political demagogue like Goebbels, but to realize a self-conceived, Messianic mission on behalf of the Germanic race.
But with his particular temperament and poor physique, he never could become a man of action. There can be no doubt that he always wanted to prove himself in this way; he saw himself as a uniformed policeman and soldier, even as a commander in the field, but he lacked both the mental and physical stamina for these things, and in the end he only made himself ridiculous. But by that time Heydrich was dead. During the years preceding 1939, while the S.S. was being developed, and during the first two years of the war, it was Heydrich who was astute enough to supply Himmler with ideas and the means to carry them out, becoming his
According to his long-suffering wife, Lina Heydrich, who was as ardently Nazi as Magda Goebbels and like her enjoyed attending smart parties given for smart Nazi wives, her husband would come home cursing the stupidity and waste of time which Himmler’s racial and other beliefs imposed on the administration of the S.S. Once he had seized power over Himmler, he did not fail to let him see the contempt he had for all this crazed mythology. For Heydrich it was not the theory but the practice that mattered; as he saw it, there was no need for elaborate theories on which to base the obvious necessity to persecute all those whose mere existence impeded ‘Aryan’ dominance. But whatever open differences there were between Heydrich and Himmler, Heydrich was always careful to keep their formal relationship unimpaired.
According to Gisevius, who for a brief period worked under him, Heydrich was ‘diabolically clever’, keeping himself always in the background and using roundabout ways to achieve his aims. His methods of terrorism were kept as secret as possible. He had a ‘peculiarly murderous bent’, teaching his men ‘the by-laws of applied terror’, one of which was, as Gisevius put it, to ‘pass the buck’. He practised his oppression always in the name of discipline, justice, or the needs of being a good German, leaving it to Himmler to preach the more high-flown doctrines that in the end led to the same oppression of the same people. In all the Nazi leadership, as Gisevius points out, it was the experts in violence who rose to the top: ‘The dominant trait of all of them was brutality. Goring, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich… thought and felt only in terms of violence.’ Schellenberg, who served Heydrich and Himmler for twelve years, has left the best description there is of Heydrich:
‘When I entered his office Heydrich was sitting behind his desk. He was a tall, impressive figure with a broad, unusually high forehead, small restless eyes as crafty as an animal’s and of uncanny power, a long, predatory nose, and a wide, full-lipped mouth. His hands were slender and rather too long — they made one think of the legs of a spider. His splendid figure was marred by the breadth of his hips, a disturbing feminine effect which made him appear even more sinister. His voice was much too high for so large a man and his speech was nervous and staccato, and though he scarcely ever finished a sentence, he always managed to express his meaning quite clearly.’
According to Schellenberg, Heydrich became the ‘hidden pivot around which the Nazi regime revolved’, and his keen intelligence and forceful character guided the development of the whole nation:
‘He was far superior to all his political colleagues and controlled them as he controlled the vast intelligence machine of the S.D… . Heydrich had an incredibly acute perception of the moral, human, professional and political weaknesses of others, and… his unusual intellect was matched by the ever-watchful instincts of a predatory animal… He operated on the principle of “divide and rule,” and even applied this to his relations with Hitler and Himmler. The decisive thing for him was always to know more than others… and to use this knowledge and the weakness of others to render them completely dependent on him, from the highest to the lowest… Heydrich was in fact, the puppet-master of the Third Reich.’
His only failing, according to Schellenberg, who both admired and feared Heydrich, was his ungovernable sexual appetite, which he indulged without caution or restraint.
In 1940 he established his own high-class brothel, the notorious Salon Kitty, a mansion rented by the S.D. in the Giesebrechtstrasse, just off the Kurfurstendamm in the west end of Berlin.2 Salon Kitty had nine bedrooms, in all of which concealed microphones were installed connected to a monitoring room in the basement. This was a pleasant means of spying, primarily on diplomatic visitors to Germany. Schellenberg is careful to point out that his responsibilities ended with supervision of the recordings, while Artur Nebe, the Chief of the Criminal Police, controlled the women, because in the past he had been connected with the vice squad. Important diplomats, such as Ciano, were early induced to visit Salon Kitty by Heydrich and others who knew the establishment’s secret uses, and their conversation while drunk or making love was recorded on tape. In February 1941, Heydrich invited Kersten to visit the house, remarking that it had been opened in agreement with Ribbentrop to save their foreign guests from becoming the victims of the worst type of prostitutes; although it had to be subsidised, he believed it would soon become self-supporting. He was, he said, even contemplating opening a similar establishment for homosexuals. According to Schellenberg, Salon Kitty was established without the knowledge of Ribbentrop, and the Foreign Minister had visited it himself before he learned who was in control of the management.
Kersten had the opportunity of seeing Heydrich primarily through Himmler’s eyes; though he had some direct dealings with Heydrich, he avoided him because he knew that he was under suspicion because of his growing intimacy with Himmler. Although, like Schellenberg, Kersten praises Heydrich’s striking Nordic appearance, the brilliance and polish of his speech ‘in the concise military manner’, and his remarkable ability to expound his arguments to Himmler in such a way as to force the decision he wanted from him, he also sees certain weaknesses of character that Schellenberg either overlooks or chooses to ignore. While Himmler treats Heydrich with ‘open friendliness’, Heydrich addresses his chief with ‘quite inexplicable servility’. ‘Yes, Reichsfuhrer, certainly, Reichsfuhrer, yes, yes, indeed,’ is his response once Himmler raises objections. Although Heydrich is ‘far more dynamic’, and outclasses Himmler every time in the way he can present his arguments, 'Himmler seems to possess some sort of secret power over Heydrich, before which Heydrich submits unconditionally.’ Himmler’s adjutants, Wolff and Brandt, both themselves in a position to exercise influence over Himmler, seemed to Kersten to have a poor opinion of Heydrich, whom they saw as a man operating entirely in a selfish vacuum, without a friend or supporter, either man or woman. No one trusted him: everyone tried to avoid him.3 Among his great weaknesses was his hatred of being beaten or unsuccessful in sport, and in order to prove his skill in action he joined the Luftwaffe and won the Iron Cross after making sixty operational flights.
Kersten observed that Himmler had his own methods of resisting the resolute personality of Heydrich. He records that he had seen Himmler ‘quite overwhelmed’ by Heydrich’s powerful arguments, but nevertheless he had also seen him telephone Heydrich’s office afterwards and leave instructions with the subordinates to hold up any measure to which he had been led to acquiesce in Heydrich’s presence, using now the need to consult Hitler as his reason for delay. In this way Himmler preserved his superior position and postponed making decisions, a habit which was to increase with him during the war to such an extent that it helped destroy him.
It was not until after the death of Heydrich that Himmler, still carefully shielding himself behind Hitler, admitted to Kersten that the hold they had on Heydrich was knowledge that there was Jewish blood in his family; Hitler had decided that the knowledge and ability Heydrich possessed were best kept active in the service of the Party, while the need to atone in their eyes for the taint in his blood would make this Nordic officer a more valiant persecutor of the Jews than any so-called pure-blooded Aryan. It pleased both Hitler and Himmler to make Heydrich their principal agent against the race to which in some part they imagined he belonged. Read Machiavelli, said Himmler in conclusion. A few days later he added that Heydrich had always suffered from a sense of inferiority, that he had been ‘an unhappy man, completely divided against himself, as often happened with those of mixed race’.
‘He wanted to prove the Germanic elements in his blood were dominant’, said Himmler. ‘He never really found peace.’
Himmler lit a cigar, and gazed at the receding veils of smoke.
‘In one respect he was irreplaceable,’ he added. ‘He possessed an infallible nose for men. Because he was divided himself, he was sure to sense such divisions in others. They were right to fear him. For the rest, he was a very good violinist. He once played a serenade in my honour. It was excellent.’
But Heydrich was dead, and it was easy, therefore, for Himmler to be either cynical or sentimental about him.
