All language subtitles for Beyond.the.Myth.the.SS.Unveiled.S01E03.The.Executioner.Reinhard.Heydrich.1080p.MGTV.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-BLOOM_track3_[eng]

(suspenseful music)

(stormtroopers marching)
(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] Germany's so-called elite,

the Fuhrer's guard,

a black order.

The end result is a crime

the likes of which the
world has never seen.

(suspenseful music continues)

Berlin, June 9th, 1942,

Nazi VIPs at the funeral

of the late SS General Reinhard Heydrich,

(Hitler speaking in German)

- [Narrator] For Heydrich's
enemies on the other hand,

he is the blonde beast,
or the butcher of Prague

Barely two weeks earlier, in Prague,

Heydrich, Hitler's
governor in Czechoslovakia,

is driving to work.

On the way, gunmen ambush him.

- There was a very sharp curve

and the Mercedes that he was
driving would need to slow down

so they could take him
down with a machine gun.

- [Narrator] The attackers stop the car,

prepare to shoot,

but their gun has jammed.

- [Interpreter] At first, it
looks like the assassination

is going wrong.

- [Narrator] Instead of fleeing,

Heydrich wants to confront the assassins.

The second man throws a hand grenade.

(grenade explodes)

(suspenseful music continues)

The attackers flee.

Heydrich remains seriously
injured at the scene.

Hitler demands bloody revenge.

- This was an incredibly traumatic moment.

Big parts of Czech
intelligence are arrested,

they were executed,

and their names would be read out aloud

on the main street.

(bomb exploding)

- [Narrator] Two whole villages

are wiped out by the Germans.

The inhabitants have nothing
to do with the attack.

The Czechs call the reprisal action

(narrator speaks in foreign language).

More than 1,000 innocent
people are murdered.

What the assassins do not know

is that they are not only killing

the Nazi governor of Prague,

but the organizer of a crime
that has taken its course

throughout Europe, the Holocaust,

the architect of the secret plan

to eliminate the European Jews.

(suspenseful music)

Kiel, headquarters of
the German Baltic fleet.

In January, 1931,

a young officer has to
answer to a court of honor

of the Reichsmarine.

His name is Reinhard Heydrich.

(dramatic music)

The 26-year-old lieutenant is accused

of promising marriage to a young lady,

but then getting engaged to another,

just a trifle, really.

In court, Heydrich denies any guilt

and makes counter-accusations.

The womanizer miscalculates.

Heydrich is dishonorably
discharged from the Navy,

the shock of his life.

(Robert speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] His
discharge from the Navy

was a key event in his life

so there's quite a bit to compensate for,

and he does that by wanting
to be the best in everything.

(jaunty music)

- [Narrator] The new fiance stands by him

after Heydrich's release.

Her name is Lina von Osten.

Lina lives on the coast in Holstein.

Her family is of service
gentry, but impoverished,

for Reinhard, who until
then, had been apolitical.

it is a new world,

especially because the von
Ostens are ardent Nazis,

daughter Lina too.

She persuades him to
apply for a job in the SS.

(dramatic music)

In the summer of 1931,
Heydrich travels to Munich

to see a Nazi official.

At that time, Heinrich Himmler
is the head of a small force

called the Schutzstaffel.

The SS is the personal
bodyguard of the Fuhrer,

Nazi bodyguards.

But their boss, the ambitious
Himmler, wants more.

For this, he needs men
like young Heydrich.

- Reinhard Heydrich was in a way

the stereotypical Nazi officer,
tall, blonde, blue-eyed,

the quintessential master-race figure.

- [Narrator] Himmler thinks Heydrich

is an intelligence officer.

He actually only has radio training,

but he keeps that to himself.

- He was put in charge of the SD,

the security service
of the SS, by Himmler.

He was felt to be unsentimental, cold,

calculating, ruthless,

and completely convinced
of his own rectitude

and his own rightness.

- [Narrator] Heydrich moved
into a small villa in Munich

with his wife, Lina.

He takes his SD with him.
They are still only 33 men.

The ex-naval officer has big plans.

(crowd cheering)

When the Nazis come to power in 1933,

the opportunity arises.

In Bavaria, the SS takes over the police.

Heydrich becomes head of
the political department,

a decisive step.

(Hitler speaking in German)

putting Nazi goals into practice

with the help of state
authority, a unique opportunity.

Heydrich is only 30 and is already allowed

to direct his own authority in Munich.

The following year,

he also becomes head of the
secret state police in Prussia.

Heydrich's merging of party
and state, of SD and police,

is the starting point for
his unusually steep rise.

- [Interpreter] In the hands
of the National Socialists,

the police became oriented

toward National Socialist
ideology and toward racist ideas.

And thus, a unique instrument
of terror is created.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] Fear and violence.

Heydrich relies on proven
means to secure Hitler's rule.

Those who dare to resist must
expect serious consequences.

Heydrich cultivates a
system with two sides.

on one side, the facade of law and order,

behind it, an abyss of
arbitrariness and violence.

The regime critic, Hermann Laupsien,

secretly distributes leaflets.

(Hermann speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] I said to myself,

of course, you can't
defeat the Nazis with this,

but you can reach a few people

who might no longer be
caught up in the poison.

- [Narrator] Laupsien is
arrested and gets to know the SS.

(Hermann speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Then we went
down into the cellar and, well,

when I got there, I thought
"No one can hear you here.

You can scream as much as you want."

Then two SS men came down into the cellar.

They had riding whips and
they started beating me.

So I thought to myself,
"You'll have to endure this.

They'll get tired."

And they got tired, but
then two others came down

and then it started all over again.

(suspenseful music continues)

- [Interpreter] Heydrich has no scruples,

neither in the fight
against political opponents,

nor in the ongoing power
struggles within the party.

Cold efficiency and
unquestioning obedience.

Heydrich's apparatus
prepares the assassination

of the SA leadership in
the so-called Rohm Putsch.

(Sturmabteilung singing in German)

Thanks to his death
lists, from 1934 onwards,

it was no longer the
brown shirts of the SA,

but the black uniforms of the SS

that stood for power in the Nazi state.

At the Reich Party Congress
in September, 1934,

the SS underlines its claims
with Himmler and Heydrich.

It's a triumph, especially for Heydrich.

- [Interpreter] Heydrich is driven.

He was not an early fighter
or supporter of Adolf Hitler.

In this respect,

there's certainly something
compensatory involved.

So, the radicalism of the late convert.

(Robert speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] A careerist,

especially ambitious to
make up for the taint

of being kicked out of the Navy.

Heydrich becomes more and more
powerful, fanatical, radical.

(suspenseful music continues)

- Heydrich didn't seem to be
someone who relaxed at all,

didn't tell jokes,
wasn't easy to approach.

Some people felt he was
a technician of power,

but the ideology, certainly,

if you read the things that he wrote,

was very, very extreme and very dogmatic.

- [Interpreter] Heydrich writes,

"To prove the correctness
of our principles,

we must become the best in all fields,"

a motto he lives by throughout his life,

for example, in sports.

Heydrich is an avid fencer,

but also a sailor, horseman,
and modern pentathlete.

This puts him squarely
in line with the Nazis.

The SS paper "Schwarze
Korps" celebrates Heydrich

as a model athlete,

a star of the Nazi era,

admired by some far
beyond the end of the war.

(Franz speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] With sports,

he was able to toughen himself up

so that he became resilient.

(Franz speaking in German)

If he hadn't done that,
and had been effeminate

like some of the other party greats were,

well then, nothing
would've come of all this.

- [Narrator] The supposed showcase athlete

is feared by opponents as a sore loser.

(gentle music)

In private, the ice-cold
killer can be quite soft.

In 1933, Lina gives him a son.

Three more children follow,

moments of happiness for
a self-appointed member

of the master race.

In 1937, Heydrich buys a small
house with a view of the lake

not far from Schlachtenzee in Berlin.

He earns 16,000 Reichsmarks a year,

the equivalent of about
110,000 euros today,

without allowances.

It pays to belong to Hitler's elite.

(suspenseful music)

With some ladies, it was
plain sailing for Heydrich.

(Franz speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] He was the secret type.

Women adored him.

He was a charmer. He was
fantastic at entertaining company.

He was very well-read.

He represented a lot to a
young person and they said,

"We want to be like that, too."

(jazzy music)

- [Interpreter] What the
admirers do not suspect,

the cool strategist Heydrich
regularly lets himself go.

After the war,

SS accomplices reported on
nightly drinking bouts, affairs,

and visits to brothels.

And this, despite the
fact that prostitution

was strictly regulated in the Third Reich.

Heydrich doesn't care.

He puts a high-class Berlin
brothel, the Salon Kitty,

at the service of his
network of informers.

Incriminating material is collected

against lonely state guests from abroad.

Kitty's salon on the third
floor is bugged by the SD.

(jazzy music continues)

While the girls are supposed
to use the casual atmosphere

to eavesdrop on their guests,

SD specialists sit in the basement

and eavesdrop on the goings-on further up,

even though the effort hardly
seems to have paid off.

(suspenseful music)

- [Interpreter] The intelligence service

is rather an amateurish event.

Basically, they're clearly inferior

to the British intelligence service,

but also to the American
intelligence service

in terms of professionalism.

- [Narrator] As was so often
the case in the Third Reich,

Heydrich's actions were more
appearance than reality.

(militaristic music)
(crowd cheering)

September, 1938, the next
Party Congress in Nuremberg,

the regime is firmly in the saddle.

The SS has cleared all
enemies out of the way.

(suspenseful music)

Heydrich rose from an untersturmfuhrer

to the rank of general
in just a few years,

including an SS sword of honor,

which is only awarded on Himmler's orders.

After consolidating power at home,

Heydrich needs a new enemy image,

above all, so that Hitler and Himmler

would continue to depend on him.

Since the mid-1930s,

he's been focusing on a
subject that was new to him,

Judaism and its supposed world conspiracy,

the most popular and
consequential conspiracy theory

of the 20th century.

(Moshe speaking in Hebrew)

- [Interpreter] Conspiracy
theories are so effective

precisely because of their paradoxes.

One wants to understand why
the Jews are successful.

How can it be explained that the Jews

managed to look like a threat
only by connecting everything,

by saying that capitalism and Bolshevism

are two sides of the same coin?

And that coin is called Judaism.

- [Narrator] Nazi propaganda
floods Germany with hatred.

Words are soon to become deeds.

(suspenseful music continues)

All Jews were a danger
to the German people,

the press and Nazi cinema agitated,

even the conformist, non-religious Jews

who had lived in Germany for generations.

(newsreader speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Instinctless
peoples are deceived

by this mimicry and actually
regard them as their equals.

Therein lies the tremendous danger,

for even these assimilated Jews
always remain foreign bodies

in the organism of their host people,

however much they may
outwardly resemble it.

- [Narrator] The delusion
of hostile races of people

allows only one conclusion
from the Nazi point of view:

all Jews must get out of Germany.

Heydrich wants to act.

He forces the Jewish
immigration also to Palestine.

"As a National Socialist,
I am a Zionist," he claims.

(Moshe speaking in Hebrew)

- [Interpreter] Those who
don't like Zionist would say

the Nazi's are Zionists,
you have to be careful here.

What Heydrich meant by that is this,

"When I talk to Jews,
I prefer the Zionists,

because the Zionists
believe in a Jewish people,

and are ready to accept the solution

of immigration to Palestine."

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] The antisemites of the SS

maintain discrete contacts
with Jewish activists.

At the instigation of Heydrich,

SS man Adolph Eichmann
is to travel to Palestine

and negotiate with
representatives of the Haganah,

a Jewish underground organization.

The common goal: more
immigration to Palestine.

But the British Mandate
refused Eichmann entry.

The explosive meeting is moved to Cairo.

(dramatic music continues)

Negotiations are underway for cooperation

on the departure of
German Jews for Palestine.

But what raises expectations
on both sides comes to nothing.

- I think what it shows is
Heydrich and his organization

didn't really care what means were used

to get the Jews out of Germany

or didn't care who they
talked to or who helped them.

The aim was to reduce the
Jewish population by any means.

(SS troopers marching)
(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] Heydrich's antisemitism

is soon needed elsewhere.

In March, 1938, Hitler annexes
his native country, Austria.

(crowd cheering)

Many Austrians are enthusiastic

about the so-called Anschluss,

the annexation of their
country to Germany.

The SS arrives with the
first German troops.

Himmler and Heydrich lose no time.

Heydrich has wanted lists drawn up.

Political opponents are arrested.

Austria's Jews become
the target of repression.

In many places, there
are pogrom-like attacks.

This goes too far for Heydrich.

He doesn't mind antisemitic violence,

but preferably in secret, not
before the eyes of the world.

He sends Eichmann to Vienna to
clarify the Jewish question.

Eichmann comes up with a new strategy.

The Jews are to be persuaded to emigrate

and pay for their forced
departure themselves.

(Robert speaks in German)

- [Interpreter] The biggest problem

from the perspective of the SS

is that many states abroad
have already introduced quotas.

And of course, these states
don't want mass immigration

of impoverished German Jews.

(suspenseful music continues)

- [Narrator] The problem
is discussed in Berlin.

At a meeting in Goering's
Reich Aviation Ministry

on November 12th, 1938,
Heydrich presents his plan.

The goal was to accelerate the immigration

of all Jews in Germany
and to cover the costs.

Goering, the second man in
the state, is enthusiastic.

Heydrich becomes the leading figure

of Jewish policy in the Nazi regime.

(suspenseful music continues)

As a new capacity of racial issues,

he brings another idea into play,

marking all Jews with a special badge.

The idea will become
reality in a few years.

Under Heydrich's leadership,

the SS becomes the driving force

behind the forced emigration of the Jews.

By the beginning of the war,

about 350,000 Jews are
expropriated and expatriated.

From the Nazi's point of view, a success.

On duty, a ruthless aggressor,

off duty, Heydrich poses as
a cultural man and a beau,

nothing unusual in Nazi Germany.

(triumphant music)

- Reinhardt Heydrich, like
many of the top Nazis,

absolutely loved German culture.

They listened to music.

They loved the music
of Beethoven and Bach.

Heydrich played the violin quite well.

And same day they could
give the order to murder

50 or 100 or 1,000 people.

They're not in contradiction
for the top Nazis, for the SS.

This is something that was
simply par for the course

for someone like Heydrich.

(wistful violin music)

- [Narrator] Heydrich
comes from a musical family

and is a virtuoso violinist.

As a young cadet, he had
to play for his superiors

in the evenings on board.

He remains faithful to music

and impresses his comrades
in the SS with it.

(Franz speaks in German)

- [Interpreter] I think that in many ways,

because of the weight of
the work he had to do,

he almost called the violin a friend,

because if he ever had
any kind of problem,

he would take the violin and play.

(jaunty music)

- [Narrator] The weight of his work,

specifically terror and persecution,

also allows him to cultivate

his second great passion, sports.

Heydrich is regularly
drawn to the mountains,

For example, to the Greater
German Alpine Ski Championships,

where the SD boss likes
to have his picture taken

with the winners.

(artillery blasting)

(newsreader speaking in German)

- Gdansk, September 1st, 1939,

the invasion of Poland
marked a turning point

in Heydrich's career.

Hitler triumphs and brings
Dansig home to the Reich,

as the propaganda puts it.

But in truth, this war
is about something else,

lebensraum or living space.

Reinhard Heydrich, who travels to Poland

in Hitler's entourage,
is well aware of this.

- When Hitler's planning,

when he's telling Himmler his plans,

when he's talking to Heydrich,
he makes it very clear,

he doesn't care how
many Poles have to die.

He has absolutely no empathy,
no sympathy for them at all.

- [Narrator] Behind the fighting troops,

Heydrich sends so-called
Einsatzgruppen to Poland,

their mission, to wipe out the elites.

Heydrich once again draws up death lists.

- Heydrich was a brutal killer.

He was a coldblooded mass murderer,

and he had absolutely no problem

putting these thousands of names out there

and telling his Einsatzgruppen
to go and find these people

and murder them.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] In order to coordinate

the mass murders in the east,

a new authority is founded in Berlin

at the end of September, 1939,
under Heydrich's leadership,

the Reich Security Main Office.

The new super agency of the SS

are pulling the strings for
terror at home and abroad.

Heydrich regularly sends
his people into action,

mostly for murder campaigns.

The department under Adolph Eichmann,

responsible for Jewish
affairs, become notorious.

An important element for the
reorganization in the east

is the control over the Jewish population.

On Heydrich's initiative,

the first ghettos are
established in Poland.

Soon after, the residents of the ghettos

must wear an arm band
with the star of David.

- Heydrich wanted to be able to control

the Jewish population,

he wanted to know exactly where they were,

then if it should come the time,

then you have put this first
massive element of control,

of domination, in place already.

So in other words, the
ghettoization was a crucial step

on the road toward the Holocaust.

(soldiers marching)

- [Narrator] The war
continues in the west.

Germany defeats France.

Heydrich continues to concentrate

on the solution of the Jewish question.

With the conquest of Poland,

the number of Jews in the
German sphere of power

has multiplied.

What is to be done with them?

One proposal is the deportation
of all Jews to Madagascar,

a French colony.

After the victory over France,

this plan suddenly seems realistic.

The choice falls on Madagascar,

because the island is far
away, because it is isolated,

and because of its notorious climate.

Even after their expulsion,

the life of the Jews should
still be a life of hardships.

It is an idea that has long
been haunting antisemitic minds.

Heydrich has concrete plans developed

in close consultation
with the foreign office.

(Isabel speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Quickly you realize

you don't have enough ships,
you're war with England.

So the idea is off the stove

as quickly as it seemed
appealing in the short term.

Even if it promised a quick
solution to the problem,

what do we do with the European Jews?

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] The decision is postponed.

While Hitler plans the war
against the Soviet Union,

Heydrich receives the order
to work out a final solution.

In a border police school,

he instructs his Einsatzgruppen

shortly before the attack
on the Soviet Union.

There's talk of the fight
against Bolshevism and Jewry,

but there are no concrete orders.

Heydrich trusts in the
initiative of his men.

(suspenseful music continues)

June 22nd, 1941, Operation
Barbarossa starts.

From the beginning,

this campaign is planned
as a war of extermination.

Heydrich wants to fight
too, as a fighter pilot.

After all, his uniform still doesn't bear

any real war medals.

(Franz speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] He was a
representative with great powers

and he stood there with
a medal-free chest.

So being a healthy person,

he could not prove to the
broad mass of the population

that he'd also done service at the front,

which bothered him beyond measure.

(aircraft roaring)

- [Narrator] The desire for recognition

makes Heydrich forgets all the dangers.

(anti-aircraft guns blasting)

His plane is caught in
Soviet anti-aircraft fire

over the Eastern front on July 22nd, 1941.

(aircraft roaring)

His Messerschmidt is hit.

Heydrich has to make an emergency landing

between the fronts.

A German scouting party finds him.

For his crash landing,

he receives the Iron Cross First Class,

which he wears proudly on
his uniform from now on,

the vanity of a mass murderer.

Meanwhile, Heydrich's Einsatzgruppen

go on a manhunt in the east.

Math shootings take
place from the first day.

At first, the victims
are mainly Jewish men.

- Heydrich doesn't have to
be constantly telling them

what to do, they're reporting back to him.

So, in a sense, they're
working towards Heydrich.

They are reporting back
how well they are doing

to fulfill his expectations.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] In August, 1941,

the Wehrmacht advances
into the Baltic states.

There is no escape for the Jews.

In the port city of Libau

lived 16-year-old Fanny
Segal, daughter of a tailor.

- [Interpreter] We didn't
feel much antisemitism.

Nevertheless, we lived in a house

with many non-Jews and Christians around,

also many ethnic Germans lived in Libau.

- [Narrator] But after the
German invasion, things change.

Everywhere, Jews are rounded
up by uniformed Germans

and civilians who willingly helped.

- [Interviewer] And one
day my father came home

and told my mother that they
dig graves by the sea, he said,

and I think that the graves are for us.

(Fanny speaking in German)

- [Narrator] At first Fanny's father

is forced to work for the Germans,

but this does not protect him.

(Fanny speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] We were
a few hundred people

and suddenly an order
came out, "All men out!"

My father started to cry.

He kissed me, gave me his watch.

He knew that this was the end.

(somber music)

- [Narrator] Onlookers watch the action.

Although filming is strictly forbidden,

a soldier films a mass shooting in Lavia.

Soon, women and children
are also murdered.

- You have this horrific
mass wave of crime,

called Holocaust by bullets.

So it becomes just a wave of mass murder,

primarily against the Jews,

but there are many other victims.

- [Narrator] Himmler and
Heydrich follow the results.

They worry about the
discipline of the perpetrators,

and about there being too many witnesses.

(suspenseful music)

A network of SD and Gestapo officers

is systematically spun across Europe.

No one is to escape the grasp of the SS.

The goal is now clearly defined.

All of Europe is to be free of Jews.

No Jew is to survive the war.

(suspenseful music continues)

January, 1942.

Heydrich summons top
representatives of the Reich

to a conference at Wannsee in Berlin.

He wants to clarify the further steps

for the final solution
of the Jewish question.

(Isabel speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Heydrich
is clearly the one

who is pulling the strings here.

He cannot, of course,

be detached from Hitler nor from Himmler

as the inspirers and
supporters of this policy,

that he's the one who takes

the decisive steps of radicalization.

- [Narrator] At the conference,

Heydrich finally officially announces

what everyone present has long known.

(Stefan speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] It is a working lunch.

You have breakfast together,

then you basically agree
on self-evident things.

As the minutes show,

nobody has any fundamental
objections, but they're informed.

These are the Jews here,
millions, millions,

millions in the different countries,

and we will deport them all.

And so now you know it,

and then everybody sits there and says,

"Yeah, we're not surprised."

- [Narrator] The number of Jews

to be sent from Europe to the
east is carefully recorded.

Forced labor until death or
immediate murder awaits them.

Even countries that have
not yet been conquered

are planned for.

According to the Wannsee Protocol,

a total of 11 million Jews
were to disappear from Europe.

(dramatic music)
(man speaking in German)

Heydrich has the lead in
the so-called final solution

of the Jewish question.

That is not enough for him.

In 1941,

He becomes deputy Reich
protector of Bohemia and Moravia.

Heydrich takes up his new
posts at Prague Castle

in September, 1941.

Bohemia and Moravia, as the
Germans called Czechoslovakia,

has armaments factories,

and is therefore vital to the war effort.

In the face of burgeoning resistance,

Heydrich is expected to tighten the reins

on the protectorate.

Just one day after taking up his post,

he declares a state of emergency.

- [Interpreter] As soon
as he arrived in Prague,

he killed hundreds and hundreds of Czechs,

which wasn't necessary at all.

Not even Hitler sent
him to Prague to do so.

(suspenseful music continues)

- [Narrator] Heydrich wants
to use fear and terror

to drive the industrial workers
in the armaments factories

to perform better.

- Heydrich implemented the
forced armament industry

to be completely squeezed out.

And it was Skoda Works in Plzen

that produced lots of the
important armament industry

that supported the
Wehrmacht until April, 1945.

He also implemented much
of the anti-Jewish policies

and it was under his watch
that Theresienstadt was set up.

- [Narrator] Meanwhile, the final solution

of the Jewish question

has become just as important
as the final victory

for the Nazi leadership.

The former Austrian
fortress, Theresienstadt,

has been used as a
Gestapo prison since 1939.

Critics of the regime are imprisoned

and silenced here by Heydrich's police.

(solemn music)

Since 1941, the whole city has
turned into a large ghetto.

Presented by the propaganda

as a quiet retirement home for Jews,

it's actually a transit
camp for the Holocaust.

The fortress Theresienstadt itself

also becomes a death camp.

Over 30,000 inmates die here
and are burned to death.

(suspenseful music)

In the meantime, the
Heydrich family settles in

for an extended stay in Czechoslovakia.

They move into a luxurious country chateau

20 kilometers outside of Prague.

It used to belong to a
Jewish sugar factory owner,

now a murderer of Jews
leads a pleasant life

in the 30-room mansion.

Heydrich's wife Lina wants a swimming pool

in the 70-hectare garden.

It is built by forced laborers

from the Theresienstadt ghetto.

(suspenseful music)

The governor of Bohemia and Moravia

does not miss the
opportunity to present Hitler

with a whole hospital
train for his birthday

in the name of the Czech people.

Furthermore, he enjoys
supplying the Fuhrer

with success stories from Czechoslovakia,

most of which are exaggerated.

The contact between Hitler and Heydrich

almost always goes through Himmler.

With Heydrich's new office
as Reichs protector,

he hopes for direct
proximity to the dictator.

(Robert speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Heydrich and Hitler met

perhaps 10 times in person,

so I wouldn't describe
the relationship as close.

However, Hitler is, of course,

very aware of Heydrich as a person,

and Heydrich is also repeatedly involved

in central discussions when it
comes to the Jewish question.

- [Narrator] He doesn't
lose sight of that question

in Czechoslovakia either.

- [Interpreter] Heydrich is also involved

when it's about setting up
extermination camps in the east.

We're talking about an industrial
system of extermination,

no longer about manual shootings,

but an industrial
murdering, mostly with gas.

(Hitler speaking in German)
(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] Belzec, near Lublin.

Here in March, 1942,

a new type of camp is put into operation.

Today, the place is a memorial.

(Stefan speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Belzec has six hectares,

that's only three or four soccer fields,

so actually nothing.

And in fact, on that site,

the only building made of
bricks is the gas chamber.

Everything else was really
just wooden barracks,

and there's a railroad track.

This is essentially an extermination camp

with a railroad track, or rather,

a railroad track with
an extermination camp.

- [Narrator] New arrivals
are ordered to take a bath

before the alleged work assignment.

They must undress, hand over valuables,

and the women's heads are shaved.

Then they pass through a
barbed wire entanglement

to the gas chambers disguised as baths.

After being murdered by exhaust fumes,

the bodies are burnt on large grates

and buried in mass graves.

One of the first reports of
the new form of mass murder

came from an SS officer, Kurt Gerstein.

In August, 1942, Gerstein
travels from Poland

back to the Reich.

By chance, he meets a
Swedish diplomat on the train

to whom he reports about Belzec.

(suspenseful music)

The unsuspecting Jews would
be herded into gas chambers

adored with the Star of David

and disguised as the
Hackenhalt Foundation.

Hackenhalt is the name of the SS man

who operates the engine
of the gas chamber.

Gerstein reports that
on the day of his visit,

the engine went on strike,

which must have been very
embarrassing for the men.

It took almost three hours
before it finally started.

The crammed dead was still
standing upright in the chamber.

Completely distraught,
Gerstein tells the diplomat

about his experience.

Up to 1,500 people per shift

were murdered in Belzec in this way.

(solemn music)

- [Interpreter] So this diplomat,
as diplomats normally do,

listens to all of this, nods
his head politely, and says,

"Okay, I'll report back."

But he doesn't know what to make of it.

So in retrospect,

we know that Gerstein wasn't
talking nonsense here at all,

but the diplomat listens to it and says,

"Yeah, but it all sounds very strange."

(train whistle whistling)

- [Narrator] The diplomat
forwards a report.

After that, nothing happens.

The Germans can continue to
murder almost undisturbed.

In Prague, Heydrich is
already making new plans.

(suspenseful music)

The SS general reflects on Europe

after the final victory
under German leadership.

(Heydrich speaking in German)

(audience applauding)

- Heydrich planned to kind
of create essential Europe,

kind of this old Germanic blend

in which Germans would have a domination.

And the local Slavic people at best

would be a little bit like
slaves who can count up to 500,

can spell, write their own
names, but not much more.

So he had all of these
Germanization policies

that basically Czechs would
slowly either be assimilated

or would be serving the
German master people.

(grave music)

- Heydrich wants to make his protectorate

the prototype of Germanization
for all of Europe.

The reorganization of the protectorate

is part of the monstrous
master plan of the Nazis.

The east is to be settled by
people with Germanic blood.

A Germanic people is to be created

in the new lebensraum through breeding.

This new breed should
be able to assert itself

in the struggle for world domination,

the so-called General
Plan East, a nightmare.

- The Generalplan Ost
was a plan to destroy

not only the peoples of
central Eastern Europe,

but also any legacy of their culture

and their history as well.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] In December, 1941,

Heydrich receives Hitler's
favorite architect in Prague,

Albert Speer.

They make plans for the
reconstruction of Prague

in a postwar period.

The Germanized city is to
be surrounded by a ring road

directly connected to the
German highway network.

A new German government
district, a German university,

and a German opera
house are to give Prague

a Germanic character and make
it the Nazis showcase city

in the new Europe.

Heydrich is interested
in Bohemian history.

He has the keys of the crown
treasure handed over to him.

He seems to be particularly fascinated

by the medieval Wenceslas Crown.

An old legend says that it's cursed.

Anyone who puts it on illegally

dies in the course of a year.

Whether Heydrich really
put the crown on his head

is disputed.

(suspenseful music)

In May, 1942, the Prague Music Weeks

are held at Palac Wallenstein.

Snapshot, Mr. and Mrs. Heydrich

on the evening of the 26th of May,

the last photo showing Heydrich alive.

The next morning, he plans to
leave for Berlin and Paris.

At 10:00 AM, he says
goodbye to the family.

Heydrich leaves without an escort.

(birds chirping)

(suspenseful music continues)

(Robert speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Heydrich was convinced

that no one would dare to
make an attempt on his life,

if only because, of course,

the leaders of the national
resistance knew perfectly well

that it would result in an
immense punitive expedition.

- A Czechoslovakian army-in-exile

is trained in Great Britain.

Volunteers train for special
operations in Hitler's Europe.

(soldiers marching)

Two of them are the soldiers
Jan Kubis and Josef Gabcik.

In a hair pin bend, they're
able to stop Heydrich's car

and detonate a grenade.

(grenade explodes)

- [Jaroslav] One of the guys called me-

- [Interpreter] One of the guys called me

and said there was an attack

against a high SS officer in Liben,

and he was severely wounded
and they didn't dare,

I don't know why, to tell me who it was,

but it was easy for me to guess.

- [Narrator] An entire
district is cordoned off

and combed by the police.

There is no trace of the perpetrators.

- [Interpreter] Standing
there, seeing the car,

I saw everything, blood all over Prague,

and not only over Prague,

but over the entire protectorate
of Bohemia and Moravia.

- [Narrator] Heydrich is
rushed to the hospital.

At first, he seems to recover,

but then after a week, he dies.

- He didn't die of the
wound, he died of sepsis,

and Nazi Germany didn't have antibiotics,

They had sulfonamides, and they
were just not strong enough

to fight the infection.

So he died a very painful death.

- [Narrator] In Prague, the
crowd pays its last respects

to Hitler's governor.

Many ethnic Germans pay their respects,

even Czechs come to his grave.

Some probably hope to appease
the Nazis thirst for revenge,

(bomb exploding)

in vain.

The village of Lidice,
not far from Prague,

is razed to the ground.

- There was a very thin
link to the resistance,

but mostly it was done
to drive the point home

that Czech resistance will be met

by absolutely brutal annihilation.

- [Narrator] Lidice is a Czech trauma.

173 men are shot on the spot.

80 more women and men are murdered later.

A few of the children of
the village are Germanized.

(somber music)

The others perish in gas chambers.

The German search for the
assassins for three weeks.

They receive the decisive clue.

They are hiding in a church in Prague.

(Robert speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] Once their
whereabouts had been identified,

the SS relatively
quickly began to seal off

and surround the church.

- [Narrator] A large
contingent of police and SS

storm the church.

Three resistance fighters

entrench themselves in the gallery.

(suspenseful music)

Traces of bullets and hand grenades

are still visible in the church today.

The three fighters are mortally wounded.

Then it turns out that some
men are also entrenched

in the crypt of the church.

The Germans call in
Prague's fire department.

They use gas and water to
drive the Heydrich bombers

out of their hiding place.

It is the end.

(Robert speaking in German)

- [Interpreter] The moment the
water level rose, of course,

the assassins knew that the only way

for them to avoid
torture and interrogation

was to kill themselves.

- [Narrator] The men retreat

to the old burial chambers of the crypt.

There, they shoot themselves.

For a brief moment, the SS triumphed,

but in the collective
memory of the Czech people,

the assassins have a
firm place, until today.

- The assassination of Heydrich

is one of the foundational myths

of Czech national memory
of the 20th century.

Yes, many people were killed and tortured

or sent to concentration
camps in the aftermath,

but it was also a moment
when the Czech history,

which usually is fairly
passive, should know more.

And we are going to fight back
and we are going to be brave.

- [Narrator] The widow
Heydrich stayed at her castle

with her children until shortly
before the end of the war.

She never renounced National Socialism.

After the war, she receives
the widow's pension

of a general killed in action
in the Federal Republic.

Because Heydrich dies
before the end of the war,

he's not convicted as a war
criminal, not even today.

(suspenseful music)

A memorial in Prague
commemorates the place

where the architect of the
Holocaust meets his end,

Hitler's most efficient executioner,

the cold prototype of the
technocratic perpetrator

driven by hatred, career ambition,

and a thirst for recognition.

(suspenseful music continues)