Publishers Weekly
The exploits of an iconic Naziilluminate the Third Reich’s ideology and machinery of mass murder in this probing biography. A hawk-faced Aryan poster boy who fended off false rumors of Jewish ancestry, Reinhard Heydrich oversawthe Gestapo, played a key role in formulating the Final Solution, and organized the Einsatzgruppen death squads that murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews during WWII. Historian Gerwarth reduces this diabolical figure to human terms, painting him as an apolitical man drawn to the SS by careerism and whose Nazi fiancée, Lina, instigated his drift toward the party. Heydrich then embraced SS chief Heinrich Himmler’s racial theories and his ethos of ruthlessDarwinian struggle against Germany’s enemies. The author’s fluent, meticulously researched account of Heydrich’s career frames a trenchant analysis of the “radicalization” of German anti-Semitic policies; as Heydrich searched fruitlessly for a place to which he could deport the Reich’s Jews (none of the satrapies in the Nazi empire wanted to accept them), exclusion and expulsion gave way to systematic extermination almost as a matter of convenience. Gerwarth’s fine study shows in chilling detail how genocide emerged from the practicalities of implementing a demented belief system. Photos. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
"This admirable biography makes plausible what actually happened and makes human what we might prefer to dismiss as monstrous."—Timothy Snyder, Wall Street Journal
"Supremely enlightening."—Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review
"Gerwarth’s approach is subtle, painstaking and psychologically acute; it convincingly demonstrates that the historian’s tool of 'cold empathy' best clarifies the enduring question of what brings forth monsters."—Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year)
"Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich by Robert Gerwarth is superb on the making of evil."—Frank Dikotter, The Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
"At the subsequent grand public funeral, Nazi leaders eulogized Heydrich as the perfect Nazi. This intelligent and readable biography shows how he had made himself into one, and Gerwarth explains persuasively what motivated Heydrich to do so."—Richard J. Evans, Times Higher Education
". . . two splendid biographies. There have been lives written before, but nothing to match the exceptional way that Peter Longerich and Robert Gerwarth . . . have gone about digging in the sources to root these two awful figures more firmly in the context that gave rise to some of the worst crimes of the modern age. It is unlikely that either of these biographies will be bettered."—Richard Overy, The Sunday Telegraph (reviewed with 'Heinrich Himmler: A Life' by Peter Longerich)
"An excellent inquiry into one of Hitler’s most fearsome paladins, the aide to Heinrich Himmler who played a key role in implementing the Holocaust. Gerwarth dispassionately examines Heydrich’s rise and assassination, which resulted in a horrific series of Nazi reprisals in Czechoslovakia. The best account of Heydrich."—Jacob Heilbrunn, The Daily Beast
"[A] probing biography. . . . Gerwarth’s fine study shows in chilling detail how genocide emerged from the practicalities of implementing a demented belief system."—Publishers Weekly "Robert Gerwarth has produced a thoroughly documented, scholarly, and eminently readable account of this mass murderer."—The New Republic "[M]eticulously takes us inside the Third Reich, face to face with the Nazi hero, revealing as few texts do how the bureaucracy of evil worked."—Kirkus Reviews "Gerwarth . . . offers a first rate biography of one of history’s most notorious villains."—Deseret News "Gerwarth's mastery of primary sources and relevant secondary literature is impressive, and his integration of the most recent scholarship and historiographical perspectives on the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust make this fine biography even more compelling. An outstanding, exceptional book sure to become the standard account of one of the most infamous Nazi war criminals."—D.R. Snyder, Choice "Drawing on profound research, Robert Gerwarth presents a penetrating, authoritative analysis of the ruthless personality and murderous career of the man who directed the Third Reich's police state and became a driving-force in the programme to exterminate Europe's Jews."—Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler "Evil is a word used too lightly in our times and in historical review. Yet, in his splendid biography of Heydrich, Robert Gerwarth allows us to see what evil means in its subtlety and complexity, its seeming reasonableness on occasion, its starkness and its terror. Reading Hitler's Hangman makes plain why, in our eternal wrestling with the question where by the grace of God might we be going, historical reckoning, even for the most appalling of war criminals, is a more satisfactory and richer approach than is legal prosecution."—R.J.B. Bosworth, author of Mussolini "An excellent book on a major figure in the Nazi dictatorship, its secret police and the Holocaust. Gerwarth’s illumination of the development of the security complex under Heydrich, his actions in the Protectorate, and especially the war in the East, is of real value."—Tim Kirk, author of Nazi Germany
Choice - D.R. Snyder
"Gerwarth's mastery of primary sources and relevant secondary literature is impressive, and his integration of the most recent scholarship and historiographical perspectives on the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust make this fine biography even more compelling. An outstanding, exceptional book sure to become the standard account of one of the most infamous Nazi war criminals."—D.R. Snyder, Choice
Deseret News
“Gerwarth…offers a first rate biography of one of history’s most notorious villains.”—Deseret News
BBC History Magazine (Books of the Year) - Simon Sebag Montefiore
Robert Gerwarth’s Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich is the outstanding definitive scholarly and heartbreakingly horrible biography of the repellent mastermind of the Holocaust.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, BBC History Magazine (Books of the Year)
The Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year) - Frank Dikotter
“Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich by Robert Gerwarth is superb on the making of evil.”—Frank Dikotter, The Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year) - Roy Foster
Gerwarth’s approach is subtle, painstaking and psychologically acute; it convincingly demonstrates that the historian’s tool of 'cold empathy' best clarifies the enduring question of what brings forth monsters.”—Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year)
The New York Times Book Review - Jacob Heilbrunn
“An excellent inquiry into one of Hitler’s most fearsome paladins, the aide to Heinrich Himmler who played a key role in implementing the Holocaust. Gerwarth dispassionately examines Heydrich’s rise and assassination, which resulted in a horrific series of Nazi reprisals in Czechoslovakia. The best account of Heydrich.”—Jacob Heilbrunn, The Daily Beast
The Wall Street Journal - Timothy Snyder
“This admirable biography makes plausible what actually happened and makes human what we might prefer to dismiss as monstrous.”—Timothy Snyder, Wall Street Journal
Choice
"Gerwarth's mastery of primary sources and relevant secondary literature is impressive, and his integration of the most recent scholarship and historiographical perspectives on the Nazi dictatorship and the Holocaust make this fine biography even more compelling. An outstanding, exceptional book sure to become the standard account of one of the most infamous Nazi war criminals."—D.R. Snyder, Choice
— D.R. Snyder
BBC History Magazine (Books of the Year)
Robert Gerwarth’s Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich is the outstanding definitive scholarly and heartbreakingly horrible biography of the repellent mastermind of the Holocaust.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, BBC History Magazine (Books of the Year)
— Simon Sebag Montefiore
The Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
“Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich by Robert Gerwarth is superb on the making of evil.”—Frank Dikotter, The Daily Telegraph (Books of the Year)
— Frank Dikotter
Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year)
Gerwarth’s approach is subtle, painstaking and psychologically acute; it convincingly demonstrates that the historian’s tool of 'cold empathy' best clarifies the enduring question of what brings forth monsters.”—Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement (Books of the Year)
— Roy Foster
The New York Times Book Review
“Supremely enlightening.”—Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review
— Jacob Heilbrunn
The Wall Street Journal
“This admirable biography makes plausible what actually happened and makes human what we might prefer to dismiss as monstrous.”—Timothy Snyder, Wall Street Journal
— Timothy Snyder
BBC History Magazine
Robert Gerwarth’s Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich is the outstanding definitive scholarly and heartbreakingly horrible biography of the repellent mastermind of the Holocaust.—Simon Sebag Montefiore, BBC History Magazine
— Simon Sebag Montefiore
The Daily Telegraph
Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich by Robert Gerwarth is superb on the making of evil.—Frank Dikotter, The Daily Telegraph
— Frank Dikotter
Times Literary Supplement
Gerwarth’s approach is subtle, painstaking and psychologically acute; it convincingly demonstrates that the historian’s tool of 'cold empathy' best clarifies the enduring question of what brings forth monsters.—Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement
— Roy Foster
History Today
Gerwarth tells this complex take with considerable aplomb. He writes with real verve, pacing his account well and providing the perfect mix of narrative and analysis. Pleasingly, he is not shy of indulging in a few dramatic flourishes when the material and the circumstances allow, making this a history book that one can genuinely read almost in a single sitting… He has succeeded admirably in remedying the lack of a scholarly biography of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most pivotal and influential figures in the history of the Third Reich. [Gerwarth's] work has set a new standard by which subsequent biographies of Hitler's 'Blond Beast' will surely be measured.—Roger Moorhouse, History Today
— Roger Moorhouse
Reviews in History
…an admirable contribution…a unique perspective and insight into the development and radicalization of the Nazi regime and its rule.—Dr Dorothy Mas, Reviews in History
— Dr Dorothy Mas
Irish Examiner
…as definitive a biography of Hitler’s Hangman as there is ever likely to be.—Geoffrey Roberts, Irish Examiner
— Geoffrey Roberts
Irish Times
To write a truly splendid biography of a truly evil man is a remarkable achievement. Gerwarth develops a rounded picture of a personality who set out to establish a centralised SS state. He displays enough empathy for his subject not exactly to evoke sympathy (fortunately) but to make the seemingly incomprehensible comprehensible.—Hew Strachan, Irish Times
— Hew Strachan
The Mail on Sunday
With his cold intelligence and utter ruthlessness, it is sometimes suggested he would have made a redoubtable Fuhrer and formidable enemy. In this riveting biography, Gerwarth shows just how plausible that claim is.—Guy Walters, The Mail on Sunday
— Guy Walters
Northern Echo
In an illuminating account, Robert Gerwarth relates new anecdotes from Heydrich’s private life and his deeds as head of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office to shed light on his complex character.—Gavin Englebrecht, Northern Echo
— Gavin Englebrecht
Literary Review
[Gerwarth] opts for strategy of ‘cold empathy’, engaging his subject with ‘critical distance’ while attempting to assess his behaviour in context rather than in the light of what we know it led to. This approach, in contrast to the sensational popular biographies, produces some genuine surprises.—David Cesarani, Literary Review
— David Cesarani
The Sunday Telegraph
…two splendid biographies. There have been lives written before, but nothing to match the exceptional way that Peter Longerich and Robert Gerwarth…have gone about digging in the sources to root these two awful figures more firmly in the context that gave rise to some of the worst crimes of the modern age. It is unlikely that either of these biographies will be bettered.—Richard Overy, The Sunday Telegraph (reviewed with ‘Heinrich Himmler: A Life’ by Peter Longerich)
— Richard Overy
Times Higher Education
At the subsequent grand public funeral, Nazi leaders eulogized Heydrich as the perfect Nazi. This intelligent and readable biography shows how he had made himself into one, and Gerwarth explains persuasively what motivated Heydrich to do so.—Richard J. Evans, Times Higher Education
— Richard J. Evans
The New Republic
Robert Gerwarth has produced a thoroughly documented, scholarly, and eminently readable account of this mass murderer.—The New Republic
Kirkus Reviews
In calm and harrowing detail, Gerwarth (Modern History, War Studies/Univ. College Dublin; The Bismarck Myth: Weimar Germany and the Legacy of the Iron Chancellor, 2005, etc.) explores the life and work of the embodiment of Nazism, Reinhard Heydrich (1904–1942).
The author trails the life of this favorite of the Fuhrer, the Gestapo chief, from his comfortable childhood as the favored son of a musician through his career as a paragon of Nazi philosophy put into practice. Rumors of the taint of Jewish blood in the veins of the arrogant man wearing the cap with the death's-head insignia were untrue. After being drummed out of the German navy, the ambitious young man found his calling in the nascent SS, quickly rising to second in command under Heinrich Himmler. The "Jewish expert" Eichmann reported to Heydrich, who was instrumental in establishing the Kristallnacht pogroms of 1938. He conceived ghettoes as storage places for Jews until more convenient disposal could be arranged. The requirement for Jews to wear the yellow star was his idea, and he worked to rapidly increase the population of the concentration camps. To ease the work of his murderers, Heydrich pioneered the use of lethal gas. Breaks from his day job of killing civilians included flying missions with the Luftwaffe just for fun. His successes earned him the Protectorate of Moravia and Bohemia. As the war progressed, the Jewish "final solution" evolved, and Heydrich convened Wannsee to implement it early in 1942. A few months later, he was assassinated. In partial reprisal, the village of Lidice and its inhabitants were liquidated.Page by page in this scholarly history, Gerwarth builds a complex story of the perfection of mass murder.
The author meticulously takes us inside the Third Reich, face to face with the Nazi hero, revealing as few texts do how the bureaucracy of evil worked.
