Heydrich: The Face of Evil | 
 enlarge | Author: Mario Dederichs
Publisher: Greenhill Books
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 260733
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 1853676861
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.086092
EAN: 9781853676864
ASIN: 1853676861
Publication Date: November 25, 2006
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Product Description
This meticulously researched biography creates a complete and balanced picture of Reinhard Heydrich. A leading figure within the Nazi Party, he was responsible more than Himmler for the planning and execution of the Holocaust. Having joined the Nazi Party in 1931, Heydrich rose quickly through the ranks of the SS. By the age of twenty-nine he had become an SS Brigadier General, and his ruthless ambition led many senior Nazis to believe that he was the natural successor to Hitler. It was Heydrich’s initiative to create the Einsatzgruppen, paramilitary units which were established before Operation Barbarossa to murder Jews and political operatives of the Communist party. In 1941 Heydrich was made Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. Supremely confident of his authority within the province, he would often drive alone in an open-top car. British-trained Czech partisans took advantage of this gesture, and in 1942 carried out a daring assassination attempt. Heydrich was mortally wounded in the ambush and died a week later in hospital. The reprisals that followed were brutal: more than 15,000 Czechs were murdered and the town of Lidice was razed to the ground. This book examines Heydrich’s meteoric rise to power, his complex personality, and the aftermath of his death: Hitler’s vengeance and the postwar fortunes of Heydrich’s widow and descendants.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 truncated work November 25, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Sincerely, I expected more about a so complicated and mythical personage.
Short book, short biography, short investigation. I know more details about Heydrich that what appears written in this book. The death of the author must be the main reason for an incomplete work like this. I would prefered not to publish it... but money is a powerful dude.
Let's wait for a more complete biography.
Reinhard Heydrich: One of the Chief Architects of Genocide September 18, 2007
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Mario Dederich traces Heydrich's life from his early years in the Nazi Party, through his views on resettlement of Jews (p. 100) which evolved into extermination of the same, his assassination by Czech partisans, the ghastly German reprisals, and postwar issues. Heydrich is described as a man who was ruthless even by Nazi standards. Certain neo-Nazis have hailed him as "the Naziest of the Nazis." (p. 177)
Was Heydrich of Jewish ancestry? Dederich shows that he was commonly regarded, in Nazi circles, in that light (p. 37, 54-55). The evidence itself is inconclusive. The ancestral list, used by the SS to prove Aryan ancestry at least as far back as 1648, was "very superficial". (p. 54). The Suss (Suess) lineage, according to the ancestral list, was Lutheran (p. 37). But does this eliminate the possibility of conversion from Judaism? Furthermore, one of Heydrich's great-great grandmothers, Johanna Birnbaum, may have been Jewish, and, significantly, her name doesn't appear in the documentation (p. 56).
Heydrich held very strong anti-Christian views (p. 72, 74-75). "As did Heydrich, [Professor Alfred] Six identified the main enemies of the Reich as being the freemasonry, the Jews, and the Churches." (p. 99). In addition, Dederich notes: "...Himmler's allegation that medieval witchcraft trials were actually an attack by Roman Catholicism on German womanhood." (p. 100). Interestingly, some modern feminists have followed in Himmler's footsteps by leveling a similar accusation against the Church and calling it gynocide.
Not only the Einsatzgruppen but also the Wehrmacht had been involved in shootings of large numbers of civilians (p. 111). Dederich puts the subsequent Wannsee conference in perspective: "The Wannsee conference was not the beginning of the genocide; Heydrich had initiated that with the Einsatzgruppen in Poland in 1939 and in the Soviet Union in 1941. The death camps...had been in existence for some time." (p. 134)
As for the postwar war-crimes trials in West Germany, Dederich discusses how Pole-killers and Jew-killers such as Werner Best and Bruno Streckenbach escaped justice through various medical-related technicalities. Furthermore, he adds: "Not a single head of the RSHA Polish Division IVD2 ever came before a court." (p. 183)
Finally, Dederich concludes: "It is clear that of all the direct Heydrich descendants, not one has ever uttered publicly a word of regret about the crimes committed by their ancestor. Never have they furnished a gesture towards the Jews, Poles, or the survivors of Lidice." (p. 189).
Good book but could be better September 1, 2007
This is without a question a very good book even if lacking in detail. Heydrich was such a complicated man that one would expect a book on his life to be more detailed, include more photos and even more authors speculations on this brutal character. 4 stars.
A Very Good Book but Lacking Photos and Length July 14, 2007
I am a huge collector of books on the Third Reich and I found this one very interesting Heydrich definately was a complicated personality who did more harm than good for his country well mostly to the average citizen in his country, I often wonder what would have happened had he not been assassinated now thats a scary thought!! But all in all a really great book very detailed although very short and no photos in it thats why Im only giving it 3 stars, I understand that the auther died while writng it thats probably why it came out the way it did, but for those who want an intimate look into Heydrich's life this is the book to read.
THE EYES OF A RUTHLESS, EVIL HENCHMAN June 17, 2007
While his face was not attractive, though many a woman found him so, it is the eyes that truly reveal Reinhard Heydrich. Piercing and cold, evil itself looks out forever in the extant photographs: Hitler's man with the iron heart, nothing seemed too much for Heydrich. He was the worst of the worst, more ruthless than all the others. And that is quite a statement.
On page 23 a partial explanation for the flaw in Heydrich may have been something biological: "To what extent the encephalitis damaged the mind and soul of the young Heydrich it is impossible to know." Could his evil truly have its roots in this such illness?
It has been some time since a biography of Heydrich has appeared and this book, finished by a friend due the author's death, is a well composed work, and an interesting, revealing study of a totally evil man, but a man of whom neither his wife or blood kin would ever say or write a bad thing. And to top it all off, though he led the group that wanted to kill all Jews, the one thing always troubling him, keeping him humbled before both Himmler and Hitler, was Hydrich's deep-seated fear that he himself had Jewish blood.
While I have Charles Whiting's study of Heydrich on my library shelf, I find this an up-to-date study and a worthy one. Even The Military Book Club chose it as selection. If you have stomach to face evil head on, then this WWII study will no doubt interest you.
Semper Fi.
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