Nazi official who led SS intelligence and police agencies in implementing the Holocaust.
At the 1942 Wannsee Conference, Heydrich coordinated German state agencies for the murder of Europe’s Jews.
Heydrich joined the SS in 1931 and built and led its Security Service (SD); in 1936 he took command of the Security Police, including the Gestapo and criminal police. When the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) was established in 1939, he became its chief, unifying the Security Police and SD under an agency central to Nazi persecution and mass murder of Jews and political opponents. Appointed acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in 1941, he oversaw executions of resistance figures and the ghettoization and deportation of Jews. He chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference to coordinate ministries in the murder of European Jews; wounded in an attack by Czech resistance agents in May, he died on June 4.
Activities and affiliations
- Security, intelligence and policing · Germany state institutions
Career Timeline
- 1931–1942Chief of the SS Security Service (SD)
- 1936–1942Chief of the Security Police, titled Chief of the Security Police Main Office, 1936–1939
- 1939–1942Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA)
- 1941–1942Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia