series based on Creator/PhilipKDick's book. He's still alive in 1962 and [[spoiler:is plotting to overthrow Hitler and [[AdaptationalVillainy is a key advocate for war with Japan]]]]. Portrayed by Creator/RayProscia.
67	* ''Die Wannsee Konferenz'', 2022 - German TV movie. Portrayed by Philipp Hochmair.
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70	[[folder: Video Games ]]
71	* In ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope'', he survived the attempt on his life in 1942. In the 1960's he leads the German SS, and is one of the contenders for the Führership in the CivilWar after Hitler dies. He's the least likely to win, however, as he lacks any real public support due to the fact that he's under the thumb of Heinrich Himmler, a man considered absolutely insane [[EvenEvilHasStandards even by Nazi standards]]. In the end, Heydrich can only really "win" if the player chooses to play as him, if they do they will find a story of misery, tragedy, and loss, as [[EvilVersusOblivion Heydrich starts fighting back against Himmler]] [[EvenEvilHasStandards once he gains knowledge of the utterly insane scope of his plans]] and [[HeelRealization gradually comes to realize the hollowness of the Nazi ideals]].
72	* In ''VideoGame/ThousandWeekReich'', he survived the attempt on his life in 1942 and completely pacified Bohemia, before becoming the governor of Gotenland (formerly Crimea) and Germanizing the whole region in 3 years through sheer brutality alone. These successes have inflated his ego and Heydrich believes that he can [[TheStarscream challenge his boss]], Heinrich Himmler and maybe even Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. At the start of the game, he and Himmler have fallen out over which direction the SS should go and Himmler speculates that Reinhard's ambitions do not stop at serving the Reich. Himmler is proven right once Hitler dies and a CivilWar breaks out, during which Heydrich cuts off all ties to the Fatherland and declares his own Greater Gotische Reich, attempting to conquer the Eastern European Reichskommissariate which have since fallen into Anarchy. This sets off a power struggle between him and Himmler during the civil war, with only one coming out on top and becoming the Fuhrer of Germany should the SS win the CivilWar.
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75	[[folder: Visual Novels ]]
76	* ''VisualNovel/DiesIrae'' gives Reinhard the {{Ghostapo}} treatment and has him star as the BigBad and the leader of a group of Nazi cultists. Oh yeah and he's also immortal and that assassination mentioned above was just him [[FakingTheDead faking his death]].
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Context UsefulNotes / ReinhardHeydrich