Moravia Morava
—  Historical region  —
Mikulov, a town in Moravia
Flag Coat of arms
Moravia (green and dark gray) in relation to the current regions of the Czech Republic
Location of Moravia in Europe
Country	Czech Republic
Established	8th century
Former capital	Brno, before that Brno and Olomouc together
Largest city	Brno
Area
• Total	22,348.87 km2 (8,628.95 sq mi)
Population
• Total	3,000,000
• Density	130/km2 (350/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)

Moravia (Czech: Morava; German:  Mähren (help·info); Polish: Morawy; Latin: Moravia) is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic and one of the historical Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Czech Silesia (and one of the 17 former crown lands of the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1867-1918 and one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia in 1918-1928). It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region. Moravia's largest city is Brno, its former capital, before the Thirty Years' War, there were two capitals: Olomouc and Brno.

Geography[link]

Moravia occupies most of the eastern part of the Czech Republic including the South Moravian Region and the Zlín Region, as well as parts of the Moravian-Silesian, Olomouc, Pardubice, Vysočina and South Bohemian regions.

Moravia borders Poland in the north, Czech Silesia in the northeast, Slovakia in the southeast, Lower Austria in the south and Bohemia in the west. Its northern boundary is formed by the Sudetes mountains which become the Carpathians in the east. The meandering Dyje flows through the border country with Austria and there is a protected area on both sides of the border in the area around Hardegg.

At the heart of the country lie the sedimentary basins of the Morava and the Dyje rivers at a height of 180 to 250 m. In the west, the Bohemian-Moravian highlands rise to over 800 m, although the highest mountain is in the north-west, Praděd in Hrubý Jeseník at 1490 m. Further south lie the Jeseníky lowlands (400 to 600 m) which fall to 310 m at the upper reaches of the River Oder (the Moravian Gate) near Hranice and then rise again as the Beskids to the 1322 m high Lysá hora. These three mountain ranges plus the "gate" between the latter two form part of the European Watershed. Moravia's eastern boundary is formed by the White Carpathians and Javorníky.

Between 1782–1850, Moravia (also thus known as Moravia-Silesia) also included a small portion of the former province of Silesia – the Austrian Silesia (when Frederick the Great annexed most of ancient Silesia (the land of upper and middle Oder river) to Prussia, Silesia's southernmost part remained with the Habsburgs).

Cities[link]

Economy[link]

This section requires expansion.

Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant

Moravian wine

In the south around Hodonín and Břeclav the land is part of the Viennese Basin and petroleum and lignite are drilled for in its deeper sediments. In the area around Ostrava there was intensive coal mining until around 1995. Iron, chemicals, leather and building materials are the main industrial goods. The main economic centres are Brno, Olomouc, Zlín and Ostrava. As well as other agriculture, Moravia is noted for its viticulture; it contains 94% of the Czech Republic's vineyards and is at the centre of the country's wine industry.

History[link]

Pre-history[link]

Early modern humans had settled in the region by the Paleolithic. The Předmostí archaeological site in Moravia is dated to between 24,000 and 27,000 years old.^[1][2]

Ancient Moravia[link]

Territory of the Great Moravia in 9th century: area ruled by Rastislav (846–870) in green; the green line marks the greatest territorial extent during the reign of Svatopluk I (871–894)

Around 60 BC the Celtic Volcae people withdrew from the region and were succeeded in turn by the Germanic Quadi. Several hundred years later, in the sixth century AD the Slavic tribes arrived in this territory often crossed during the Migration Period by successive Germanic and major Slavic tribes. At the end of the eighth century the Moravian Principality came into being in present-day south-eastern Moravia, Záhorie in south-western Slovakia and parts of Lower Austria. In 833 A.D. this became the state of Great Moravia with the conquest of the Principality of Nitra (present-day Slovakia). Their first king was Mojmír I (ruled 830-846). Louis the German invaded Moravia and replaced Mojmír I with his nephew Rastiz who became St. Rastislav.^[3] St. Rastislav (846-870) tried to emancipate his land from the Carolingian influence, so he sent envoys to Rome to get missionaries to come. When Rome refused he turned to Constantinople to the Byzantine emperor Michal. The result was the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius who translated liturgical books into Slavonic, which had lately been elevated by the Pope to the same level as Latin and Greek. Methodius became the first Moravian archbishop, but after his death the German influence again prevailed and the disciples of Methodius were forced to flee. So the unique situation which anticipated the II. Vatican Council by several centuries was destroyed. Great Moravia reached its greatest territorial extent in the 890s under Svatopluk I. At this time, the empire encompassed the territory of the present-day Czech Republic and Slovakia, the western part of present Hungary (Pannonia), as well as Lusatia in present-day Germany and Silesia and the upper Vistula basin in southern Poland. After Svatopluk's death in 895, the Bohemian princes defected to become vassals of the East Frankish ruler Arnulf of Carinthia, and the Moravian state ceased to exist after being overrun by invading Magyars in 906/7.

Union with Bohemia[link]

Bohemian state in the 10th century

Jobst of Moravia, Margrave of Moravia and King of the Romans

Following the defeat of the Magyars by Emperor Otto I at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, Otto's ally Boleslaus I, the Přemyslid ruler of Bohemia, received Moravia. Boleslaus I of Poland annexed Moravia in 999, and ruled it until 1019,^[4] when the Přemyslid prince Bretislaus recaptured it. Since then, Moravia has shared its history with Bohemia. Upon his father's death in 1034, Bretislaus also became the ruler of Bohemia. In 1055, Bretislaus decreed that the Bohemia and Moravia would be inherited together by primogeniture, although he also provided that his younger sons should govern parts (quarters) of Moravia as vassals to his oldest son.

Throughout the Přemyslid era, junior princes often ruled all or part of Moravia from Olomouc, Brno or Znojmo, with varying degrees of autonomy from the ruler of Bohemia. (Mainly Dukes of Olomouc usually used to act as "right hand" of Prague dukes and kings. Dukes of Brno and especially those of Znojmo were much more insubordinate.) Moravia reached its height of autonomy in 1182, when Emperor Frederick I elevated Conrad II Otto of Znojmo to the status of a margrave,^[5] immediately subject to the emperor, independent of Bohemia. This status was short-lived: in 1186, Conrad Otto was forced to obey the supreme rule of Bohemian duke Frederick. Three years later, Conrad Otto succeed to Frederick as Duke of Bohemia and subsequently cancelled his margrave title. Nevertheless, the margrave title was restored in 1197 when Vladislaus III of Bohemia resolved the succession dispute between him and his brother Ottokar by abdicating from the Bohemian throne and accepting Moravia as a vassal land of Bohemian (i.e., Prague) rulers. Vladislaus gradually established this land as Margraviate, slightly administratively different from Bohemia.

Kingdom of Bohemia and adjacent lands during the Hussite Wars

The Přemyslid dynasty became extinct in 1306, and in 1310 John of Luxembourg became Margraviate of Moravia and King of Bohemia. In 1333, he made his son Charles the next Margrave of Moravia (later in 1446, Charles become also the King of Bohemia). In 1349, Charles gave Moravia to his younger brother John Henry who ruled in the margraviate until his death in 1375, after him Moravia was ruled by his oldest son Jobst of Moravia who was in 1410 elected the Holy Roman King but died in 1411 (at present day, he is buried with his father in the Church of St. Thomas in Brno - the Moravian capital which they both ruled from). Moravia and Bohemia remained within the Luxembourg dynasty of Holy Roman kings and emperors (except during the Hussite wars), until inherited by Albert II of Habsburg in 1437.

After his death followed the interregnum till 1453; land (as the rest of lands of the Bohemian Crown) was administered by the landfriedens (landfrýdy). The rule of young Ladislaus the Posthumous subsisted only less than five years and subsequently (1458) the Hussite George of Poděbrady was elected as the king. He again reunited all Czech lands (then Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Upper & Lower Lusatia) into one-man ruled state. In 1466, Pope Paul II excommunicated George and forbade all Catholics (i.e. circa 15 % of population) from continuing to serve him. The Hungarian crusade followed and in 1469 Matthias Corvinus conquered Moravia and proclaimed himself (with assistance of rebelling Czech nobility) as the king of Bohemia.

The subsequent 21-year period of a divided kingdom was decisive for the rising awareness of a specific Moravian identity, distinct from that of Bohemia. Although Moravia was reunited with Bohemia in 1490 when Vladislaus Jagiellon, king of Bohemia, also became king of Hungary, some attachment to Moravian "freedoms" and resistance to government by Prague continued until the end of independence in 1620. In 1526, Vladislaus' son Louis died in battle and the Habsburg Ferdinand I was elected as his successor.

Habsburg rule (1526–1918)[link]

Lands of the Czech Crown (together with the Lands of the St Stephen Crown and the Austrian Hereditary Lands) within the Habsburg Empire

The epoch 1526–1620 was marked by increasing animosity between Catholic Habsburg kings (emperors) and rather Protestant Moravian (and other Crowns') estates. Moravia, like Bohemia, remained as a Habsburg possession until the end of World War I. In 1573 the Jesuit University of Olomouc was established, this was first university in Moravia. The establishment of a special papal seminary Collegium Nordicum made the university a centre of re-Catholisation effort in Central and Northern Europe, with the second largest group of students being from Scandinavia. Until 1641 Moravia's capitals were Brno and Olomouc, but after capture of Olomouc by the Swedes, the city of Brno become the sole capital (Brno was the only city in Moravia which resisted the invaders successfully). The Margraviate of Moravia had (from 1348 in Olomouc and Brno) its own Diet (parliament) – zemský sněm (Landtag in German), whose deputies were elected (from 1905 onward) in ethnically separate German and Czech constituencies. In 17th century Moravia, there was founded the today's oldest theatre building in Central Europe - Reduta Theatre. In 1740, Moravia was invaded by Prussian forces under Frederick the Great, Olomouc was forced to surrender on the 27th of December 1741, a few months later Prussians were repelled, mainly because of their unsuccessful siege of Brno in 1742. In 1758, Olomouc was besieged by Prussians again but this time Olomouc succeeded to force them to withdraw following the Battle of Domstadtl. In 1777, there was established a new Moravian bishopric in Brno, and the Olomouc bishopric was raised to archbishopric. In 1782, the Margaviate of Moravia was joint with the Austrian Silesia into the Moravia-Silesia with Brno as its capital city, this least until 1850.

Moravia-Silesia within Czechoslovakia between 1928–1938

Twentieth century[link]

Moravia within Czechoslovakia between 1918–1928

Moravia as part of the Moravia-Silesia within Czechoslovakia between 1928–1938

Following the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Moravia became part of Czechoslovakia. It became one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia. Its autonomy was restricted. In 1928 Moravia ceased to exist as a territorial unity and was merged with Czech Silesia into the Moravian-Silesian Land. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II Moravia was divided - part of Moravia formed an administrative unit within the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and part was directly within the German Third Reich. In 1945 the ethnic German minority of Moravia was expelled to Germany and Austria and the Moravian-Silesian Land was restored with Moravia being part of it. In 1949 the territorial division of Czechoslovakia was radically changed, the Moravian-Silesian Land was abolished and Lands were replaced by "kraje" (regions). On the breakup of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Moravia remained in the Czech territory as part of the Czech Republic.

People[link]

Male and female Moravian Slovak costumes worn during the Jízda králů ("Kings Ride") Festival held annually in the village of Vlčnov (southeastern Moravia)

Old ethnic division of Moravians according to an encyclopaedia of 1878

The Moravians are a Slavic ethnic group who speak various dialects of Czech. Before the expulsion of Germans from Moravia the Moravian German minority also referred to themselves as "Moravians" (Mährer) and the German expellees continue to do so to this day. Some Moravians assert that Moravian is a language distinct from Czech, however, their efforts are not widely supported by academics and the public.^[6][7][8][9] Some Moravians regard themselves as an ethnically distinct group; majority consider themselves to be ethnically Czech. In the census of 1991 (first census in history in which respondents claimed to have Moravian nationality), 1,362,000 (13.2%) of the Czech population described themselves as being of Moravian nationality. In the census of 2001, this number had decreased to 380,000 (3.7% of the population).^{[citation needed]} In the census of 2011, this number again rose, this time to 630,897 (6% of the Czech population).

Moravia historically had a huge minority of ethnic Germans, although they were largely expelled after World War II.

Notable people from Moravia include:

• Mathias Franz Graf von Chorinsky Freiherr von Ledske (1720–1786), founder and first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brno^[10][11]
• Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), father of psychoanalysis
• Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), father of genetics
• Ernst Mach (1838–1916), physicist and philosopher
• Kurt Gödel (1906–1978), theoretical mathematician
• Oskar Schindler (1908–1974), entrepreneur, saviour of almost 1,200 Jews during the WWII
• Milan Kundera (1929–), writer
• Leoš Janáček (1854–1928), composer
• Alfons Mucha (1860–1939), painter
• Jan Ámos Komenský (Comenius) (1592–1670), educator and theologian, last bishop of Unity of the Brethren
• Anton Pilgram (1450–1516), architect, sculptor and woodcarver
• Georgius Prochaska (1749–1820), ophthalmologist and physiologist
• Adolf Loos (1870–1933), architect

See also[link]

• Great Moravia
• German South Moravia
• Haná Region
• Moravian Wallachia
• Moravian Slovakia
• Moravian Highlands
• Moravian Church
• Moravian traditional music

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Róna-Tas, András (1999) Hungarians & Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History translated by Nicholas Bodoczky, Central European University Press, Budapest, ISBN 963-9116-48-3 ;
• Kirschbaum, Stanislav J. (1996) A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival St. Martin's Press, New York, ISBN 0-312-16125-5 ;
• Constantine Porphyrogenitus De Administrando Imperio edited by Gy. Moravcsik, translated by R.J.H. Jenkins, Dumbarton Oaks Edition, Washington D.C. (1993)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Moravia

Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Moravia.

• Moravia on official website of Czechia (Czech) (English) (German) (French) (Spanish) (Russian)
• Welcome to the 2nd largest city of the CR (Czech) (English) (German)
• Welcome to Olomouc, city of good cheer... (Czech) (English) (German) (French) (Spanish) (Italian) (Polish) (Russian) (Japanese) (Chinese)
• Znojmo – City of Virtue (Czech) (English) (German)

v t e  Historical regions in the Czech Republic Bohemia Moravia Czech Silesia

Alberto Moravia (1980)

Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle (November 28, 1907 – September 26, 1990) was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism.

He is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti (published in 1929), and for the anti-fascist novel Il Conformista (The Conformist), the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his translated to the cinema are Il Disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon or Contempt) filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris (Contempt) (1963); La Noia (Boredom), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as The Empty Canvas in 1964; and La Ciociara filmed by Vittorio de Sica as Two Women (1960). Cedric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998) is another version of La Noia. He was an atheist.^[1]

Biography[link]

Early years[link]

Alberto Pincherle (the pen-name "Moravia" is the surname of his maternal grandfather) was born on Via Sgambati in Rome, Italy, to a wealthy middle-class family. His Jewish Venetian father, Carlo, was an architect and a painter. His Catholic Anconitan mother, Teresa Iginia de Marsanich, was of Dalmatian origin. Her brother Augusto De Marsanich, Moravia's uncle, was an undersecretary in the National Fascist Party cabinet.

Moravia did not finish conventional schooling because, at the age of nine, he contracted tuberculosis of the bone that confined him to bed for five years. He spent three years at home, and two in a sanatorium at Cortina d'Ampezzo, in northeastern Italy. Moravia was an intelligent boy and devoted himself to reading books: some of his favourite authors included Dostoevsky, Joyce, Ariosto, Goldoni, Shakespeare, Molière, Mallarmé. He learned French and German, and wrote poems in both languages.

In 1925 he left the sanatorium and moved to Brixen, where he wrote his first novel, Gli Indifferenti (Time of Indifference), published in 1929. The novel is a realistic analysis of the moral decadence of a middle-class mother and two of her children. In 1927, Moravia met Corrado Alvaro and Massimo Bontempelli, and started his career as a journalist with the magazine 900, which published his first short stories, including "La Cortigiana Stanca" ("The Tired Courtesan" or in French as "Lassitude de Courtisane", 1927), "Delitto al Circolo del Tennis" ("Crime at the Tennis Club") (1928), "Il Ladro Curioso" ("The Curious Thief") and "Apparizione" ("Apparition") (both 1929).

[edit] Gli Indifferenti and Fascist ostracism

Gli Indifferenti was published at his own expense, costing 5,000 Italian lira. Literary critics welcomed the novel as a noteworthy example of contemporary Italian narrative fiction.^{[citation needed]} The next year, he started collaborating with the newspaper La Stampa, then edited by author Curzio Malaparte. In 1933, together with Mario Pannunzio, he founded the literary review magazines Caratteri ("Characters") and Oggi ("Today"), and started writing for the newspaper, La Gazzetta del Popolo.

The years leading to World War II were problematic; the Fascist regime seized La Mascherata ("Masquerade") (1941), prohibited reviews of Le Ambizioni Sbagliate (1935), and banned publication of Agostino (Two Adolescents) (1941). In 1935 he traveled to the United States to give a lecture series on Italian literature.

L'imbroglio ("The Cheat") was published by Bompiani in 1937. To avoid Fascist censorship he wrote mainly in the surrealist and allegoric genres, among the works is Il Sogno del Pigro ("The Dream of the Lazy"), however, the Fascist seizing of the second edition of La Mascherata, in 1941, thereafter forced him to write under a pseudonym. That same year, he married the novelist Elsa Morante, whom he had met in 1936; they lived in Capri, where he wrote Agostino.

After the Armistice of 8 September 1943, Moravia and Morante took refuge in Fondi, on the border of Ciociaria; the experience inspired La Ciociara ("The Woman of Ciociara") (1958).

Return to Rome and national popularity[link]

In May 1944, after the liberation of Rome, Alberto Moravia returned and began collaborating with Corrado Alvaro, writing for important newspapers such as Il Mondo and Il Corriere della Sera; the latter published his writing until his death.

At war's end, his popularity steadily increased, with works such as La Romana (The Woman of Rome) (1947), La Disubbidienza (Disobedience) (1948), L'Amore Coniugale e altri racconti ("Conjugal Love and other stories") (1949) and Il Conformista ("The Conformist") (1951). In 1952 he won the Premio Strega for I Racconti, and his novels began to be translated abroad. That same year "La Provinciale" was cinematically adapted by Mario Soldati; in 1954 Luigi Zampa directed La Romana, and in 1955 Gianni Franciolini directed I Racconti Romani ("The Roman Stories") (1954) a short collection that won the Marzotto Award. In 1953, Moravia founded the literary magazine Nuovi Argomenti ("New Arguments"), which featured Pier Paolo Pasolini among its editors.

In the 1950s, he wrote prefaces to works such as Belli's 100 Sonnets, Brancati's Paolo il Caldo and Stendhal's Roman Walks. From 1957 onwards, he also reviewed and criticised cinema for the weekly magazines L'Europeo and L'Espresso; it is collected in the volume Al Cinema ("At the Cinema") (1975).

[edit] La noia and later life

In 1960, he published one of his most famous novels, La Noia (Boredom or The Empty Canvas), the story of the troubled sexual relationship between a young, rich painter striving to find sense in his life and an easygoing girl in Rome. It won the Viareggio Prize and was filmed by Damiano Damiani in 1962. An adaptation of the book is the basis of Cedric Kahn's film L'ennui ("The Ennui") (1998).

Several films were based on his other novels: in 1960, Vittorio De Sica cinematically adapted La Ciociara with Sophia Loren; in 1963 Jean-Luc Godard filmed Il Disprezzo (Contempt) ; in 1964 Francesco Maselli filmed Gli Indifferenti (1964).

In 1962 Moravia and Elsa Morante parted; he went to live with the young writer Dacia Maraini. Increasingly, he concentrated on theatre; in 1966, he and Maraini and Enzo Siciliano founded the company called "Il Porcospino", which staged works by Moravia, Maraini, Carlo Emilio Gadda, and others.

In 1967 Moravia visited China, Japan, and Korea. In 1971 he published the novel Io e lui (["I and He"]The Two of Us) about a screenwriter and his independent penis and the situations to which he thrusts them, and the essay Poesia e romanzo ("Poetry and Novel"). In 1972 he went to Africa, which inspired his work A quale tribù appartieni? ("Which Tribe Do You Belong To?"), published in the same year. His 1982 trip to Japan, including a visit to Hiroshima, inspired a series of articles for L'Espresso magazine about the atomic bomb. The same theme is in the novel L'Uomo che Guarda ("The Man Who Looks") (1985) and the essay L'Inverno Nucleare ("The Nuclear Winter") including interviews with some contemporary principal scientists and politicians.

The short story collection, La Cosa e altri racconti ("The Thing and other stories"), was dedicated to Carmen Llera, his new companion (forty-five years his junior), whom he married in 1986. In 1984 he was elected to the European Parliament as member from the Italian Communist Party. His experiences at Strasbourg, which ended in 1988, are told in Il Diario Europeo ("The European Diary"). In 1985 he won the title of "European Personality".

In September 1990, Alberto Moravia was found dead in the bathroom of his Lungotevere apartment, in Rome. In that year, Bompani published his autobiography, Vita di Moravia ("Life of Moravia").

Themes and literary style[link]

Moral aridity, the hypocrisy of contemporary life, and the substantial incapability of people finding happiness in traditional ways such as love and marriage are the regnant themes in the works of Alberto Moravia. Usually, these conditions are pathologically typical of middle-class life; marriage, in particular, is the target of works such as Disobedience and L'amore coniugale ("The Conjugal Love") (1949). Alienation is the theme in works such as Il disprezzo ("Contempt" or "A Ghost at Noon") (1954) and La noia ("The Empty Canvas") from the 1950s, despite observation from a rational-realistic perspective. Political themes are often present: an example is La Romana ("The Woman of Rome") (1947), the story of a prostitute entangled with the Fascist regime and with a network of conspirators. The extreme sexual realism in La noia ("The Empty Canvas") (1960) introduced the psychologically experimental works of the 1970s.

Moravia's writing style was highly regarded for being extremely stark and unadorned, characterised by very elementary, common words within an elaborate syntax. A complex mood is established by mixing a proposition constituting the description of a single psychological observation mixed with another such proposition. In the later novels, the inner monologue is prominent.

Bibliography[link]

• La cortigiana stanca (1927) (Tired Courtesan)
• Gli indifferenti (Time of Indifference, 1929)
• Inverno di malato (1930) (A Sick Boy's Winter)
• Le ambizioni sbagliate (1935)
• La bella vita (1935)
• L'imbroglio (1937, novellas) (The Imbroglio)
• I sogni del pigro (1940)
• La caduta (1940) (The Fall)
• La mascherata (1941) (The Fancy Dress Party, 1952)
• La cetonia (1943)
• L'amante infelice (1943) (The Unfortunate Lover)
• Agostino (Two Adolescents, 1944)
• L'epidemia (1944, short story collection)
• Ritorno al mare (1945) (Return to the Sea)
• L'ufficiale inglese (1946) (The English Officer)
• La romana (The Woman of Rome, 1947)
• La disubbidienza (Disobedience, 1947)
• L'amore coniugale (1947, short story collection)
• Il conformista (The Conformist, 1947)
• L'amore coniugale (The Conjugal Love, 1949)
• Luna di miele, sole di fiele (1952) (Bitter Honeymoon)
• Racconti romani (Roman Tales, 1954)
• Il disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon or Contempt, 1954)
• La ciociara (Two Women, 1957)
• Nuovi racconti romani (1959)
• La noia (The Empty Canvas or Boredom, 1960)
• L'automa (The Fetish, 1962, collection of short stories)
• L'uomo come fine (1963, essay)
• L'attenzione (1965)
• Una cosa e una cosa (Command, and I Will Obey You, 1967, short story collection)
• Il dio Kurt (drama, 1969)
• La vita è gioco (1969)
• Il paradiso (1970)
• Io e lui (Him and Me, 1971)
• A quale tribù appartieni (1972)
• Un'altra vita (1973)
• Al cinema (1975, essays)
• Boh (1976)
• La vita interiore (1978)
• Impegno controvoglia (1980)
• "1934" (1982)
• La cosa e altri racconti (1983, short story collection)
• L'uomo che guarda (1985)
• L'inverno nucleare (1986, essays and interviews)
• Il viaggio a Roma (1988)
• La villa del venerdì e altri racconti (1990)

See also[link]

Novels portal

• Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, a list which includes A Ghost at Noon

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Alberto Moravia

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alberto Moravia

• The Paris Review Interview
• Alberto Moravia biography
• Listen to Pioggia di Maggio by Alberto Moravia free download on mp3
• Listen to Romolo e Remo, one of Moravia's Racconti Romani

Reinhard Heydrich
Heydrich as a SS-Gruppenführer (1940)
Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia (acting Protector)
In office 29 September 1941 – 4 June 1942
Appointed by	Adolf Hitler
Preceded by	Konstantin von Neurath (Protector until 24 August 1943)
Succeeded by	Kurt Daluege (Acting Protector)
Director of the Reich Main Security Office
In office 27 September 1939 – 4 June 1942
Appointed by	Heinrich Himmler
Preceded by	Post created
Succeeded by	Heinrich Himmler (acting)
President of Interpol
In office 24 August 1940 – 4 June 1942
Preceded by	Otto Steinhäusl
Succeeded by	Arthur Nebe
Director of the Gestapo
In office 22 April 1934 – 27 September 1939
Appointed by	Heinrich Himmler
Preceded by	Rudolf Diels
Succeeded by	Heinrich Müller
Personal details
Born	(1904-03-07)7 March 1904[1] Halle an der Saale, Germany
Died	4 June 1942(1942-06-04) (aged 38)[1] Prague–Libeň, Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia (now Czech Republic)
Nationality	German
Political party	National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP)
Spouse(s)	Lina von Osten (married 26 December 1931)
Children	Klaus Heydrich (17 June 1933 – 24 October 1943) Heider Heydrich (born 23 December 1934) Silke Heydrich (born 9 April 1939) Marte Heydrich (born 23 July 1942)
Signature
Nickname(s)	The Hangman, The Butcher of Prague,[2] The Blond Beast, Young Evil God of Death[3]

 Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (help·info) (7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, and one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He was SS-Obergruppenführer (General) and General der Polizei, chief of the Reich Main Security Office (including the Gestapo, and Kripo) and Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor (Deputy Reich-Protector) of Bohemia and Moravia. In August 1940 he was appointed and served as President of Interpol (the international law enforcement agency). Heydrich chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, which laid out plans for the final solution to the Jewish Question—the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory.

Historians regard him as the darkest figure within the Nazi elite; Hitler christened him "the man with the iron heart".^[4] He was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), an intelligence organisation tasked with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Party via arrests, deportations, and killings. He helped organize Kristallnacht, a series of co-ordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938. The attacks, which were carried out by SA stormtroopers and civilians, presaged the Holocaust. Upon his arrival in Prague, Heydrich sought to eliminate opposition to the Nazi occupation by suppressing Czech culture and deporting and executing members of the Czech resistance.

Heydrich was attacked in Prague on 27 May 1942 by a British-trained team of Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been sent by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to kill him in an operation code named Operation Anthropoid. He died from his injuries a week later. Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the villages of Lidice and Ležáky. Lidice was razed to the ground; all adult males were executed, and all but a handful of its women and children were deported and killed in Nazi concentration camps.

Early life[link]

Heydrich^[5] was born in 1904 in Halle an der Saale to composer and opera singer Richard Bruno Heydrich and his wife Elisabeth Anna Maria Amalia Krantz, a Roman Catholic.^[6] His two forenames were patriotic musical tributes: "Reinhard" referred to the tragic hero from Amen (an opera written by his father), and "Tristan" stems from Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. Heydrich's third name, "Eugen", was his late maternal grandfather's surname (Professor Eugen Krantz had been the director of the Dresden Royal Conservatory).^[7] Heydrich was born into a family of social standing and substantial financial means. Music was a part of Heydrich's everyday life; his father founded the Halle Conservatory of Music and his mother taught piano there.^[8] Heydrich developed a passion for the violin and carried that interest into adulthood; he impressed listeners with his musical talent.^[9]

His father was a German nationalist who instilled patriotic ideas in his three children, but was not affiliated with any political party until after World War I.^[10] The Heydrich household was strict. As a youth, Heydrich engaged his younger brother, Heinz, in mock fencing duels. Heydrich was very intelligent and excelled in his schoolwork—especially in science—at the "Reformgymnasium".^[11] A talented athlete, he became an expert swimmer and fencer.^[9] But he was shy, insecure, and was frequently bullied for his high-pitched voice and rumored Jewish ancestry.^[12] The latter claim earned him the nickname "Moses Handel".^[13] Years later, Wilhelm Canaris said he had obtained photocopies proving Heydrich's Jewish ancestry, but these photocopies never surfaced.^[14] Nazi Gauleiter Rudolf Jordan also claimed that Heydrich was not a pure "Aryan". Heydrich ultimately ordered Schutzstaffel (SS) researchers to investigate the rumour. They reported that he had no Jewish ancestors. Nazi official and "race expert" Achim Gercke concluded that Heydrich was a pure Aryan.^[15][16]

In 1918, World War I ended with Germany's defeat. In late February 1919, civil unrest—including strikes and clashes between communist and anti-communist groups—took place in Heydrich's home town of Halle. Under Defense Minister Gustav Noske's directives, a right-wing paramilitary unit was formed and ordered to "recapture" Halle. ^[17] Heydrich, then 15 years old, joined Maercker's Volunteer Rifles (the first Freikorps unit). When the skirmishes ended, Heydrich was part of the force assigned to protect private property.^[18] Little is known about his role, but the events left a strong impression; it was a "political awakening" for him.^[18] He joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund (The National German Protection and Shelter League), an anti-Semitic organisation.^[19]

As a result of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, hyperinflation spread across Germany and many lost their life savings. Halle was not spared. By 1921, few townspeople there could afford a musical education at Bruno Heydrich's conservatory. This led to a financial crisis for the Heydrich family.^[20]

Heydrich and his wife Lina attending a concert in Waldstein Palace in Prague, 26 May 1942, the day before the assassination attempt that led to his death on 4 June 1942

In 1922 Heydrich joined the Navy, taking advantage of the security, structure, and pension it offered. He became a naval cadet at Kiel, Germany's chief naval base. On 1 April 1924 he was promoted to senior midshipman and sent to officer training at the Mürwik Naval College.^[21] In 1926 he advanced to the rank of ensign (Leutnant zur See) and was assigned as a signals officer on the battleship Schleswig-Holstein, the flagship of Germany's North Sea Fleet. With the promotion came greater recognition; he received good evaluations from his superiors and had few problems with other crewmen. But the increased rank drove his ambition and arrogance.^[22]

Heydrich became a notorious womaniser, having countless affairs. In December 1930 he attended a rowing club ball and met Lina von Osten. The two became romantically involved and soon announced their engagement. Lina was already a Nazi Party follower; she had attended her first rally in 1929.^[23] Admiral Erich Raeder dismissed Heydrich from the navy in April 1931. Heydrich had been charged with "conduct unbecoming to an officer and a gentleman" for breaking an engagement promise to a woman he had known for six months before the von Osten engagement.^[24] Heydrich was devastated by the dismissal and found himself without prospects for a career.^[25] But he kept the engagement and married von Osten in December 1931.^[26]

Career in the military and SS[link]

In 1931, Heinrich Himmler began setting up a counterintelligence division of the SS. Acting on the advice of his associate Karl von Eberstein, who was von Osten's friend, Himmler interviewed Heydrich. Himmler was impressed and hired him immediately.^[27] His pay was 180 reichsmarks per month (40 USD). His NSDAP number was 544,916 and his SS number was 10,120.^[1] Heydrich later received a Totenkopfring from Himmler for his service.^[28]

On 1 August 1931 Heydrich began his job as chief of the new 'Ic Service' (intelligence service).^[27] He set up office at the Brown House, the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich. By October he had created a network of spies and informers for intelligence-gathering purposes and to obtain information to be used as blackmail to further political aims.^[29] Information on thousands of people was recorded on index cards and stored at the Brown House.^[30] To mark the occasion of Heydrich's December wedding, Himmler promoted him to the rank of SS-Sturmbannführer (major). In just over fifteen months, Heydrich had surpassed his former naval rank and was making what was considered a "comfortable" salary.^[31]

In 1932 a number of Heydrich's enemies began to spread rumours of his alleged Jewish ancestry. Within the Nazi organisation such innuendo could be deadly, even for the head of the Reich's counterintelligence service. Nazi Party racial expert Dr. Achim Gercke investigated Heydrich's genealogy. Gercke reported that Heydrich was "... of German origin and free from any coloured and Jewish blood".^[32]

Gestapo and SD[link]

Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße in Berlin, 1933

In the summer of 1932, Himmler appointed Heydrich chief of the renamed security service—the Sicherheitsdienst (SD).^[27] Heydrich's counterintelligence service grew into an effective machine of terror and intimidation. With Hitler striving for absolute power in Germany, Himmler and Heydrich wished to control the political police forces of all 17 German states. They began with Bavaria. In 1933, Heydrich gathered some of his men from the SD and together they stormed police headquarters in Munich and took over the police using intimidation tactics. Himmler became the Munich police chief and Heydrich became the commander of Department IV, the political police.^[33]

In 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and through a series of decrees^[34] became Germany's Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).^[35] The first concentration camps, which were originally intended to house political opponents, were established in early 1933. By year's end there were over fifty camps.^[36]

Hermann Göring founded the Gestapo in 1933 as a Prussian police force. When Göring transferred full authority over the Gestapo to Himmler in April 1934, it immediately became an instrument of terror under the SS's purview.^[37] Himmler named Heydrich to head the Gestapo on 22 April 1934.^[38]

Crushing the SA[link]

At this point, the SS was still part of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the early Nazi paramilitary organisation. Beginning in April 1934, and at Hitler's request, Heydrich and Himmler began building a dossier on SA leader Ernst Röhm in an effort to remove him as a rival for party leadership.^[39] At Hitler's direction, Heydrich, Himmler, Göring, and Viktor Lutze drew up lists of those who should be liquidated, starting with seven top SA officials and including many more. On 30 June 1934 the SS and Gestapo acted in coordinated mass arrests that continued throughout the weekend. Röhm was shot without trial, along with the leadership of the SA.^[40] This Nazi purge became known as the Night of the Long Knives. Up to 200 people were killed in the purge. Lutze was appointed SA's new head and it was converted into a sports and training organisation.^[41]

SS-Brigadeführer Heydrich, head of the Bavarian police and SD, in Munich, 1934

With the SA out of the way, Heydrich began building the Gestapo into an instrument of fear. He improved his index-card system, creating categories of offenders with color-coded cards.^[42] The Gestapo had the authority to arrest citizens on the suspicion that they might commit a crime, and the definition of a crime was at their discretion. The Gestapo Law, passed in 1936, gave police the right to act extra-legally. This led to the sweeping use of Schutzhaft—"protective custody", a euphemism for the power to imprison people without judicial proceedings.^[43] The courts were not allowed to investigate or interfere. The Gestapo was considered to be acting legally as long as it was carrying out the leadership's will. People were arrested arbitrarily, sent to concentration camps, or killed.^[36]

Himmler began developing the notion of a Germanic religion and wanted SS members to leave the church. In early 1936, Heydrich left the Catholic Church. His wife, Lina, had already done so the year before. Heydrich not only felt he could no longer be a member, but came to consider the church's political power and influence a danger to the state.^[44]

Consolidating the police forces[link]

Seyß-Inquart, Adolf Hitler, and Heydrich in Vienna, March 1938

On 17 June 1936 all police forces throughout Germany were united, with Himmler as the chief. On 26 June, Himmler reorganised the police into two groups: the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo), consisting of both the national uniformed police and the municipal police, and the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), consisting of the Gestapo and the Kripo or Kriminalpolizei (criminal police).^[45] At that point, Heydrich was head of the SiPo and SD. Heinrich Müller was the Gestapo's operations chief.

Heydrich was assigned to help organise the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. The games were used to promote the propaganda aims of the Nazi regime. Goodwill ambassadors were sent to countries that were considering a boycott. Anti-Jewish violence was forbidden for the duration, and news stands were required to stop displaying copies of Der Stuermer. ^[46][47] For his part in the games' success, Heydrich was awarded the Deutsches Olympiaehrenzeichen or German Olympic Games Decoration (First Class).^[28]

In mid-1939 Heydrich created the Stiftung Nordhav Foundation to obtain real estate for use of the SS and Security Police as guest houses and vacation spots.^[48] The Wannsee Villa, which the Stiftung Nordhav acquired in November 1940,^[49] was the site of the Wannsee Conference (20 January 1942). At the conference, senior Nazi officials formalised plans for the deportation and extermination of all Jews in German-occupied territory, and in countries not yet conquered.^[50] This action was to be coordinated among the representatives from the Nazi state agencies present at the meeting.^[51]

On 27 September 1939 the SD and SiPo (made up of the Gestapo and the Kripo) were folded into the new Reich Main Security Office or SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), which was placed under Heydrich's control.^[52] The title of "Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD" (Chief of the Security Police and SD) or CSSD was conferred on Heydrich on 1 October.^[53] Heydrich became the President of Interpol (then under Nazi control) on 24 August 1940,^[54] and its headquarters were transferred to Berlin. He was promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei on 24 September 1941.^[1]

Red Army purges[link]

In 1936, Heydrich learned that a top-ranking Soviet officer was plotting to overthrow Joseph Stalin. Sensing an opportunity to strike a blow at both the Soviet Army and Admiral Canaris of Germany's Abwehr, Heydrich decided that the Russian officers should be "unmasked".^[55] He discussed the matter with Himmler and both in turn brought it to Hitler's attention. But the "information" Heydrich had received was actually misinformation planted by Stalin himself in an attempt to legitimize his planned purges of the Red Army's high command. Stalin ordered one of his best NKVD agents, General Nikolai Skoblin, to pass Heydrich false information suggesting that Marshall Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other Soviet generals were plotting against Stalin. Heydrich received Hitler's approval to act on the information immediately. Heydrich's SD forged a series of documents and letters implicating Tukhachevsky and other Red Army commanders. The material was delivered to the NKVD.^[55] The Great Purge of the Red Army followed on Stalin's orders. While Heydrich believed they had successfully deluded Stalin into executing or dismissing some 35,000 of his officer corps, the importance of Heydrich's part is a matter of speculation and conjecture.^[56] Soviet military prosecutors did not use the forged documents against the generals in their secret trial; they instead relied on false confessions extorted or beaten out of the defendants.^[57]

Night-and-Fog Decree[link]

Commemorative plaque of the French victims of the Night and Fog Decree at Hinzert concentration camp

By late 1940, German armies had swept through most of Western Europe. In 1941, Heydrich's SD was given responsibility for carrying out the Nacht und Nebel (Night-and-Fog) decree. According to the decree, "persons endangering German security" were to be arrested in a maximally discreet way: "under the cover of night and fog". People disappeared without a trace and no one was told of their whereabouts or their fate.^[58] For each prisoner, the SD was required to fill out a questionnaire that listed their personal information, their country of origin, and the details of their crimes against the Reich. This questionnaire was to be put into an envelope inscribed with a seal reading "Nacht und Nebel" and submitted to the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA). In the WVHA "Central Inmate File", as in many camp files, these prisoners would be given a special "covert prisoner" code, as opposed to the code for POW, Felon, Jew, Gypsy, etc.^[a] The decree remained in effect after Heydrich's death. The exact number of people who vanished under it has never been positively established, but it is estimated to be 7,000.^[59]

Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia[link]

Heydrich (left) with Karl Hermann Frank at Prague Castle in 1941

On 27 September 1941 Heydrich was appointed Deputy Reich Protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (the part of Czechoslovakia incorporated into the Reich on 15 March 1939) and assumed control of the territory. The Reich Protector, Konstantin von Neurath, remained the territory's titular head, but was sent on "leave" because Hitler, Himmler, and Heydrich felt his "soft approach" to the Czechs had promoted anti-German sentiment and encouraged anti-German resistance via strikes and sabotage.^[60] Upon his appointment, Heydrich told his aides "[w]e will Germanize the Czech vermin."^[61]

Heydrich came to Prague to enforce policy, fight resistance to the Nazi regime, and keep up production quotas of Czech motors and arms that were "extremely important to the German war effort".^[60] He viewed the area as a bulwark of Germandom and condemned the "stabs in the back" by the Czech resistance. To realise his goals Heydrich demanded racial classification of those who could and could not be Germanized. He explained, "... making this Czech garbage into Germans must give way to methods based on racist thought".^[62] Heydrich started his rule by terrorising the population: within three days of his arrival in Prague, 92 people were executed. Their names appeared on posters throughout the occupied region.^[63] Almost all avenues by which Czechs could act Czech in public were closed.^[62] According to Heydrich's estimate between 4,000 and 5,000 people had been arrested by February 1942. Those who were not executed were sent to Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where only four per cent of Czech prisoners survived the war.^[63] In March 1942, further sweeps against Czech cultural and patriotic organisations, military, and intelligentsia resulted in the practical paralysis of Czech resistance. Although small disorganised cells of Central Leadership of Home Resistance (Ústřední vedení odboje domácího, ÚVOD) survived, only the communist resistance was able to function in a coordinated manner (although it also suffered arrests).^[63] The terror also served to paralyse resistance in society, with public and widespread reprisals against any action resisting the German rule.^[63] Heydrich's brutal policies during that time quickly earned him the nickname "the Butcher of Prague".^[64]

	Excerpt from a speech by Reinhard Heydrich in 1941 noicon
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

As Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, Heydrich applied carrot-and-stick methods.^[65] Labour was reorganised on the basis of the German Labour Front. Heydrich used equipment confiscated from the Czech organisation Sokol to organise events for workers.^[66] The black market was suppressed, with food given out in worker cafeterias. Food rations and free shoes were given out, pensions were increased, and (for some time) free Saturdays were introduced. Unemployment insurance was established for the first time.^[65] But those associated with the resistance movement or the black market were tortured or executed. Heydrich described those harshly dealt with as "economic criminals" and "enemies of the people", which helped gain him support. Conditions in Prague and the rest of the Czech lands were relatively peaceful under Heydrich, and industrial output increased.^[65] Still, those measures could not hide shortages and increasing inflation, and reports of growing discontent multiplied.^[66]

Despite public displays of goodwill towards the populace, privately Heydrich left no illusions as to his eventual goal: "This entire area will one day be definitely German, and the Czechs have nothing to expect here". Eventually up to two-thirds of Czechs were to be either be removed to regions of Russia or exterminated after Nazi Germany won the war. Bohemia and Moravia were to be annexed directly into the German Reich.^[67]

The Czech workforce was exploited as conscripted labour by the Nazis.^[66] More than 100,000 workers were removed from "unsuitable" jobs and conscripted by the Ministry of Labour; by December 1941, Czechs could be called to work anywhere within the Reich. Between April and November 1942, 79,000 Czech workers were taken in this manner for work within Nazi Germany. Also, in February 1942, the work day was increased from eight to twelve hours.^[68]

Heydrich was, for all intents and purposes, military dictator of Bohemia and Moravia. His changes to the government's structure left President Emil Hacha and his cabinet virtually powerless. He often drove alone in a car with an open roof—a show of his confidence in the occupation forces and in his government's effectiveness.^[69]

Summary of career[link]

Heydrich's time in the SS was a mixture of rapid promotions, reserve commissions in the regular armed forces, and front-line combat service. During his 11 years with the SS, Heydrich truly "rose from the ranks", being appointed to every rank from private to full general. He was also a major in the Luftwaffe, flying nearly one-hundred combat missions until 22 July 1941, when his plane was hit by Soviet anti-aircraft fire. Heydrich made an emergency landing behind enemy lines. He evaded a Soviet patrol and met up with a forward German patrol.^[70] After this Heydrich returned to Berlin and resumed his SS duties.^[71] His service record also gives him credit as a Navy Reserve Lieutenant, although during World War II Heydrich had no contact whatsoever with this military branch.

Heydrich received several Nazi and military awards, including the German Order,^[72] Blood Order,^[73] Golden Party Badge, Luftwaffe Pilot's Badge, bronze and silver combat mission bars, and the Iron Cross First and Second Classes.^[74]

Role in the Holocaust[link]

1938 telegram giving orders during Kristallnacht, signed by Heydrich

July 1941 letter from Göring to Heydrich concerning the "final solution" "in the manner of emigration or evacuation" (sic)

Historians regard Heydrich as the most fearsome member of the Nazi elite;^[75][76][77] Hitler called him "the man with the iron heart".^[4] He was one of the main architects of the Holocaust during the early war years, answering only to, and taking orders from, Hitler, Göring, and Himmler in all matters that pertained to the deportation, imprisonment, and extermination of Jews.

Heydrich was one of the organisers of Kristallnacht, a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany on the night of 9–10 November 1938. Heydrich sent a telegram that night to various SD and Gestapo offices, helping to coordinate the program with the SS, SD, Gestapo, uniformed police (Orpo), Nazi party officials, and even the fire departments. It talks about permitting arson and destruction of Jewish businesses and synagogues, and orders the taking of all "archival material" out of Jewish community centres and synagogues. The telegram ordered that "as many Jews – particularly affluent Jews – are to be arrested in all districts as can be accommodated in existing detention facilities ... Immediately after the arrests have been carried out, the appropriate concentration camps should be contacted to place the Jews into camps as quickly as possible."^[78][79] Twenty-thousand Jews were sent to concentration camps in the days immediately following; ^[80] historians consider Kristallnacht the beginning of the Holocaust.^[81]

When Hitler required a pretext for the invasion of Poland in 1939, Heydrich was placed in charge of the false flag plan code named Operation Himmler, involving a fake attack on the German radio station at Gleiwitz on 31 August 1939. Heydrich worked out the operation plan and toured the site, which was about four miles from the Polish border. Wearing Polish uniforms, 150 German troops carried out a group of attacks along the border. Hitler used the ruse as an excuse to launch his invasion.^[82][83]

On 21 September 1939 Heydrich sent out a teleprinter message on the "Jewish question in the occupied territory" to the chiefs of all Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police. It contained instructions on how to round up Jewish people for placement into ghettos, called for the formation of Judenräter (Jewish councils), ordered a census, contained Aryanization plans for Jewish-owned businesses and farms, and discussed other measures.^[b] The Einsatzgruppen followed the army into Poland for this purpose. Later, in the Soviet Union, they were tasked with rounding up and killing Jews via firing squad and gas vans. By the end of the war, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered over one million people, including over 700,000 in Russia alone.^[84]

On 29 November 1939 he sent out a cable regarding the "Evacuation of New Eastern Provinces", describing details of the deportation of people by railway to concentration camps, and giving guidance surrounding the December 1939 census, which would be the basis on which those deportations were performed.^[85] In May 1941, Heydrich drew up regulations with Quartermaster general Eduard Wagner for the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union that ensured that the Einsatzgruppen and army would cooperate in murdering Soviet Jews.^[86]

On 10 October 1941 Heydrich was the senior officer at a meeting in Prague that discussed deporting 50,000 Jewish people from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to ghettos in Minsk and Riga. Also discussed was the taking of 5,000 Jewish people from Prague "in the next few weeks" and handing them over to the Einsatzgruppen commanders Arthur Nebe and Otto Rasch. The creation of ghettos in the Protectorate was planned, which resulted in the construction of Theresienstadt,^[87] where 33,000 people would eventually die. Tens of thousands more would pass through the camp on their way to their deaths in the East.^[88] In 1941 Himmler named Heydrich as "responsible for implementing" the forced movement of 60,000 Jewish people from Germany and Czechoslovakia to the Lodz (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto in Poland.^[89]

On 20 January 1942 Heydrich chaired the Wannsee Conference, at which he presented to the heads of a number of German Government departments a plan for the deportation and transporting of 11 million Jewish people from every country in Europe, to be worked to death or killed outright in extermination camps.^[90][91]

Under suitable direction, the Jews should be brought to the East in the course of the Final Solution, for use as labour. In large labour gangs, with the sexes separated, the Jews capable of work will be transported to those areas and set to road-building, in the course of which, without doubt, a large part of them ("ein Großteil") will fall away through natural losses. The surviving remnant, surely those with the greatest powers of resistance, will be given special treatment, since, if freed, they would constitute the germinal cell for the re-creation of Jewry.

— from Heydrich's speech at the Wannsee Conference, January 1942^[92]

Death in Prague[link]

The open-top Mercedes in which Heydrich was mortally wounded

In London, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile resolved to kill Heydrich. Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík headed the team chosen for the operation. Trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), the pair returned to the Protectorate by parachute, jumping from a Handley Page Halifax, on 28 December 1941. They lived in hiding, preparing for the assassination attempt.^[93]

On 27 May 1942 Heydrich was scheduled to attend a meeting with Hitler in Berlin. German documents suggest that Hitler intended to transfer Heydrich to German-occupied France, where the French resistance had started to gain ground.^[94] Heydrich would have to pass a section where the Dresden-Prague road merged with a road to the Troja Bridge. The intersection, in the Prague suburb of Libeň, was well-suited for the attack because Heydrich's car would have to slow for a hairpin turn. As the car slowed, Gabčík took aim with a Sten sub-machine gun, but it jammed and failed to fire. Instead of ordering his driver to speed away, Heydrich called his car to a halt and attempted to take on the attackers. Kubiš then threw a bomb (a converted anti-tank mine) at the rear of the car as it stopped. The explosion wounded Heydrich and Kubiš.^[95]

Postage stamp (1943) features the death mask of Heydrich

When the smoke cleared, Heydrich emerged from the wreckage with his gun in his hand; he chased Kubiš and tried to return fire. Kubiš jumped on his bicycle and pedalled away. Heydrich ran after him for half a block but became weak from shock. He sent his driver, Klein, to chase Gabčík on foot. In the ensuing firefight, Gabčík shot Klein in the leg and escaped to a safe house. Heydrich, still with pistol in hand, gripped the left side of his back, which was bleeding profusely.^[96]

A Czech woman went to Heydrich's aid and flagged down a delivery van. Heydrich was first placed in the driver's cab, but after complaining that the truck's movement was causing him pain, he was placed in the back of the truck, on his stomach, and taken to the emergency room at Na Bulovce Hospital.^[97] He had suffered severe injuries to his left side, with major damage to his diaphragm, spleen, and lung, as well as a broken rib. Dr. Slanina packed the chest wound, while Dr. Walter Diek tried unsuccessfully to remove the splinters. He immediately decided to operate. This was carried out by Drs. Diek, Slanina, and Hohlbaum. Heydrich was given several blood transfusions. A splenectomy was performed. The chest wound, left lung, and diaphragm were all debrided and the wounds closed.^[97] Himmler ordered Dr. Karl Gebhardt to fly to Prague to assume care. Despite a fever, Heydrich's recovery appeared to progress well. Dr. Theodor Morell, Hitler's personal physician, suggested the use of sulfonamide (a new antibacterial drug), but Gebhardt, thinking Heydrich would recover, refused.^[98] On 2 June, during a visit by Himmler, Heydrich reconciled himself to his fate by reciting a part of one of his father's operas:

<poem> The world is just a barrel-organ which the Lord God turns Himself. We all have to dance to the tune which is already on the drum.^[99] </poem>

Bullet-scarred window in the Church of St. Cyril and St. Methodious in Prague, where Kubiš and his compatriots were cornered

Heydrich slipped into a coma after Himmler's visit and never regained consciousness. He died on 4 June, probably around 4:30 am. He was 38. The autopsy stated that he died of sepsis. Heydrich's facial expression as he died betrayed an "uncanny spirituality and entirely perverted beauty, like a renaissance Cardinal," according to Dr. Bernhard Wehner, a police official who investigated the assassination.^[100]

After an elaborate funeral in Prague, Heydrich's coffin was placed on a train to Berlin, where a second ceremony was held in the new Reich Chancellery. Hitler attended, and placed Heydrich's decorations—including the highest grade of the German Order and the Blood Order Medal—on his funeral pillow.^[73] Although Heydrich's death was employed for pro-Reich propaganda, Hitler seemed privately to blame Heydrich for his own death, through carelessness:

Since it is opportunity which makes not only the thief but also the assassin, such heroic gestures as driving in an open, unarmoured vehicle or walking about the streets unguarded are just damned stupidity, which serves the Fatherland not one whit. That a man as irreplaceable as Heydrich should expose himself to unnecessary danger, I can only condemn as stupid and idiotic.^[101]

Heydrich was buried in Berlin's Invalidenfriedhof, a military cemetery;^[102] the exact location is not known—a temporary wooden marker which disappeared when the Red Army overran the city in 1945 was never replaced, so that Heydrich's grave could not become a rallying point for Neo-Nazis.^[103] A photograph of Heydrich's burial shows the wreaths and mourners to be in section A, which abuts the north wall of the Invalidenfriedhof and Scharnhorststraße, at the front of the cemetery.^[103] A recent biography of Heydrich also places the grave in Section A.^[104] Hitler wanted Heydrich to have a monumental tomb but, because of Germany's declining fortunes, it was never built.

After the war the West Germany judicial system awarded Heydrich's widow a federal pension.^[105] The couple had four children: Klaus, born in 1933; Heider, born in 1934; Silke, born in 1939; and Marte, born shortly after her father's death in 1942.^[106] Klaus was killed in a traffic accident in 1943. Lina wrote a memoir, Leben mit einem Kriegsverbrecher (Living With a War Criminal), which was published in 1976.^[107] She remarried once and died in 1985.^[108]

Aftermath[link]

Heydrich's assailants hid in safe houses, and eventually took refuge in Ss. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral, an Orthodox church in Prague. A traitor in the Czech resistance betrayed their location.^[109] The church was surrounded by eight hundred members of the SS and Gestapo. Several Czechs were killed, and the remainder hid in the church's crypt. The Germans attempted to flush the men out with gunfire, tear gas, and by flooding the crypt. Eventually an entrance was created with explosives. Rather than surrender, the soldiers took their own lives. Supporters of the assassins who were killed in the wake of these events included the church's leader, Bishop Gorazd, who is now revered as a martyr of the Orthodox Church.^[110]

Infuriated by Heydrich's death, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of 10,000 randomly selected Czechs. But after consultations with Karl Hermann Frank, he tempered his response. The Czech lands were an important industrial zone for the German military, and indiscriminate killing could reduce the region's productivity.^[111] Hitler ordered a quick investigation. Intelligence falsely linked the assassins to the towns of Lidice and Ležáky. A Gestapo report stated that Lidice was suspected as the hiding place of the assailants as it was known that several Czech army officers, then in England, had come from there. Further, the Gestapo had found a resistance radio transmitter in Ležáky.^[112] Upon Himmler's orders, the Nazi retaliation was brutal. Over 13,000 people were arrested, deported, and imprisoned. Beginning on 10 June, all males over the age of 16 in the village of Lidice, 22 km north-west of Prague, and the village of Ležáky, were murdered. All the women in Ležáky were also murdered.^[109] All but four of the women from Lidice were deported immediately to Ravensbrück concentration camp (four were pregnant – they were forcibly aborted at the same hospital where Heydrich had died and then sent to the concentration camp). A number of children were chosen for Germanization, but 81 were killed in gas vans at the Chełmno extermination camp. Both towns were burned and the ruins of Lidice were levelled.^[113][114] At least 1,300 people were massacred after Heydrich's death.^[115][116]

In spite of the terrible reprisals, Alois Denemarek, a childhood friend of Jan Kubis who had been active in the resistance—and whose family were all killed as a consequence of the assassination—considers the killing to have been worth it, as Heydrich's plans for the people of Czechoslovakia were thwarted by his death. The reprisals were "nothing compared to the losses we would have suffered if Heydrich had been allowed to live."^[117] The seventieth anniversary of the killing was commemorated in 2012 in Prague with a series of exhibitions, including a replica of a Nazi concentration camp. Mikulas Kroupa, director of the group that organised the commemoration, said that Heydrich's assassination roused the people into standing up to the Nazis.^[117]

Heydrich's replacements were Ernst Kaltenbrunner as the chief of RSHA,^[102] and Karl Hermann Frank (27–28 May 1942) and Kurt Daluege (28 May 1942 – 14 October 1943) as the new acting Reichsprotektors.

After Heydrich's death, decisions made at the Wannsee conference he had chaired were carried out. The first three true death camps, designed for mass killing with no legal process or pretext, were constructed and put into operation at Treblinka, Sobibór, and Belzec. The project was named Operation Reinhard after Heydrich.^[118]

See also[link]

• Glossary of Nazi Germany
• List of Nazi Party leaders and officials
• List of rulers of the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia
• List of SS personnel

Footnotes[link]

Citations[link]