Editing Reinhard Heydrich (section)

==Role in the Holocaust==
{{multiple image
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| image1    = Kristallnacht rh telegram pg4.png
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| caption1  = 1938 telegram giving orders during [[Kristallnacht]], signed by Heydrich
| image2    = Carta Göring.JPG
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| caption2  = July 1941 letter from [[Hermann Göring|Göring]] to Heydrich concerning the [[Final Solution]] of the [[Jewish question]]
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Historians regard Heydrich as the most fearsome member of the Nazi elite.{{sfn|Sereny|1996|p=325}}{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=53}}{{sfn|Gerwarth|2011|p=xiii}} Hitler called him "the man with the iron heart".{{sfn|Dederichs|2009|p=92}} He was one of the main architects of [[the Holocaust]] during the early war years, answering to and taking orders from only Hitler, Göring, and Himmler in all matters pertaining 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 [[Telegraphy|telegram]] that night to various SD and Gestapo offices, helping to coordinate the pogrom with the SS, SD, Gestapo, uniformed police (Orpo), SA, Nazi party officials, and even the fire departments. In the telegram, Heydrich granted permission for arson and destruction of Jewish businesses and synagogues, and ordered the confiscation of all "archival material" from Jewish community centres and synagogues. The telegram ordered that "as many Jews{{snd}}particularly affluent Jews{{snd}}are to be arrested in all districts as can be accommodated in existing detention facilities&nbsp;... 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."<ref name="ushmm Glass"/>{{sfn|Calic|1985|p=192}} Twenty thousand Jews were sent to concentration camps in the days immediately following;{{sfn|Calic|1985|p=193}} historians consider ''Kristallnacht'' the beginning of the Holocaust.<ref name="Hutchinson Encyclopedia"/>

When Hitler asked for a [[casus belli|pretext]] for the [[invasion of Poland]] in 1939, Himmler, Heydrich, and Heinrich Müller masterminded a [[false flag]] plan code-named [[Operation Himmler]]. It involved a fake attack on the German radio station at [[Gliwice|Gleiwitz]] on 31 August 1939. Heydrich masterminded the plan and toured the site, which was about {{convert|4|mi|km|0|spell=in}} from the Polish border. Wearing Polish uniforms, 150 German troops carried out several attacks along the border. Hitler used the ruse as an excuse to launch his invasion.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|pp=518–520}}{{sfn|Calic|1985|pp=194–200}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B01718, Ausstellung "Planung und Aufbau im Osten".jpg|thumb|left|[[Rudolf Hess]], Himmler, [[Philipp Bouhler]], [[Fritz Todt]], and Heydrich listening to [[Konrad Meyer]] at a ''[[Generalplan Ost]]'' exhibition, 20 March 1941]]
On Himmler's instructions, Heydrich formed the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' (task forces) to travel in the wake of the German armies at the start of World War II.{{sfn|Longerich|2012|p=425}} On 21 September 1939, Heydrich sent out a teleprinter message on the "Jewish question in the occupied territory" to the chiefs of all ''Einsatzgruppen'' with instructions to round up Jewish people for placement into ghettos, called for the formation of [[Judenrat|Judenräte]] (Jewish councils), ordered a census, and promoted [[Aryanization (Nazism)|Aryanization]] plans for Jewish-owned businesses and farms, among other measures.{{efn|name=telegram}} The ''Einsatzgruppen'' units followed the army into Poland to implement the plans. Later, in the Soviet Union, they were charged with rounding up and murdering Jews via firing squad and gas vans.{{sfn|Shirer|1960|pp=958–963}} Historian [[Raul Hilberg]] estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and related auxiliary troops murdered more than two million people, including 1.3&nbsp;million Jews.{{sfn|Rhodes|2002|p=257}} Heydrich ensured the safety of certain athletes, such as Paul Sommer, a Jewish German champion fencer he knew from his pre-SS days, and the Polish Olympic fencing team that competed at the [[1936 Summer Olympics]].{{sfn|Donnelley|2012|p=48}}

{{quote box|width=20em| quote =...&nbsp;the planned total measures are to be kept strictly secret&nbsp;... the first prerequisite for the final aim ("Endziel") is the concentration of the Jews from the countryside into the larger cities. |author=Heydrich |source=September 1939{{efn|name=telegram}}}}
{{quote box|width=20em| quote = By order of the Reichsführer-SS, residency without possession of an identification card is punishable by death. |author=Heydrich |source=November 1939<ref name="Götz, Roth et al. 2004"/>}}

On 29 November 1939, Heydrich issued a cable about the "Evacuation of New Eastern Provinces", detailing 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.<ref name="Götz, Roth et al. 2004"/> In May 1941 Heydrich drew up regulations with [[Quartermaster general]] [[Eduard Wagner]] for the upcoming [[Operation Barbarossa|invasion of the Soviet Union]], which ensured that the ''Einsatzgruppen'' and army would co-operate in murdering Soviet Jews.{{sfn|Hillgruber|1989|pp=94–96}}

On 10 October 1941, Heydrich was the senior officer at a "[[Final Solution]]" meeting of the RSHA{{efn|name=Hilberg description}} in Prague that discussed deporting 50,000 Jews from the [[Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia]] to ghettos in [[Minsk Ghetto|Minsk]] and [[Riga ghetto|Riga]]. Given his position, Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these plans since his Gestapo was ready to organise deportations in the West and his ''Einsatzgruppen'' were already conducting extensive killing operations in the East.{{sfn|Hilberg|1985|p=164}} The officers attending also discussed taking 5,000 Jews from Prague "in the next few weeks" and handing them over to the ''Einsatzgruppen'' commanders [[Arthur Nebe]] and [[Otto Rasch]]. Establishing ghettos in the Protectorate was also planned, resulting in the construction of the [[Theresienstadt Ghetto]],<ref name="ghwk room7-2 a"/> where 33,000 people would eventually die. Tens of thousands more passed through the camp before being sent East to be murdered.<ref name="ushmm Theresienstadt"/> In 1941 Himmler named Heydrich as "responsible for implementing" the forced movement of 60,000 Jews from Germany and [[Czechoslovakia]] to the [[Łódź Ghetto|Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto]] in Poland.<ref name="ghwk room7-2 b"/>

Earlier on 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorisation to Heydrich to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of a "[[Final Solution]] to the [[Jewish question]]" in territories under German control.{{sfn|Browning|2004|p=315}} On 20 January 1942, Heydrich chaired a meeting, now called the [[Wannsee Conference]], to discuss the implementation of the plan.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=696–697}}<ref name="holocaust-history Wannsee"/>