whitechoc135

Another WS video, still with low quality unfortunately.

You can see him still wearing the old collar tabs. He had been quite busy during that period, according to his memoir.

Press photo of this event:

Reinhard Heydrich

*Trigger warnings: blackmail, war crimes, nazis. Also, this will be very extensive: warning for a long post. *

Reinhard Heydrich was a high ranking nazi party member, war criminal and spy master. He ran the SD (The Intelligence Service of the SS), the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office - the organization that encompassed the SD, Kripo and Gestapo). He also commanded the Einsatzengruppen (mobile killing squads) units as a whole. His SS ranking was Obbergruppenfuhrer, the SS equivalent of the rank 'General.' All that combined with his notoriety and fear of him as well as him being second in command to Heinrich Himmler (The Reichsfuhrer-SS; head of the SS), made him someone who people didn't want to make an enemy of.

He had a few habits, including reading paperwork from a briefcase while explaining orders, taking and joining subordinates and superiors out to luncheons and dinners. He also had a habit of visiting brothels in Berlin.

Yes. The text is not wholly false, but it is methodologically very bad: it mixes correct institutional facts with sensational anecdotes, unattributed memoir material, physical caricature, and confident psychological claims. The result is not “a profile of Heydrich” so much as a collage of hostile tropes, Schellenberg/Lina-style anecdote, pop-history simplification, and fandom-like character notes.

The strongest criticism is this: the text repeatedly treats “this has been said about Heydrich” as equivalent to “this is known about Heydrich.” Emotionally effective narrative motifs start replacing source hierarchy and factual control. Things that “sound true” can become accepted because they fit a known narrative grammar, not because the underlying event is documented.

1. The text skeleton: partly correct, but flattened

The opening paragraph is the most factually solid part, although even there it is sloppy.

Heydrich did head the SD and then the RSHA; the RSHA brought together the SD and the Security Police, which included the Gestapo and Kripo. USHMM describes the RSHA as created in September 1939 and led initially by Heydrich; it formalized the relationship between the SD and the Security Police. Source

It is also correct that the RSHA was central to the Holocaust, including deportations, Einsatzgruppen deployment, and the Wannsee Conference. USHMM explicitly says the RSHA coordinated forced emigration/deportations, developed poison-gas killing methods, deployed Einsatzgruppen, and hosted Wannsee.

But the phrase “he commanded the Einsatzgruppen units as a whole” needs nuance. Organizationally, yes, the Einsatzgruppen were under RSHA/Heydrich authority. But operational command in occupied territories was not simply “Heydrich personally ordered every round-up and shooting.” There were Einsatzgruppen commanders, Higher SS and Police Leaders, army interfaces, local initiatives, and shifting chains of command. So the claim is not false, but it compresses a complex machinery into a cartoon chain: Heydrich → murder squad → shootings.

Likewise, “second in command to Himmler” is broadly defensible only in the SS-police-security sphere. It should not be read as “formal number two of the entire SS in every administrative, economic, Waffen-SS, camp, and police matter.” He was Himmler’s crucial deputy in security and police power, not simply a universal vice-Himmler.

Also: “Obbergruppenfuhrer” is misspelled. It should be SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei. Calling it simply “the SS equivalent of General” is imprecise; in many rank equivalency charts it corresponds more closely to a senior general rank, often lieutenant-general level, depending on context.

2. Wannsee: the flattening risks a common misconception

The text says he used his plane to get to the Wannsee Conference. That may come from dramatizations or anecdotal tradition, but the important correction is conceptual: Wannsee did not “decide” the Holocaust. The House of the Wannsee Conference states explicitly that it would be incorrect to say the murder of European Jews was decided there; the meeting coordinated implementation and involved ministries and party offices in a policy already decided at a higher level. Source

The protocol itself has Heydrich opening the meeting by saying that Göring had put him in charge of preparations for the “Final Solution” and that the purpose was to clarify fundamental questions and coordinate the agencies involved.

So a more accurate formulation would be:

Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference as head of the Security Police and SD, using it to assert RSHA leadership over the coordination of deportation and murder policy across Reich ministries and occupied administrations.

That is different from a vague villain prose.

3. Salon Kitty / brothel material: high contamination risk

This is one of the weakest parts of the text.

There probably was an SD-linked espionage operation around Salon Kitty, and Schellenberg’s memoirs are a key source for the microphone story. But the evidentiary situation is messy. A review of The Madam and the Spymaster notes that much of the famous Salon Kitty story is “largely unsubstantiated,” that later mythmaking drew heavily from Schellenberg and sensationalized 1970s treatments, and that many primary-source gaps remain. Source

Another article says postwar reports linked the brothel to SD informants and that Schellenberg claimed it was wired, but it also notes that little is actually known and that SD involvement remains obscure. (Also stated in the Nancy Dougherty book).

So:

Heydrich/Schellenberg used Salon Kitty for intelligence.

–> Plausible, but source dependent.

Kitty Schmidt was coerced

–> Often repeated, but not cleanly documented

Heydrich personally “visited brothels as a habit”

–> Not plausibly documented

Heydrich went off with a girl and ordered microphones off

-> Anecdotal, probably memoir/sensational-literature territory

Therefore Heydrich was “lecherous” –> Argumentative leap

This is a perfect example of evidence laundering: a story enters through memoir, becomes sex-spy folklore, then gets retold as personality evidence.

4. Physical description: caricature disguised as observation

The “Aryan archetype” paragraph is rhetorically suspicious.

Blond, blue-eyed, tall: broadly consistent with common descriptions. But “6’4” is likely exaggerated; many sources give him around 191 cm, roughly 6’3, and even that varies. “Bird chest,” “oddly wide hips,” “sharp glimmering eyes,” “goat-like laugh,” “nasally voice” are not neutral facts. They are physiognomic characterization. In fact, he was 187 centimetres tall, as documented by medical records.

This is not necessarily useless — hostile descriptions can preserve real impressions — but it should be labelled as witness-description / hostile memoir / literary portrait, not objective data.

It also contradicts itself rhetorically. It says he “mostly fit the archetypical Aryan,” then immediately tries to deform him physically: bird chest, wide hips, asymmetry, goat laugh. That is not analysis. That is anti-iconography: first raise the idealized Nazi image, then spoil it bodily. Very common in demonizing portrayals.

5. Hobbies: mostly plausible, but the interpretation is overdriven

Fencing, violin, riding, flying, and hunting are all broadly plausible or documented. The problem is the hunting quotation.

The quote:

“Heydrich much enjoys shooting… because he must make a kill…”

may come from a hostile or postwar recollection. It is not impossible as an observation, but it is psychologizing: it translates a hobby into a moral diagnosis. The text then uses it as if it reveals essence: “he must kill.” That is exactly the kind of narrative shortcut that should raise alarms.

A better historian’s formulation would be:

Some hostile recollections portray Heydrich’s hunting as intensely competitive and bound up with control or dominance; without corroboration, this should be treated as characterization rather than proof of sadistic compulsion.

6. Flying: partly true, partly mangled

He was a trained pilot and did fly with the Luftwaffe. His aircraft was hit over Soviet territory in July 1941, and he had to land and get back/rescued. The broad event is real: his Bf 109 was hit by Soviet fire near the Dniester/Yampil area, he landed behind or near enemy lines, avoided capture, and was later forbidden or stopped from such missions.

But the text says:

“He had his own plane which he used to get to the Wannsee Conference and fly recreationally.”

This needs qualification. “Own plane” can mean private, assigned, personal-use, liaison aircraft, or dramatized shorthand. It should not be stated baldly without identifying the aircraft, ownership status, and source. And using it “to get to Wannsee” is a detail that needs direct proof, not assumption from a filmic image of Heydrich flying into Berlin.

7. Gregor Strasser: plausible anecdote, but not cleanly handled

The Strasser passage is another example of a true atrocity wrapped in melodramatic certainty.

Gregor Strasser was killed during the Röhm purge/Night of the Long Knives, and Heydrich and Himmler were involved in the broader conspiracy and purge machinery. USHMM says Himmler and Heydrich conspired with Göring to persuade Hitler to eliminate Röhm and planted rumors/evidence of a coup threat. Source

The “Let the swine bleed to death” line is widely repeated, but it is still anecdotal. It should be attributed, not simply narrated as camera-visible fact. Also, the text says “SD cell,” which is probably imprecise; the usual accounts place Strasser in Gestapo custody/headquarters context, not simply “an SD cell.”

So: possible, famous, damning — but still should be source-labelled.

8. “He created the concentration camp system” is wrong

This is one of the clearest factual failures.

Heydrich did not create the concentration camp system. Early camps emerged in 1933; Dachau was central under Himmler/Eicke, and the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps developed under Theodor Eicke. Heydrich/RSHA/SiPo/Gestapo were deeply involved in arrests, Schutzhaft, deportations, and later exterminatory policy, but “created the concentration camp system” is too broad and wrong.

A correct version:

Heydrich’s police-security apparatus supplied victims to the camp system and integrated police intelligence, repression, and deportation into SS terror policy; he did not personally create the camp system as such.

9. “Forced Jews to have Jewish councils with cynical joy”: overstatement

Jewish councils/Judenräte were part of German occupation policy and ghetto administration. Heydrich/RSHA policy is relevant here, but “with cynical joy” is pure interior-state language unless tied to a specific source. It turns administrative cruelty into mind-reading.

The policy can be condemned without inventing emotional certainty.

10. Walter Schellenberg material: very dangerous source base

The text leans heavily on Schellenberg-like anecdotes: dinners, “mufti,” games with Lina, sexual jealousy, kicking under the table, practical concern, cat-and-mouse, clever drunk, Russian beer incident, poisoning Otto Strasser.

Schellenberg is useful, but he is also self-serving. He had every incentive after the war to portray himself as brilliant, endangered, reluctantly involved, and personally interesting to Heydrich. So whenever the text uses Schellenberg material to create a psychologically intimate Heydrich, the evidentiary rating should drop.

The claim that Heydrich spent weeks or months entrapping Schellenberg over Lina is especially suspicious. It may preserve something — jealousy, surveillance, social testing — but it reads like memoir-drama. “He never rested until a subordinate was in his power” is not a fact; it is literary villain construction.

11. Otto Strasser poisoning: plausible operation, bad wording

The claim that Heydrich ordered Schellenberg to track down Otto Strasser and poison him refers to real anti-Strasser operations, but the description “liquid poison that burns the skin of those it comes too close to” is garbled and sensational. It sounds like botulinum toxin or another assassination-toxin story transformed into pulp detail. This needs exact sourcing.

Do not accept it unless these can be answered:

1. Which source?

2. Which poison?

3. Which date?

4. Which operational file?

5. Was the plan ordered, proposed, tested, or merely claimed later by Schellenberg?

Without that, it is anecdote dressed as operational history.

12. Gleiwitz / “let go of an officer” is confused

The sentence:

“He also let go of an officer who disobeyed one single order to head the fake an attack from Poland…”

seems to refer to the Gleiwitz incident / Operation Himmler. The wording is nearly incoherent. Heydrich was involved in organizing false-flag operations around the Polish invasion, but this sentence does not clearly identify the officer, the order, or what “let go” means. It is unusable as written.

To sum things up:

It piles up stories from different genres — institutional history, memoir, gossip, physical description, operational anecdote — and lets quantity simulate proof.

USHMM-type institutional facts, Schellenberg memoir anecdotes, Lina-related domestic material, pop-history descriptions, and hostile quotes are all presented at the same evidentiary level.

Factual objections:

Mind-reading.

“He must make a kill,” “with cynical joy,” “lecherous,” “loved to play cat and mouse,” “never rested until…” These are interpretations, not facts.

Moral adjectives replacing analysis.

“Cruel,” “lecherous,” “manipulative,” “nefarious” may or may not be fair moral descriptors, but the text uses them as organizing categories before proving them.

Category confusion.

Institutional guilt is mixed with personality gossip. Heydrich’s role in genocide is real and central; that does not automatically validate every story about brothels, jealousy, or body oddities.

Villain portrait logic.

The writer clearly wants a coherent monster: sexually predatory, physically uncanny, socially sadistic, intellectually brilliant, murderous, jealous, and theatrical. Some parts may be true. But the total portrait is too neat.

What is actually safe to say?

A tighter, source-clean version would be:

Reinhard Heydrich was one of the central SS-police figures of the Nazi regime: head of the SD, chief of the Security Police and SD, and head of the RSHA from 1939 until his death. The RSHA coordinated major components of Nazi repression and Holocaust policy, including deportations, Einsatzgruppen operations, and the bureaucratic coordination represented by the Wannsee Conference. Heydrich was feared for his intelligence, ambition, administrative effectiveness, and access to compromising information. Many postwar accounts also portray him as cold, suspicious, manipulative, and socially predatory, but these personality claims often derive from memoirs and hostile recollections and must be separated from well-documented institutional responsibility.

*Trigger warnings: blackmail, war crimes, nazis. Also, this will be very extensive: warning for a long post. *

There will be changes to this post as I believe this was made last year and I like talking about Heydrich.

Reinhard Heydrich was a high-ranking SS officer and member of the Nazi Party. He ran the SD (The Intelligence Service of the SS), the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office - the organization that encompassed the SD and the Sipo, aka The Security Police).

'As the Nazi Germany began military expansion, Heydrich created Operation groups (Einsatzengruppen) of the Security Police and SD. (*The Einsatzengruppen was different to the Einsatzkommando*.) He tasked them with a variety of security duties:

The seizure of key building and documentation

The establishment of functioning intelligence operations

The Identification and elimination of real and perceived opponents of German rule.

His SS ranking was Obbergruppenfuhrer, the SS equivalent of the rank 'General.'

(Source for the above: Reinhard Heydrich: In Depth | Holocaust Encyclopedia

Nigel Jones stated he was dreaded Nazi, a big statement but take it as you will. Two questionably reliable primary sources support this; Walter Schellenberg described him as 'dreaded' in The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg. It should be noted that Walter Schellenberg had quite a lot of respect for Heydrich and his memoirs were written after WW2, so take it with a grain of salt.

(Source for the above: Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel and The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg).

He had a few habits, including reading paperwork from a briefcase while explaining orders and taking and joining subordinates and superiors out to luncheons and dinners.

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg. Such a minor detail, Schelenberg would have little reason to lie about as if he wished to save himself from trial, it wouldn't be relevant. Also, a photo of him sitting with Himmler and others at what looks like a cafe.

Reinhard Heydrich mostly fit the 'archetypical aryan' as he was blonde, 6'3 (1.91 meters) and blue-eyed; however, he had oddly wide hips.

(Source; Google for the height. There's also a photo below regarding the rest.)

He had many hobbies including fencing, hunting and violin playing.

(Evidence of the following in the photo bellow and this: 1940s Reinhard Heydrich/SS Officers Fencing)

To give extra content on the violin playing his father wanted him to have a musical career.

(Source for the above: Reinhard Heydrich: In Depth | Holocaust Encyclopedia.)

The following is photos of him doing his hobbies:

Here's an extract about his hunting habit.

Reinhard Heydrich had his own plane which he used to fly recreationally.

(Source for the above: The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg).

It's believed he went out to fly as a member of the Luftwaffe, but it's also believed he didn't have the time for such.

(Source for the above: Reinhard Heydrich - Fighter Pilot?)

He had a nasally voice.

(Source for the above: The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg).

Reinhard Heydrich and Kitty Salon:

He organized the kidnapping of a well-known Madam of a wealthy brothel, after she tried to leave the German border. There are several different stories from different parties of how Heydrich came up with the idea and how it played out prior to that, all which are contradictory. Either way she was starved and beaten. She was then coerced into becoming a collaborator and letting the SD's technical set up microphones and getting secrets through pillow talk.

(Source for the above: Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel).

He also had 'inspections', where he went off with one of the girls and ordered his technical teams to shut off the microphones.

He had a fantastic memory and innate curiosity which led to him inquiring how others knew someone and asking about implied conversations he found suspicious, making them tell him everything before Heydrich let them go.

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg and Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel.)

Reinhard Heydrich had a specific way of dealing with reports which were in the context of the SD (counterintelligence) and indifferently cold orders in the context of the SS hierarchy. When reporting information to Hitler, he'd do it in a military like fashion. When accepting reports, it was often during dinners (with Walter Schellenberg) or in his office in the RSHA building. He often gave orders at his hunting lodge. The orders he gave included, but were not limited to the following:

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, The Assasination of Reinhard Heydrich by Callumn Mcdonald).

-Ordering his SD men to steal a file from the Abwehr (the intelligence organization of the German Military)

(Sources for the above: Abwehr - Wikipedia and Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel).

-In an indirect way, ordering Walter Schellenberg to track down Otto Strasser and poison him with a liquid poison that burns the skin of those it comes too close to.

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg.)

He had many rumors about him; that he was secretly Jewish, that he had to leave the navy because he slept with and promised marriage to another women who wasn't his fiancé at the time. Again, all rumors, so treat it with skepticism.

(Source above: The Assasination of Reinhard Heydrich by Callumn Mcdonald).

(Source below: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, so treat it with skepticism.)

Reinhard Heydrich was manipulative as he pinned his subordinates and superiors against each other. He loved to play cat and mouse games with his subordinates and spent several weeks-months trying to entrap Walter Schellenberg into confessing he was sleeping with Lina Heydrich (his wife). He even ordered over telephone that Walter Schellenberg would have dinner 'in mufti' with him and then 'go places' after playing cards with both Walter and Lina while playing the loyal, devoted husband. He even blackmailed Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Gestapo who was also his subordinate by two rows down. He did it apparently because Heinrich Mueller was anti monarchy and anti nazi.

Reinhard Heydrich had a cruel streak. He also threatened of an SD officer who disobeyed the order to head the fake an attack from Poland and justify Germany's aggression against the Poles.

(Source above: The Assasination of Reinhard Heydrich by Callumn Mcdonald).

Heydrich also created the concentration camp system and 'with cynical joy' forced Jews to have Jewish councils to govern 'their own' in the ghettos.

(Source below: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, so treat it with skepticism.)

Reinhard Heydrich was lecherous. Besides what else has been mentioned, he had some 'lecherous things' to Walter Schellenberg while they were out for dinner together. Date wasn't specified and was apparently in the months during Heydrich's attempts to entrap him.

(Source below: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, so treat it with skepticism.)

Finally, Reinhard Heydrich was apparently a fun drunk and saved Walter Schellenberg from getting beer thrown on him by a spy they were with.

Reinhard Heydrich treated his subordinates as such and was quick to criticize them. He didn't have any protege's or 'students' nor did he give anyone the sense they could be friends. He showed practical concern once when making sure Walter Schellenberg didn't get taken by the Americans while on an undercover mission. If they said anything that would possibly put them at risk or embarrass himself, he wouldn't hesitate to kick their leg under the table. He also liked to play cat and mouse games with them, in terms of trickery of deception - he never rested until a subordinate was in his power, 'to be struck down at the slightest sign of escape'. He sewed conflict with those above him and beneath him to distract from his growing power.

Reinhard Heydrich

*Trigger warnings: blackmail, war crimes, nazis. Also, this will be very extensive: warning for a long post. *

Reinhard Heydrich was a high ranking nazi party member, war criminal and spy master. He ran the SD (The Intelligence Service of the SS), the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office - the organization that encompassed the SD, Kripo and Gestapo). He also commanded the Einsatzengruppen (mobile killing squads) units as a whole. His SS ranking was Obbergruppenfuhrer, the SS equivalent of the rank 'General.' All that combined with his notoriety and fear of him as well as him being second in command to Heinrich Himmler (The Reichsfuhrer-SS; head of the SS), made him someone who people didn't want to make an enemy of.

He had a few habits, including reading paperwork from a briefcase while explaining orders, taking and joining subordinates and superiors out to luncheons and dinners. He also had a habit of visiting brothels in Berlin.

Yes. The text is not wholly false, but it is methodologically very bad: it mixes correct institutional facts with sensational anecdotes, unattributed memoir material, physical caricature, and confident psychological claims. The result is not “a profile of Heydrich” so much as a collage of hostile tropes, Schellenberg/Lina-style anecdote, pop-history simplification, and fandom-like character notes.

The strongest criticism is this: the text repeatedly treats “this has been said about Heydrich” as equivalent to “this is known about Heydrich.” Emotionally effective narrative motifs start replacing source hierarchy and factual control. Things that “sound true” can become accepted because they fit a known narrative grammar, not because the underlying event is documented.

1. The text skeleton: partly correct, but flattened

The opening paragraph is the most factually solid part, although even there it is sloppy.

Heydrich did head the SD and then the RSHA; the RSHA brought together the SD and the Security Police, which included the Gestapo and Kripo. USHMM describes the RSHA as created in September 1939 and led initially by Heydrich; it formalized the relationship between the SD and the Security Police. Source

It is also correct that the RSHA was central to the Holocaust, including deportations, Einsatzgruppen deployment, and the Wannsee Conference. USHMM explicitly says the RSHA coordinated forced emigration/deportations, developed poison-gas killing methods, deployed Einsatzgruppen, and hosted Wannsee.

But the phrase “he commanded the Einsatzgruppen units as a whole” needs nuance. Organizationally, yes, the Einsatzgruppen were under RSHA/Heydrich authority. But operational command in occupied territories was not simply “Heydrich personally ordered every round-up and shooting.” There were Einsatzgruppen commanders, Higher SS and Police Leaders, army interfaces, local initiatives, and shifting chains of command. So the claim is not false, but it compresses a complex machinery into a cartoon chain: Heydrich → murder squad → shootings.

Likewise, “second in command to Himmler” is broadly defensible only in the SS-police-security sphere. It should not be read as “formal number two of the entire SS in every administrative, economic, Waffen-SS, camp, and police matter.” He was Himmler’s crucial deputy in security and police power, not simply a universal vice-Himmler.

Also: “Obbergruppenfuhrer” is misspelled. It should be SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei. Calling it simply “the SS equivalent of General” is imprecise; in many rank equivalency charts it corresponds more closely to a senior general rank, often lieutenant-general level, depending on context.

2. Wannsee: the flattening risks a common misconception

The text says he used his plane to get to the Wannsee Conference. That may come from dramatizations or anecdotal tradition, but the important correction is conceptual: Wannsee did not “decide” the Holocaust. The House of the Wannsee Conference states explicitly that it would be incorrect to say the murder of European Jews was decided there; the meeting coordinated implementation and involved ministries and party offices in a policy already decided at a higher level. Source

The protocol itself has Heydrich opening the meeting by saying that Göring had put him in charge of preparations for the “Final Solution” and that the purpose was to clarify fundamental questions and coordinate the agencies involved.

So a more accurate formulation would be:

Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference as head of the Security Police and SD, using it to assert RSHA leadership over the coordination of deportation and murder policy across Reich ministries and occupied administrations.

That is different from a vague villain prose.

3. Salon Kitty / brothel material: high contamination risk

This is one of the weakest parts of the text.

There probably was an SD-linked espionage operation around Salon Kitty, and Schellenberg’s memoirs are a key source for the microphone story. But the evidentiary situation is messy. A review of The Madam and the Spymaster notes that much of the famous Salon Kitty story is “largely unsubstantiated,” that later mythmaking drew heavily from Schellenberg and sensationalized 1970s treatments, and that many primary-source gaps remain. Source

Another article says postwar reports linked the brothel to SD informants and that Schellenberg claimed it was wired, but it also notes that little is actually known and that SD involvement remains obscure. (Also stated in the Nancy Dougherty book).

So:

Heydrich/Schellenberg used Salon Kitty for intelligence.

–> Plausible, but source dependent.

Kitty Schmidt was coerced

–> Often repeated, but not cleanly documented

Heydrich personally “visited brothels as a habit”

–> Not plausibly documented

Heydrich went off with a girl and ordered microphones off

-> Anecdotal, probably memoir/sensational-literature territory

Therefore Heydrich was “lecherous” –> Argumentative leap

This is a perfect example of evidence laundering: a story enters through memoir, becomes sex-spy folklore, then gets retold as personality evidence.

4. Physical description: caricature disguised as observation

The “Aryan archetype” paragraph is rhetorically suspicious.

Blond, blue-eyed, tall: broadly consistent with common descriptions. But “6’4” is likely exaggerated; many sources give him around 191 cm, roughly 6’3, and even that varies. “Bird chest,” “oddly wide hips,” “sharp glimmering eyes,” “goat-like laugh,” “nasally voice” are not neutral facts. They are physiognomic characterization. In fact, he was 187 centimetres tall, as documented by medical records.

This is not necessarily useless — hostile descriptions can preserve real impressions — but it should be labelled as witness-description / hostile memoir / literary portrait, not objective data.

It also contradicts itself rhetorically. It says he “mostly fit the archetypical Aryan,” then immediately tries to deform him physically: bird chest, wide hips, asymmetry, goat laugh. That is not analysis. That is anti-iconography: first raise the idealized Nazi image, then spoil it bodily. Very common in demonizing portrayals.

5. Hobbies: mostly plausible, but the interpretation is overdriven

Fencing, violin, riding, flying, and hunting are all broadly plausible or documented. The problem is the hunting quotation.

The quote:

“Heydrich much enjoys shooting… because he must make a kill…”

may come from a hostile or postwar recollection. It is not impossible as an observation, but it is psychologizing: it translates a hobby into a moral diagnosis. The text then uses it as if it reveals essence: “he must kill.” That is exactly the kind of narrative shortcut that should raise alarms.

A better historian’s formulation would be:

Some hostile recollections portray Heydrich’s hunting as intensely competitive and bound up with control or dominance; without corroboration, this should be treated as characterization rather than proof of sadistic compulsion.

6. Flying: partly true, partly mangled

He was a trained pilot and did fly with the Luftwaffe. His aircraft was hit over Soviet territory in July 1941, and he had to land and get back/rescued. The broad event is real: his Bf 109 was hit by Soviet fire near the Dniester/Yampil area, he landed behind or near enemy lines, avoided capture, and was later forbidden or stopped from such missions.

But the text says:

“He had his own plane which he used to get to the Wannsee Conference and fly recreationally.”

This needs qualification. “Own plane” can mean private, assigned, personal-use, liaison aircraft, or dramatized shorthand. It should not be stated baldly without identifying the aircraft, ownership status, and source. And using it “to get to Wannsee” is a detail that needs direct proof, not assumption from a filmic image of Heydrich flying into Berlin.

7. Gregor Strasser: plausible anecdote, but not cleanly handled

The Strasser passage is another example of a true atrocity wrapped in melodramatic certainty.

Gregor Strasser was killed during the Röhm purge/Night of the Long Knives, and Heydrich and Himmler were involved in the broader conspiracy and purge machinery. USHMM says Himmler and Heydrich conspired with Göring to persuade Hitler to eliminate Röhm and planted rumors/evidence of a coup threat. Source

The “Let the swine bleed to death” line is widely repeated, but it is still anecdotal. It should be attributed, not simply narrated as camera-visible fact. Also, the text says “SD cell,” which is probably imprecise; the usual accounts place Strasser in Gestapo custody/headquarters context, not simply “an SD cell.”

So: possible, famous, damning — but still should be source-labelled.

8. “He created the concentration camp system” is wrong

This is one of the clearest factual failures.

Heydrich did not create the concentration camp system. Early camps emerged in 1933; Dachau was central under Himmler/Eicke, and the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps developed under Theodor Eicke. Heydrich/RSHA/SiPo/Gestapo were deeply involved in arrests, Schutzhaft, deportations, and later exterminatory policy, but “created the concentration camp system” is too broad and wrong.

A correct version:

Heydrich’s police-security apparatus supplied victims to the camp system and integrated police intelligence, repression, and deportation into SS terror policy; he did not personally create the camp system as such.

9. “Forced Jews to have Jewish councils with cynical joy”: overstatement

Jewish councils/Judenräte were part of German occupation policy and ghetto administration. Heydrich/RSHA policy is relevant here, but “with cynical joy” is pure interior-state language unless tied to a specific source. It turns administrative cruelty into mind-reading.

The policy can be condemned without inventing emotional certainty.

10. Walter Schellenberg material: very dangerous source base

The text leans heavily on Schellenberg-like anecdotes: dinners, “mufti,” games with Lina, sexual jealousy, kicking under the table, practical concern, cat-and-mouse, clever drunk, Russian beer incident, poisoning Otto Strasser.

Schellenberg is useful, but he is also self-serving. He had every incentive after the war to portray himself as brilliant, endangered, reluctantly involved, and personally interesting to Heydrich. So whenever the text uses Schellenberg material to create a psychologically intimate Heydrich, the evidentiary rating should drop.

The claim that Heydrich spent weeks or months entrapping Schellenberg over Lina is especially suspicious. It may preserve something — jealousy, surveillance, social testing — but it reads like memoir-drama. “He never rested until a subordinate was in his power” is not a fact; it is literary villain construction.

11. Otto Strasser poisoning: plausible operation, bad wording

The claim that Heydrich ordered Schellenberg to track down Otto Strasser and poison him refers to real anti-Strasser operations, but the description “liquid poison that burns the skin of those it comes too close to” is garbled and sensational. It sounds like botulinum toxin or another assassination-toxin story transformed into pulp detail. This needs exact sourcing.

Do not accept it unless these can be answered:

1. Which source?

2. Which poison?

3. Which date?

4. Which operational file?

5. Was the plan ordered, proposed, tested, or merely claimed later by Schellenberg?

Without that, it is anecdote dressed as operational history.

12. Gleiwitz / “let go of an officer” is confused

The sentence:

“He also let go of an officer who disobeyed one single order to head the fake an attack from Poland…”

seems to refer to the Gleiwitz incident / Operation Himmler. The wording is nearly incoherent. Heydrich was involved in organizing false-flag operations around the Polish invasion, but this sentence does not clearly identify the officer, the order, or what “let go” means. It is unusable as written.

To sum things up:

It piles up stories from different genres — institutional history, memoir, gossip, physical description, operational anecdote — and lets quantity simulate proof.

USHMM-type institutional facts, Schellenberg memoir anecdotes, Lina-related domestic material, pop-history descriptions, and hostile quotes are all presented at the same evidentiary level.

Factual objections:

Mind-reading.

“He must make a kill,” “with cynical joy,” “lecherous,” “loved to play cat and mouse,” “never rested until…” These are interpretations, not facts.

Moral adjectives replacing analysis.

“Cruel,” “lecherous,” “manipulative,” “nefarious” may or may not be fair moral descriptors, but the text uses them as organizing categories before proving them.

Category confusion.

Institutional guilt is mixed with personality gossip. Heydrich’s role in genocide is real and central; that does not automatically validate every story about brothels, jealousy, or body oddities.

Villain portrait logic.

The writer clearly wants a coherent monster: sexually predatory, physically uncanny, socially sadistic, intellectually brilliant, murderous, jealous, and theatrical. Some parts may be true. But the total portrait is too neat.

What is actually safe to say?

A tighter, source-clean version would be:

Reinhard Heydrich was one of the central SS-police figures of the Nazi regime: head of the SD, chief of the Security Police and SD, and head of the RSHA from 1939 until his death. The RSHA coordinated major components of Nazi repression and Holocaust policy, including deportations, Einsatzgruppen operations, and the bureaucratic coordination represented by the Wannsee Conference. Heydrich was feared for his intelligence, ambition, administrative effectiveness, and access to compromising information. Many postwar accounts also portray him as cold, suspicious, manipulative, and socially predatory, but these personality claims often derive from memoirs and hostile recollections and must be separated from well-documented institutional responsibility.

*Trigger warnings: blackmail, war crimes, nazis. Also, this will be very extensive: warning for a long post. *

There will be changes to this post as I believe this was made last year and I like talking about Heydrich.

Reinhard Heydrich was a high-ranking SS officer and member of the Nazi Party. He ran the SD (The Intelligence Service of the SS), the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office - the organization that encompassed the SD and the Sipo, aka The Security Police).

As the Nazi Germany began military expansion, Heydrich created Operation groups (Einsatzengruppen) of the Security Police and SD. (*The Einsatzengruppen was different to the Einsatzkommando*.) He tasked them with a variety of security duties:

The seizure of key building and documentation

The establishment of functioning intelligence operations

The Identification and elimination of real and perceived opponents of German rule.

His SS ranking was Obbergruppenfuhrer, the SS equivalent of the rank 'General.'

(Source for the above: Reinhard Heydrich: In Depth | Holocaust Encyclopedia

Nigel Jones stated he was dreaded Nazi, a big statement but take it as you will. Two questionably reliable primary sources support this; Walter Schellenberg described him as 'dreaded' in The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg. It should be noted that Walter Schellenberg had quite a lot of respect for Heydrich and his memoirs were written after WW2, so take it with a grain of salt.

(Source for the above: Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel and The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg).

He had a few habits, including reading paperwork from a briefcase while explaining orders and taking and joining subordinates and superiors out to luncheons and dinners.

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg. Such a minor detail, Schelenberg would have little reason to lie about as if he wished to save himself from trial, it wouldn't be relevant. Also, a photo of him sitting with Himmler and others at what looks like a cafe.

Reinhard Heydrich mostly fit the 'archetypical aryan' as he was blonde, 6'3 (1.91 meters) and blue-eyed; however, he had oddly wide hips.

(Source; Google for the height. There's also a photo below regarding the rest.)

He had many hobbies including fencing, hunting and violin playing.

(Evidence of the following in the photo bellow and this: 1940s Reinhard Heydrich/SS Officers Fencing)

To give extra content on the violin playing his father wanted him to have a musical career.

(Source for the above: Reinhard Heydrich: In Depth | Holocaust Encyclopedia.)

The following is photos of him doing his hobbies:

Here's an extract about his hunting habit.

Reinhard Heydrich had his own plane which he used to fly recreationally.

(Source for the above: The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg).

It's believed he went out to fly as a member of the Luftwaffe, but it's also believed he didn't have the time for such.

(Source for the above: Reinhard Heydrich - Fighter Pilot?)

He a nasally voice.

(Source for the above: The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg).

Reinhard Heydrich and Kitty Salon:

He organized the kidnapping of a well-known Madam of a wealthy brothel, after she tried to leave the German border. There are several different stories from different parties of how Heydrich came up with the idea and how it played out prior to that, all which are contradictory. Either way she was starved and beaten. She was then coerced into becoming a collaborator and letting the SD's technical set up microphones and getting secrets through pillow talk.

(Source for the above: Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel).

He also had 'inspections', where he went off with one of the girls and ordered his technical teams to shut off the microphones.

He had a fantastic memory and innate curiosity which led to him inquiring how others knew someone and asking about implied conversations he found suspicious, making them tell him everything before Heydrich let them go.

(Source for the above: Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel) and The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg.)

Reinhard Heydrich had a specific way of dealing with reports which were in the context of the SD (counterintelligence) and indifferently cold orders in the context of the SS hierarchy. When reporting information to Hitler, he'd do it in a military like fashion. When accepting reports, it was often during dinners (with Walter Schellenberg) or in his office in the RSHA building. He often gave orders at his hunting lodge. The orders he gave included, but were not limited to the following:

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, The Assasination of Reinhard Heydrich by Callumn Mcdonald).

-Ordering his SD men to steal a file from the Abwehr (the intelligence organization of the German Military)

(Sources for the above: Abwehr - Wikipedia and Kitty Salon by Nigel Jones, Urs Brunner and Dr Julia Schrammel).

-In an indirect way, ordering Walter Schellenberg to track down Otto Strasser and poison him with a liquid poison that burns the skin of those it comes too close to. He basically ordered Schellenberg to come with him to see Hitler who explained, then they went to an office room where a scientist explained how it worked. This was in 1940, it wasn't specified what kind of poison (probably for intelligence reasons; Schellenberg puts nicknames for people who were spies, it also just isn't given a name and is implied to be a rare chemical weapon, so it's still valid.)

(Source for the above: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg.)

He had many rumors about him; that he was secretly Jewish, that he had to leave the navy because he slept with and promised marriage to another women who wasn't his fiancé at the time. Again, all rumors, so treat it with skepticism.

(Source above: The Assasination of Reinhard Heydrich by Callumn Mcdonald).

(Source below: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, so treat it with skepticism.)

Reinhard Heydrich was manipulative as he pinned his subordinates and superiors against each other. He loved to play cat and mouse games with his subordinates and spent several weeks-months trying to entrap Walter Schellenberg into confessing he was sleeping with Lina Heydrich (his wife). He even ordered over telephone that Walter Schellenberg would have dinner 'in mufti' with him and then 'go places' after playing cards with both Walter and Lina while playing the loyal, devoted husband. He even blackmailed Heinrich Mueller, the head of the Gestapo who was also his subordinate by two rows down. He did it apparently because Heinrich Mueller was anti monarchy and anti nazi.

Reinhard Heydrich had a cruel streak. He also threatened of an SD officer who disobeyed the order to head the fake an attack from Poland and justify Germany's aggression against the Poles.

(Source above: The Assasination of Reinhard Heydrich by Callumn Mcdonald).

Heydrich was involved in creating the concentration camp system and 'with cynical joy' forced Jews to have Jewish councils to govern 'their own' in the ghettos.

(Source below: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, so treat it with skepticism.)

Reinhard Heydrich was lecherous. Besides what else has been mentioned, he had some 'lecherous things' to Walter Schellenberg while they were out for dinner together. Date wasn't specified and was apparently in the months during Heydrich's attempts to entrap him.

(Source below: The Labrynth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg by Walter Schellenberg, so treat it with skepticism.)

Finally, Reinhard Heydrich was apparently a fun drunk and saved Walter Schellenberg from getting beer thrown on him by a spy they were with.

Reinhard Heydrich treated his subordinates as such and was quick to criticize them. He didn't have any protege's or 'students' nor did he give anyone the sense they could be friends. He showed practical concern once when making sure Walter Schellenberg didn't get taken by the Americans while on an undercover mission. If they said anything that would possibly put them at risk or embarrass himself, he wouldn't hesitate to kick their leg under the table. He also liked to play cat and mouse games with them, in terms of trickery of deception - he never rested until a subordinate was in his power, 'to be struck down at the slightest sign of escape'. He sewed conflict with those above him and beneath him to distract from his growing power.

Reinhard Heydrich

*Trigger warnings: blackmail, war crimes, nazis. Also, this will be very extensive: warning for a long post. *

Reinhard Heydrich was a high ranking nazi party member, war criminal and spy master. He ran the SD (The Intelligence Service of the SS), the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office - the organization that encompassed the SD, Kripo and Gestapo). He also commanded the Einsatzengruppen (mobile killing squads) units as a whole. His SS ranking was Obbergruppenfuhrer, the SS equivalent of the rank 'General.' All that combined with his notoriety and fear of him as well as him being second in command to Heinrich Himmler (The Reichsfuhrer-SS; head of the SS), made him someone who people didn't want to make an enemy of.

He had a few habits, including reading paperwork from a briefcase while explaining orders, taking and joining subordinates and superiors out to luncheons and dinners. He also had a habit of visiting brothels in Berlin.

Yes. The text is not wholly false, but it is methodologically very bad: it mixes correct institutional facts with sensational anecdotes, unattributed memoir material, physical caricature, and confident psychological claims. The result is not “a profile of Heydrich” so much as a collage of hostile tropes, Schellenberg/Lina-style anecdote, pop-history simplification, and fandom-like character notes.

The strongest criticism is this: the text repeatedly treats “this has been said about Heydrich” as equivalent to “this is known about Heydrich.” Emotionally effective narrative motifs start replacing source hierarchy and factual control. Things that “sound true” can become accepted because they fit a known narrative grammar, not because the underlying event is documented.

1. The text skeleton: partly correct, but flattened

The opening paragraph is the most factually solid part, although even there it is sloppy.

Heydrich did head the SD and then the RSHA; the RSHA brought together the SD and the Security Police, which included the Gestapo and Kripo. USHMM describes the RSHA as created in September 1939 and led initially by Heydrich; it formalized the relationship between the SD and the Security Police. Source

It is also correct that the RSHA was central to the Holocaust, including deportations, Einsatzgruppen deployment, and the Wannsee Conference. USHMM explicitly says the RSHA coordinated forced emigration/deportations, developed poison-gas killing methods, deployed Einsatzgruppen, and hosted Wannsee.

But the phrase “he commanded the Einsatzgruppen units as a whole” needs nuance. Organizationally, yes, the Einsatzgruppen were under RSHA/Heydrich authority. But operational command in occupied territories was not simply “Heydrich personally ordered every round-up and shooting.” There were Einsatzgruppen commanders, Higher SS and Police Leaders, army interfaces, local initiatives, and shifting chains of command. So the claim is not false, but it compresses a complex machinery into a cartoon chain: Heydrich → murder squad → shootings.

Likewise, “second in command to Himmler” is broadly defensible only in the SS-police-security sphere. It should not be read as “formal number two of the entire SS in every administrative, economic, Waffen-SS, camp, and police matter.” He was Himmler’s crucial deputy in security and police power, not simply a universal vice-Himmler.

Also: “Obbergruppenfuhrer” is misspelled. It should be SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei. Calling it simply “the SS equivalent of General” is imprecise; in many rank equivalency charts it corresponds more closely to a senior general rank, often lieutenant-general level, depending on context.

2. Wannsee: the flattening risks a common misconception

The text says he used his plane to get to the Wannsee Conference. That may come from dramatizations or anecdotal tradition, but the important correction is conceptual: Wannsee did not “decide” the Holocaust. The House of the Wannsee Conference states explicitly that it would be incorrect to say the murder of European Jews was decided there; the meeting coordinated implementation and involved ministries and party offices in a policy already decided at a higher level. Source

The protocol itself has Heydrich opening the meeting by saying that Göring had put him in charge of preparations for the “Final Solution” and that the purpose was to clarify fundamental questions and coordinate the agencies involved.

So a more accurate formulation would be:

Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference as head of the Security Police and SD, using it to assert RSHA leadership over the coordination of deportation and murder policy across Reich ministries and occupied administrations.

That is different from a vague villain prose.

3. Salon Kitty / brothel material: high contamination risk

This is one of the weakest parts of the text.

There probably was an SD-linked espionage operation around Salon Kitty, and Schellenberg’s memoirs are a key source for the microphone story. But the evidentiary situation is messy. A review of The Madam and the Spymaster notes that much of the famous Salon Kitty story is “largely unsubstantiated,” that later mythmaking drew heavily from Schellenberg and sensationalized 1970s treatments, and that many primary-source gaps remain. Source

Another article says postwar reports linked the brothel to SD informants and that Schellenberg claimed it was wired, but it also notes that little is actually known and that SD involvement remains obscure. (Also stated in the Nancy Dougherty book).

So:

Heydrich/Schellenberg used Salon Kitty for intelligence.

–> Plausible, but source dependent.

Kitty Schmidt was coerced

–> Often repeated, but not cleanly documented

Heydrich personally “visited brothels as a habit”

–> Not plausibly documented

Heydrich went off with a girl and ordered microphones off

-> Anecdotal, probably memoir/sensational-literature territory

Therefore Heydrich was “lecherous” –> Argumentative leap

This is a perfect example of evidence laundering: a story enters through memoir, becomes sex-spy folklore, then gets retold as personality evidence.

4. Physical description: caricature disguised as observation

The “Aryan archetype” paragraph is rhetorically suspicious.

Blond, blue-eyed, tall: broadly consistent with common descriptions. But “6’4” is likely exaggerated; many sources give him around 191 cm, roughly 6’3, and even that varies. “Bird chest,” “oddly wide hips,” “sharp glimmering eyes,” “goat-like laugh,” “nasally voice” are not neutral facts. They are physiognomic characterization. In fact, he was 187 centimetres tall, as documented by medical records.

This is not necessarily useless — hostile descriptions can preserve real impressions — but it should be labelled as witness-description / hostile memoir / literary portrait, not objective data.

It also contradicts itself rhetorically. It says he “mostly fit the archetypical Aryan,” then immediately tries to deform him physically: bird chest, wide hips, asymmetry, goat laugh. That is not analysis. That is anti-iconography: first raise the idealized Nazi image, then spoil it bodily. Very common in demonizing portrayals.

5. Hobbies: mostly plausible, but the interpretation is overdriven

Fencing, violin, riding, flying, and hunting are all broadly plausible or documented. The problem is the hunting quotation.

The quote:

“Heydrich much enjoys shooting… because he must make a kill…”

may come from a hostile or postwar recollection. It is not impossible as an observation, but it is psychologizing: it translates a hobby into a moral diagnosis. The text then uses it as if it reveals essence: “he must kill.” That is exactly the kind of narrative shortcut that should raise alarms.

A better historian’s formulation would be:

Some hostile recollections portray Heydrich’s hunting as intensely competitive and bound up with control or dominance; without corroboration, this should be treated as characterization rather than proof of sadistic compulsion.

6. Flying: partly true, partly mangled

He was a trained pilot and did fly with the Luftwaffe. His aircraft was hit over Soviet territory in July 1941, and he had to land and get back/rescued. The broad event is real: his Bf 109 was hit by Soviet fire near the Dniester/Yampil area, he landed behind or near enemy lines, avoided capture, and was later forbidden or stopped from such missions.

But the text says:

“He had his own plane which he used to get to the Wannsee Conference and fly recreationally.”

This needs qualification. “Own plane” can mean private, assigned, personal-use, liaison aircraft, or dramatized shorthand. It should not be stated baldly without identifying the aircraft, ownership status, and source. And using it “to get to Wannsee” is a detail that needs direct proof, not assumption from a filmic image of Heydrich flying into Berlin.

7. Gregor Strasser: plausible anecdote, but not cleanly handled

The Strasser passage is another example of a true atrocity wrapped in melodramatic certainty.

Gregor Strasser was killed during the Röhm purge/Night of the Long Knives, and Heydrich and Himmler were involved in the broader conspiracy and purge machinery. USHMM says Himmler and Heydrich conspired with Göring to persuade Hitler to eliminate Röhm and planted rumors/evidence of a coup threat. Source

The “Let the swine bleed to death” line is widely repeated, but it is still anecdotal. It should be attributed, not simply narrated as camera-visible fact. Also, the text says “SD cell,” which is probably imprecise; the usual accounts place Strasser in Gestapo custody/headquarters context, not simply “an SD cell.”

So: possible, famous, damning — but still should be source-labelled.

8. “He created the concentration camp system” is wrong

This is one of the clearest factual failures.

Heydrich did not create the concentration camp system. Early camps emerged in 1933; Dachau was central under Himmler/Eicke, and the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps developed under Theodor Eicke. Heydrich/RSHA/SiPo/Gestapo were deeply involved in arrests, Schutzhaft, deportations, and later exterminatory policy, but “created the concentration camp system” is too broad and wrong.

A correct version:

Heydrich’s police-security apparatus supplied victims to the camp system and integrated police intelligence, repression, and deportation into SS terror policy; he did not personally create the camp system as such.

9. “Forced Jews to have Jewish councils with cynical joy”: overstatement

Jewish councils/Judenräte were part of German occupation policy and ghetto administration. Heydrich/RSHA policy is relevant here, but “with cynical joy” is pure interior-state language unless tied to a specific source. It turns administrative cruelty into mind-reading.

The policy can be condemned without inventing emotional certainty.

10. Walter Schellenberg material: very dangerous source base

The text leans heavily on Schellenberg-like anecdotes: dinners, “mufti,” games with Lina, sexual jealousy, kicking under the table, practical concern, cat-and-mouse, clever drunk, Russian beer incident, poisoning Otto Strasser.

Schellenberg is useful, but he is also self-serving. He had every incentive after the war to portray himself as brilliant, endangered, reluctantly involved, and personally interesting to Heydrich. So whenever the text uses Schellenberg material to create a psychologically intimate Heydrich, the evidentiary rating should drop.

The claim that Heydrich spent weeks or months entrapping Schellenberg over Lina is especially suspicious. It may preserve something — jealousy, surveillance, social testing — but it reads like memoir-drama. “He never rested until a subordinate was in his power” is not a fact; it is literary villain construction.

11. Otto Strasser poisoning: plausible operation, bad wording

The claim that Heydrich ordered Schellenberg to track down Otto Strasser and poison him refers to real anti-Strasser operations, but the description “liquid poison that burns the skin of those it comes too close to” is garbled and sensational. It sounds like botulinum toxin or another assassination-toxin story transformed into pulp detail. This needs exact sourcing.

Do not accept it unless these can be answered:

1. Which source?

2. Which poison?

3. Which date?

4. Which operational file?

5. Was the plan ordered, proposed, tested, or merely claimed later by Schellenberg?

Without that, it is anecdote dressed as operational history.

12. Gleiwitz / “let go of an officer” is confused

The sentence:

“He also let go of an officer who disobeyed one single order to head the fake an attack from Poland…”

seems to refer to the Gleiwitz incident / Operation Himmler. The wording is nearly incoherent. Heydrich was involved in organizing false-flag operations around the Polish invasion, but this sentence does not clearly identify the officer, the order, or what “let go” means. It is unusable as written.

To sum things up:

It piles up stories from different genres — institutional history, memoir, gossip, physical description, operational anecdote — and lets quantity simulate proof.

USHMM-type institutional facts, Schellenberg memoir anecdotes, Lina-related domestic material, pop-history descriptions, and hostile quotes are all presented at the same evidentiary level.

Factual objections:

Mind-reading.

“He must make a kill,” “with cynical joy,” “lecherous,” “loved to play cat and mouse,” “never rested until…” These are interpretations, not facts.

Moral adjectives replacing analysis.

“Cruel,” “lecherous,” “manipulative,” “nefarious” may or may not be fair moral descriptors, but the text uses them as organizing categories before proving them.

Category confusion.

Institutional guilt is mixed with personality gossip. Heydrich’s role in genocide is real and central; that does not automatically validate every story about brothels, jealousy, or body oddities.

Villain portrait logic.

The writer clearly wants a coherent monster: sexually predatory, physically uncanny, socially sadistic, intellectually brilliant, murderous, jealous, and theatrical. Some parts may be true. But the total portrait is too neat.

What is actually safe to say?

A tighter, source-clean version would be:

Reinhard Heydrich was one of the central SS-police figures of the Nazi regime: head of the SD, chief of the Security Police and SD, and head of the RSHA from 1939 until his death. The RSHA coordinated major components of Nazi repression and Holocaust policy, including deportations, Einsatzgruppen operations, and the bureaucratic coordination represented by the Wannsee Conference. Heydrich was feared for his intelligence, ambition, administrative effectiveness, and access to compromising information. Many postwar accounts also portray him as cold, suspicious, manipulative, and socially predatory, but these personality claims often derive from memoirs and hostile recollections and must be separated from well-documented institutional responsibility.

My purpose isn't to be a pure historian; it's to write about those I find interesting using the sources I've dug into long since I started looking into these people. That's why it feels disjointed. I also like seeing the patterns that keep coming up in different places of information. Regarding the primary and secondary sources: this covers the ones that are reliable and if it's a primary source that's up for question (i.e if the validity is up for question), I will clarify. For my own sake and for my own sense of fun, I'm going over the post again as I like to write about Heydrich and find patterns in different sources. If I've forgotten the exact source of information between two books or websites, I will tale that information out for certainty's sake.

I will also list my sources as I go and, in some cases, the sources don't clarify specific times and dates which is annoying, but it is what it is, and I can't put false dates/times to make it feel more 'complete' as that's just unhelpful.

can they get a room

bbc merlin - 04x09 Lancelot du Lac