A comprehensive biography of the Nazi mastermind behind the Holocaust and his military career, featuring interviews with his surviving family.
Adolph Hitler praised Reinhard Heydrich as ‘the man with the iron heart’. He admired Heydrich so much that, despite rumors about Jewish ancestry, he considered him a potential successor.
Reinhard Heydrich was undeniably one of the Führer’s most enthusiastic, brutal, and ambitious henchmen and one of the key architects of the Third Reich’s horrific genocide. He quickly rose through the ranks of the Nazi party and became one of the key architects of the Third Reich’s horrific genocide. Indeed, after his 1942 assassination, the murder of more than 2 million people at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblina was code-named ‘Action Reinhard’.
In this critically acclaimed biography, which includes interviews with some of his surviving family, Mario Dederichs creates a complete and compelling portrait of Heydrich’s life. Dederichs details his short-lived naval career, to his work under the SS chief Himmler, his appointment as Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, and his assassination by Czech agents and the terrible reprisals exacted on the town of Lidice.
Praise for Heydrich: The Face of Evil
“A chilling study of the man who masterminded the Holocaust . . . Heydrich was inhumanely cruel, ruthless, devious, shameless, a sixteen hour a day workaholic who was feared and loathed even by his closest colleagues.” —The Daily Telegraph
“An impressive mix of psychological analysis, biography and historical reporting . . . Dederichs descends into Heydrich’s personal abyss and describes it in a captivating and intelligible manner while not rejecting the scientific approach.” —Die Rheinische