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My Honor is Loyalty "The Reinhard Heydrich Memorial Death Book"
My Honour Is Loyalty Reinhard Heydrich 7 · MARCH 1904 4 · JUNE 1942
Reinhard Heydrich's outstanding contribution to the National Socialist Movement is the Security Service! The Reich Leader Of The SS recognized Heydrich's special gifts and particular abilities very quickly, and the particularly difficult special sphere was assigned to him as early as 1931. This was truly the right man in the right job.
Only a perfect National Socialist, a man with great force of action, a man whose ability to grasp situations was as sure as it was clear, could do the duties assigned. Reinhard Heydrich distinguished substance from appearance, weakness from true corruption, with piercing intelligence and unerring instinct. His clear judgement and infallible instinct were particularly successful in detecting and pursuing enemies of the Party and the State.
Heydrich considered the enemies' every possible course of action in the shortest time imaginable; spread those possibilities out before the Reich Leader Of The SS as neatly ordered as a fan, and reported Mission Accomplished! Most often in record time!
Only someone who has had repeated occasion to observe the activity of the Reich Security Main Office on the spot can form a conception of how carefully and painstakingly Reinhard Heydrich worked, how extensively he laid the groundwork for all the work done in his office. Untiringly, and with almost unbelievable dedication, Reinhard Heydrich worked to perfect his tool.
Recognizing the magnitude of the overall task which lay before him, meant, at the same time, recognizing the magnitude of the work assigned to him personally! Seeing that The Fuhrer allowed himself not a moment to rest, he permitted himself neither complacent self satisfaction nor ordinary relaxation; instead, his creative spirit worked unceasingly. And yet, even in the midst of his most difficult tasks, Reinhard Heydrich remained a cheerful, dynamic optimist at all times.
How many human weaknesses, how many shortcomings and vices, he, of all people, was in a position to see! Yet he remained at all times a carefree National Socialist: happiest in attack, a man whose belief in the fulfillment of his task could simply not be shaken!
Upon assuming these responsibilities, Reinhard Heydrich was first confronted with the challenge of investigating the spiritual background and international connections of all enemies of the Movement and combating them with the knowledge gained thereby.
It was not simply a matter of ensuring the external security of the State; rather, and most importantly, it was a matter of protecting the National Socialist Movement and ideology. He recognized that combating the enemy was only part of the task of building a National Socialist Greater German Reich.
He knew that in the long run, the existence of the Nation could only be assured when the enemy was defeated spiritually, when the ideological unity of the German Folk was guided to fulfillment through the positive work of the Party. Thus, Reinhard Heydrich became one of the most active fighters for the eternal purity and security of the National Socialist ideological heritage. Reinhard Heydrich created a Security Service which watched over the security of the Reich as its ideological fighting formation openly and firmly, in crass contradiction to the services of other countries. Every member of the Security Service had to be strengthened in his ideology and character so as to be able to fulfill this difficult and often thankless task without suffering damage as a human being. The conditions for this were laid down by the laws of the SS. He succeeded in inspiring many young men from party backgrounds, men with the most widely varying occupational skills, to do service with the Security Service. Many gifted young people were thus inspired to make valuable contributions which, had they followed normal professional careers, would never have been made in precisely those crucial years of construction. What these men actually achieved on many occasions, silently, and usually without public acknowledgment, is exemplary even in the history of the Party, a history filled with service in honorary offices. Heydrich demanded the highest standards of efficiency from his men, and succeeded in supervising and creating a leadership cadre which will carry on the work which first took shape in his mind. The Security Service Of The Reich Leader Of The SS, responsible for obtaining and processing intelligence material gathered in the service of the Party, became the political intelligence and defense arm of the Party and of its member organizations and associations. As a party organization, the Security Service laid the groundwork for extensive exchanges of information. The Security Service did not restrict itself to the reporting on the activities of the enemy to Head Office; rather, and more importantly, it reported constantly, extensively, and continually, on all areas of racial community life. The deliberate use of the Security Service in all areas made it possible to bring wishes and concerns from all parts of the Reich and from all walks of life to the immediate attention of the highest offices of the Reich. In addition, the supervisory work of the Security Service contributed to a full and positive enthusiasm for the work of the Party. Anyone who worked with SS General Heydrich always took pleasure in his attitude, the attitude of an athlete and a soldier, combined with an extensive knowledge and clear judgment. With unerring firmness of purpose, he stuck to the ideological line which he recognized to be correct! No matter how flexible his methods, his National Socialist attitude remained as hard and stubborn as ever. Acceptance of responsibility meant, for him, constant dedication! The National Socialist German Workers' Party lost one of its best in Reinhard Heydrich! -Reich Leader Martin Bormann, Leader Of The Party Chancellery.
In this spirit of a political soldier, he led his SS Men in the strictest discipline: to be as hard as the security of the Nation demanded, but never harder than necessary for the well being of the German Folk. In view of Heydrich's intellectual development, which bound him indissolubly to the SS but nevertheless raised him far above the narrow viewpoints of his training, permitting him to use Police facilities in the Reich's great determination to create order in Europe, The Fuhrer assigned him to the Office Of Reich Protector In Bohemia And Moravia. He now assumed duties which were visible for all to see, and which required fighting powers far more so than purely defensive activities. His far reaching experience with shortcomings of every kind and in all fields enabled him to identify the correct course of action in every case, whether in economic matters or problems of cultural life. It was a great surprise to the hard working masses in one of the old heartlands of the Reich to find that deliberate plotters and saboteurs of the new order of Europe in the region of Bohemia and Moravia were quickly and ruthlessly eliminated wherever found, while his strict hand went generously and justly on with the work of construction, in which even the smallest remnants of goodwill were allowed to develop in an atmosphere of trust. This free and open manner of procedure was more successful than political cleverness could ever be, and was also a reflection of his personal attitude. It increases the tragedy of his death, that the assassins' struck him down, not in his groundbreaking work as Chief Of Security Police And The Security Service, not while fighting on the battlefront, but during the early stages of friendly and constructive work as Deputy Reich Protector: a mission intended to benefit the Czechs, a Folk whose destiny is inevitably bound up with the prosperity or ruin of the Reich no less than the German Folk themselves. -SS Field Marshal Daluege.
Preface
Music is the creative language of those who are artistic and musical, the medium of their inner life. In times of trouble it is an alleviate helper to the listener and admonisher in times of greatness and of fighting. But not least is music the everlasting manifestation of the cultural workings of the German Race.
In this sense the Prague Music Festival is a contribution to a mastering of the present and intended as a foundation for a healthy musical life in this region within the Reich for years to come.
- Heydrich.
With the death of SS General REINHARD HEYDRICH, Deputy Reich Protector Of Bohemia And Moravia and Head Of The Security Service And Security Police, the National Socialist Movement has made yet another sacrificial contribution to our Folk's struggle for freedom.
It was inconceivable to us that this radiant, great man might no longer be with us, no longer struggling alongside us soon after his 38th birthday; so irreplaceable were his unique abilities, bound up with a character of rare purity and an intelligence of such penetrating logic and clarity, that we would be unfaithful to his memory if we failed, beside his coffin, to incorporate once more into our own being, the heroic thoughts of dying and becoming that which have always moved our Folk upon the death of their most beloved.
It is in that spirit that we now wish to hold the ceremonies in his honor; to tell of his life; his deeds; to give his material shell back to the eternal circulation of all existence on this Earth; and thereafter, to continue to fight, just as he believed and fought; and thus attempt to fill his place together.
Reinhard Heydrich was born on the 7th of March, 1904, in Halle an der Saale. He attended a Folk School and a Reformed Technical High School. Even in his early school years, which coincided with years of our Folk's great defeat after 1918, the young student, at the age of 16, in a burning love of Germany, enlisted as a messenger in the Märker Free Corps, and as a volunteer in the Halle Free Corps in the then strongly communist central Germany.
In 1922, a period of history during which all soldierly duties were rejected, he entered the Reich Navy as an inspired Officer Cadet. In 1926, he became a Second Lieutenant, and in 1928 a First Lieutenant. As Radio And News Officer, he was active in the most widely varied branches of the service, and broadened his knowledge through travel and trips abroad.
In 1931, he left the Reich Navy. I learned of him through one of his friends, the then SS Brigadier General von Eberstein, and recruited him into the SS in July of that year. Heydrich, the former First Lieutenant, now entered a small corps in Hamburg as a simple SS Man, performing service in the struggle that was going on in the debating halls, propaganda work in the many Red areas of the city, together with the brave, and mostly unemployed, youths whose loyalty gave us our first beginnings in that city.
Soon afterwards, I took him to München and transferred him to new responsibilities in the then still very small Reich Leadership Of The SS. With innate loyalty and determination, he fought his way through the politically difficult months in the autumn of 1932, months which presented him with many challenges, even though he was the right man for the job. When I became Police President after the Accession To Power in 1933, on the 12th of March in München I immediately assigned him to the so called Political Division of the Police. The Division was very quickly reorganized, and out of it the Bavarian Political Police was created in just a few weeks.
The Political Police of all non Prussian German States were soon created on this model, until the 20th of April, 1934, when the Prussian Minister President, Reich Marshal and Party Comrade Hermann Göring, transferred the leadership of the Secret State Police of Prussia to myself and to SS Major General Reinhard Heydrich as my representative. In 1936, Heydrich, at the age of 32, became Chief Of The Security Police, newly created by the Leader Of The Reich Police. At the same time, the entire Criminal Police force, in addition to the Secret State Police, was made subordinate to him. The years 1933, 34, 35, 36 were filled with hard work, with innumerable initial difficulties; with hard but rewarding work in foreign countries against emigrants and traitors; with difficult and painful duties inside the country, together with the most difficult task of creating respect, decency, and law utilizing the administration and organizational apparatus of the new Police, in particular Heydrich's Security Service, the SD, and the Security Police, in the German States of the Reich. By early 1938, the Security Police was a fully established apparatus in every sense, armed with all weapons. Today, it is easy to say that Heydrich did great service in the bloodless march into Austria, the Sudetenland, and, later, Bohemia and Moravia, and in the liberation of Slovakia as well; careful determination and conscientious study of all his adversaries, combined with a clear vision of the activities of the enemy in these countries, of their organizational points and leaders, a vision which extended to the slightest detail.
I must also mention once again before the general public the thought of this man, feared by the subhuman's, hated and vilified by Jews and other criminals and also misunderstood at one time by many Germans. Every step, every action which he took, was taken as a National Socialist and SS Man. From the bottom of his heart and blood, he fulfilled, understood, and personified the ideology of Adolf Hitler. All the problems that he had to solve were viewed from the perspective of a basic recognition of true racial ideology: from the knowledge that maintaining the purity, security, and protection of our blood is the highest law. At the same time, he had the difficult task of building and leading an organization which dealt almost exclusively with the seamy side of life, with the unreliable, with deviates, with the uncomprehending, as well as with the ill intentioned criminal drives of social excrescences upon human society. The most serious source of stress in the Security Service is precisely that good news is hardly ever brought to the attention of SS Men. Heydrich's viewpoint, correctly, was that only the best of our Folk, the most carefully selected racially, men of excellent character and clear understanding, gifted with honest hearts and unbending hard will -- were capable of performing this service of fighting the negative in a positive manner, and bearing the strain of such a responsibility. He had an incorruptible sense of justice. Flatterers and tattletales only awakened deep contempt in him. True and decent men, even if they were guilty, could always place their hope in his sense of chivalry and his humane understanding. But with a full and detailed understanding of so many tragic problems, he never permitted anything to happen which might have harmed the Nation as a whole, or the future of our blood. Nor should his truly revolutionary creative and innovative conceptual work in the field of criminal police work be forgotten. As in all things, he went straight to the question of criminality with profound seriousness and humane understanding. At the same time, he was careful to see that the German Criminal Police obtained the most modern technology and scientific equipment. As the Leader of an International Criminal Police Commission, he made many valuable contributions to Police all over the world based on his knowledge and in a spirit of comradeship. His chief reward was that crime in Germany sank steadily to the point of disappearance from 1936 onward, and despite the war, now in its third year, has now reached the lowest point ever. Everyone in Germany can go out on the street peacefully, without being bothered or getting robbed, even in the darkest hours of night, in sharp contrast to the so called magnificently humane democratic countries; and all those Germans owe Reinhard Heydrich a debt of gratitude in their hearts. Common criminals and political plotters -- who are both the enemies of the Nation -- were invariably apprehended with an iron fist, and will continue to be apprehended by his men in future: the men of the Security Police. From innumerable conversations with Heydrich, I know how this man -- who was compelled to seem outwardly hard and strong -- often suffered in his heart; how he struggled, how painful it sometimes was for him. Yet he was always true to the law of the SS, which requires us to resolve and to act sparing neither foreign blood nor our own when the life of the Nation so demands. In this manner, he, one of the best teachers in National Socialist Germany, who educated and raised the SS Leadership Corps Of The Reich Security Service, and led it in unconditional purity. The SS Leaders and Men under his orders always felt a heartfelt love for their Commander, who was always ready to intervene for them, who placed them before himself in the most difficult cases and protected them, a gentleman by birth and attitude. He was equally as brilliant an example of readiness to bear responsibility as he was of modesty. His attitude was that it was better to let the work speak for itself than push oneself forward. Many people were surprised to find that the intellectual work of the Reich Security Police gave one a knowledge of all walks of life. There was no trace here of the dusty old jailhouse Policeman. He laid his groundwork using the strictest scientific research, and only then did he proceed with the day's work on that basis. Then came the war, with all its many tasks in the newly occupied territories, in Poland, in Norway, in Holland, in Belgium, in France, in Yugoslavia, and in Greece, but above all in Russia. It was difficult for him, the fighter and daredevil who was always ready for action, not to be on the Frontline. Despite his many and constant responsibilities, which he performed as one of the most hardworking men in the Reich both day and night, he took the time, for weeks and months, to get a flying licence in the early morning hours, and to pass his test for a Pilot's licence. In 1940 he flew to Holland and Norway as a fighter pilot, and earned the Fighter Operational Flying Clasp In Bronze and the Iron Cross, Second Class. But he was still not satisfied. In 1941, during the early Russian campaign, without my knowledge -- I am able to state with proud joy that this was the only secret he ever kept from me in the eleven years of our common path -- he flew as a fighter pilot with a German Squadron in southern Russia on many occasions, earning the Fighter Operational Flying Clasp In Silver and the Iron Cross, First Class. Fate had already stretched out its hand to him once at that time. He was shot down by Russian antiaircraft fire, but fortunately landed between the fronts, and fought his way back to the German lines, to get right back into another airplane the next morning. When I expressed the view that precisely he, Heydrich, was more valuable in his Office than as a soldier on other fronts, I understood exactly what drove him on; he really wanted to make the second part of the law -- not to spare his own blood -- a reality on the Front; although, in truth, his whole service as Head Of The Security Service was one of daily danger. The September of the last year brought him a new and, as we now know, the last great task. The Leader instructed Heydrich to go to the Protectorate Of Bohemia And Moravia as Deputy Reich Protector when Von Neurath was taken ill. Many people in Germany, and many more in Czechoslovakia, believed that the dreaded Heydrich would govern with blood and terror. But during the months in which he received a great assignment visible to the world for the first time, he displayed abilities approaching genius of the first order. He went to work, he arrested the guilty, he created unconditional respect for German authority and law enforcement, but he gave all men of good will a chance to cooperate. There was no problem in the multifaceted life of the Reich States of Bohemia and Moravia with which the young Deputy Of The Reich Protector did not occupy himself; no problem to which he had not already pointed the way to a solution, and had not, indeed, already begun to solve, an ability springing from the depths of his heart, and his profound understanding of the law of our blood, which impregnates the myth of the Reich. On the 27th of May, a perfidious bomb of English origin, thrown by a paid assassin from the lowest ranks of worthless sub humanity, struck him down. Fear and over cautiousness were foreign to him, one of the greatest sportsmen in the SS: a keen fencer, rider, swimmer, pentathlon runner, a sportsman of ability and enthusiasm. But it was characteristic of his courage and energy that he defended himself and shot twice at his attacker, even although he had been severely wounded. For days we hoped that the serious danger might be warded off by the strength of his healthy ancestors and by the health of a body kept strong by a simple, disciplined life. On the seventh day, on the 4th of June, 1942, fate -- God, the Ancient One -- in whom he, the great fighter against all abuses of religion for political purposes, profoundly believed in self confident and unquestioned submission, ended his life on Earth. All of us, particularly The Leader Of The Reich, whom he served with the uttermost faith of his whole heart, and we, his friends and comrades, and both his small sons, who, as witnesses of his endlessly happy family life and as representatives of their brave mother, who was expecting a new child, attend here and are gathered here to pay him our final respects. The Leader awarded him the Wounded Decoration In Gold, and honored him by renaming a Regiment of the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front, the 6th SS Infantry Standard, the Reinhard Heydrich on the day of his death. He will live on in our holy conviction, which was also his own belief. Just as he continued the line of his ancestors and brought them only honour, he will continue to live on as an ideal man and brave fighter with all his qualities, with an optimistic but serious, never overly flexible intellect; a character of the purest stamp, noble, decent, and pure in his sons, in the children who are the heritage of his blood and his name. To his wife and children, though, are due our full sympathy and uttermost love filled concern that they should be well cared for in the great family of the Protective Echelon. But he will also live on in the order of the SS. The remembrance of him will be of assistance to us when we have duties to do for The Leader and the Reich. He will attack and fight with us, when we, true to our law, appear, attack, and fight to the last. Thus, he will be with us, since we will remain eternally the same, forever and ever, in good times and bad. But he will also be with us when we sit together to celebrate our comradely gatherings. For the Security Service and the Security Police, he will remain the creator and founder, the model, perhaps never again to be equaled, ever present before the eyes of every individual. But for all Germans, he will serve as a warning and martyr that Bohemia and Moravia are, and will remain, States of the German Reich, as they always were. There in the other world, he will live on in our ranks and fight eternally in spirit; with our other old comrades, Wetzel, Moder, Herrmann, Mülverstedt, Stahlecker, and many others in the long ranks of the Battalions of dead SS Men. It is, however, our holy duty to atone for his death now: to take up his task, and to destroy the enemy of our Folk, immediately, without pity and weakness. There remains only one thing for me to say: You, Reinhard Heydrich, were truly a good SS Man! Personally, though, I must thank you for your unfailing loyalty and for the wonderful friendship which bound us together in this life, and which death cannot separate! -Speech Of The Reich Leader Of The SS, At The State Ceremony For SS General Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich, In The Mosaic Hall Of The New Reich Chancellery, 9th June, 1942.
Sources: Issued by: the Reich Security Main Office I B I Graphic drawing and layout: Johannes Böhland, Berlin Publisher: German Ancestral Heritage Foundation Publishing House, Berlin Printing: Metton And Company, Berlin S. W. 61
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009 |
