Behind the seemingly firm ideals and wills, the ultimate driving force is still an unfilled nothingness. Or that the person has never learned what love is, nor has he been truly loved.
--Baby Anne
When I read these two sentences of Baby Anne, I instantly felt that these were the best footnotes for Heydrich's life.
Reinhard Heydrich was behind the massacre of millions of European Jews in Germany and a persistent advocate and practitioner of Hitler's racist policies. Countless Jews and Czechs died directly and indirectly at his hands. Such a person should be nailed to the pillar of shame of history, why should we still know his life, why should we pass on his biography? The biography of Heydrich by the German biographer Robert Gwart spent a lot of time and energy on a comprehensive restoration of Heydrich's sinful life. To know him is also to understand part of history, to understand the truth of the past. Of course, uncovering these truths, exploring the nature of human nature, and how to avoid the recurrence of such bad events is the ultimate goal.
Heydrich, who was not born a racist, was even a well-known musician in his youth, he received a good musical education, he was passionate about sports, and his highest ideal was only to be a German admiral. If he could have stayed in the navy, he might have been part of The German War of Aggression, but at least then he would have been devoid of racist ideas, and he might have become an obedient general, but not a mastermind of the Holocaust. But history cannot assume that the turning point in reality began when he had to leave the Navy.
In January 1931, because of the impropriety of his private life, because of the breach of the marriage contract, and because of Heydrich's arrogant attitude, he angered his superiors in the court, and the court gave him the strictest punishment, and he had to leave the navy. Think of his situation at that time, the husband who was about to get married was facing a financial crisis, and if he could not solve this crisis, he could not get married; and the pressure from his parents and from the family was always there. All the difficulties, especially the economic difficulties, put a heavy burden on the young Heydrich, who was the typical representative of the depressed youth.
It was a coincidence at this time, and it could even be said that it was a yin and yang error. In June 1931, Heydrich met for the first time with his future superior, Himmler, and Heydrich accepted a job with the SS intelligence agency. This also became the starting point of the life of the later extreme racist Heydrich.
The young Heydrich may have valued the value of life as a soldier in this profession, and was able to enter the intelligence agency, both his vanity and financial situation have been greatly improved, and this has become the best choice for him to move closer to this organization and assimilate. Throughout this biography, the author details the specific historical facts of the transformation of Heydrich's ideas into a racist and the persecution of race, which is the most original material for us to understand Heydrich and to become the "executioner of Hitler" who came to be. Of course, Heydrich was stabbed to death in Prague in 1942, and he did not live long enough to be defeated in Germany, otherwise he would have been tried as a fascist war criminal.
But why did Heydrich become like this? This is a question worth pondering. In this book, the author also analyzes Heydrich's life experience from various aspects. This is also the original intention of his creation of Heydrich's biography. More importantly, Robert provided the original version of this material to the readers of this book, so that the readers could judge for themselves, analyze Heydrich's entire growth trajectory, and understand why he had grown up like this.
At least when I read the biography of Heydrich, I didn't read any doubts he had about the racism he insisted on. The cold-bloodedness, utilitarianism, and vanity he displayed were far higher than the reverence for life that he should show in his cruel persecution of other non-Germanic people, such as Jews. He had embraced the theory of racism from the bottom of his heart, and he had never doubted its correctness, or it could be said that he was reluctant to doubt its correctness. He will certainly keep pace with his superiors and the Nazis who gave him everything he needed. In this respect, Heydrich is an extremely selfish man, even saying that he has no emotion in his own heart, no compassion, no love, and has never loved others. Whether it is his wife, his parents, his family, he is only fulfilling his responsibilities, and we do not see that he has the kind of emotion that a "human" should have.
This is Heydrich, an extreme racist. #The Temperature of Reading ##All Book Recommenders ##海德里希 #