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Biography
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich is born March 7, 1904 in Halle an der Saale, Sachsen, Preußen, Deutschland. He is a son of Richard Bruno Heydrich and Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia Krantz.
Heydrich is a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era, and a main architect of the Holocaust. He is chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD). He is also Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (Deputy/Acting Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich serves as president of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC; later known as Interpol) and chairs the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalizes plans for the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question"—the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe.
- Fact: http://familysearch.org/v1/LifeSketch Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and a main architect of the Holocaust. He was an SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei (Senior Group Leader and General of Police) as well as chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo, Kripo, and SD). He was also Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (Deputy/Acting Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. Heydrich served as president of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC; later known as Interpol) and chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which formalized plans for the Final Solution to the Jewish Question—the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe.
Many historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite; Adolf Hitler described him as "the man with the iron heart". He was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service; SD), an intelligence organization charged with seeking out and neutralizing resistance to the Nazi Party via arrests, deportations, and murders. He helped organize Kristallnacht, a series of coordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938. The attacks, carried out by SA stormtroopers and civilians, presaged the Holocaust. Upon his arrival in Prague, Heydrich sought to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation by suppressing Czech culture and deporting and executing members of the Czech resistance. He was directly responsible for the Einsatzgruppen, the special task forces which travelled in the wake of the German armies and murdered over two million people, including 1.3 million Jews, by mass shooting and gassing.
Heydrich was critically wounded in Prague on 27 May 1942 as a result of Operation Anthropoid. He was ambushed by a team of Czech and Slovak agents who had been sent by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to kill the Reich-Protector; the team was trained by the British Special Operations Executive. Heydrich died from his injuries a week later. Nazi intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. Both villages were razed; all men and boys over the age of 16 were shot, and all but a handful of the women and children were deported and killed in Nazi concentration camps.
He died 4 June 1942, in Prague-Libeň, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia (now Prague, Czech Republic)
Sources
- Find A Grave: Memorial #158622865
- Obituary (04 Jun 1942) Dundee, Angus-Shire, Scotland, United Kingdom
