OT- Heydrich anniversary

[Sanjuro]

Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Reinhard Heydrich by Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik in Prague; one of those occasions where the world can be considered a better place just for one man's removal from it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heydrich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid

[Targan]

Indeed. What a bastard.

[Tegyrius]

Dude had it coming. Though the reprisals kinda sucked for Bohemia.

- C.

[WallShadow]

Could you imagine if he had gotten the reins of the Reich? All the evil, but only 10% of the crazy!
The war would have been a lot harder with him in the driver's seat.

[Raellus]

Good riddance. The reprisals for his killing were brutal, though.

[Matt Wiser]

The best way that man served the world was by leaving it. Good riddance. The reprisals, though....harsh would be an understatement.

[Mahatatain]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

Could you imagine if he had gotten the reins of the Reich? All the evil, but only 10% of the crazy!
The war would have been a lot harder with him in the driver's seat.

How senior a Nazi was Heydrich? I thought that he was important but not that high.....

[Rainbow Six]

Pretty sure he was part of Hitler's Inner Circle...same sort of level as Himmler, Goering, Bormann, etc. I think I have read somewhere that he was considered to be a possible successor to Hitler.

[Panther Al]

He wasn't quite inner circle - was just barely outside it: but he was heading there with a quickness.

The problem (amongst many) is that in spite of his sick bastardness, he was smart and capable - and didn't believe his own propaganda. A rare combination in the Nazi Party. I never gave a lot of thought into what would have happened should he not have been assassinated until Turtledove did his treatment of him, but since then I shudder at the thought of what could have been.

[Sanjuro]

I think it was in Alan Burgess' book Seven Men at Daybreak (I can't find a copy now- I wish I'd stolen the copy from my High School library!) that I first heard Hedrich described as "the hidden pivot around which the Third Reich revolved"; the original quote came (I think) from Walter Schellenberg.
Entering that phrase into Google led me to this website: http://kimel.net/heydrich.html

[Adm.Lee]

Played really chillingly by Kenneth Branagh in "The Conspiracy"

[Matt Wiser]

Heydrich was the head of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office), and thus head of the Security Police and the SD (Security Service) within the SS. He knew lots about the inner circle-and a lot of others, for that matter. It was his business to know. He wouldn't have succeeded Hitler, but Himmler, now.....yeah, Heydrich could very well have arranged an "accident" for his boss. Not to mention that unlike many top Nazis, he had been at the front: he was a Reserve Captain in the Luftwaffe, and flew a number of combat missions over the Eastern Front, until he was shot down once, and Hitler forbade him from any more combat flying. He did have his own Fi-156 Storch light plane, though, and he often flew his own plane to locations where meetings were being held and his presence was required.

A little bit of trivia about him: one actor has played Heydrich twice: David Warner played the Blond Beast in the miniseries Holocaust, and again in the TV-movie Hitler's SS: Portrait of Evil.