Reinhard and Lina Heydrich enjoy a family moment with eldest children Claus and Heider.  This 'photo is slightly odd, as the setting looks rather "summery"; Heider Heydrich, however - a small baby in this image, was born late in December, 1934 - would the good weather have arrived in time to see him photographed in such a setting ?  Well - perhaps there was an early Spring in 1934 ... Best regards, JR.

Family Guy (2).

Following his death from septicemia (due to contaminated bits of car seat, metal, uniform etc. lodged in his spleen), Heydrich was laid in state at Prague, before his body was returned to Berlin and a slap-up full-on Nazi state funeral service at the Reich Chancellery.  

Here, Hitler salutes the Fallen.  Eulogies were delivered by Hitler, Himmler and Bormann.  Hitler's was the shortest, consisting of high praise for "Comrade Heydrich's" service to the Reich, and an announcement that he had awarded Heydrich the most prestigious political award of the Reich, the German Order (of which Heydrich was the second recipient).  The German Order was one of the most exclusive of Third Reich awards.  It later came to be known as the "Dead Heroes Medal";  of its 11 recipients, no fewer than 7 were awarded the Order posthumously.  Two more were killed shortly after receiving it.  Only two lived more than a few weeks after receiving this honour.

There is a point of view that Heydrich's death in some ways suited Himmler's purposes, insofar as it rid him of a subordinate who was well on the way to becoming a dangerous rival, and allowed him to regain control of a number of security and policing functions from which the presence of Heydrich virtually excluded him from direct involvement.  Perhaps.  Himmler certainly seems to have intended such a consolidation when, after months of hesitation, he appointed Kaltenbrunner as head of the RHSA.  Kaltenbrunner was not "one of the boys", a member of Heydrich's inner circle, and (in spite of his legal qualifications) was not on Heydrich's intellectual level.  However, he was (unlike Heydrich, one suspects) a truly fanatical National Socialist, and a "graduate" of the particularly terroristic "school" that was the pre-Anschluss Austrian SS.  Also, Himmler did not have over Kaltenbrunner the admittedly tenuous hold given him over Heydrich by the persistent rumours of the latter's alleged Jewish origins.  In the end, it seems that Himmler came to fear the brutal, fanatical Kaltenbrunner more than he ever had Heydrich.  Schellenberg, head of SD foreign intelligence (admittedly not the most reliable source), reported a conversation with Himmler near the end of the war in which they discussed the possibility of sending out peace feelers to the "western Allies".  Himmler's reaction, apparently, was on the lines, "But what would Kaltenbrunner do ?".  Best regards, JR.

Reinhard Heydrich's second funeral.

Dr Hjalmar Schacht, looking surprisingly well, in the circumstances, in his cell at Nuremberg, 1946.  Schacht served as President of the Reichsbank under Weimar and and the Nazis (to 1939) and as Hitler's Economics Minister from 1934 to 1937.  Under Hitler, he bore major responsibility for the financing of the delusory Nazi "economic miracle", which he did by the exercise of financial jiggery-pokery beyond the imagination even of a Greek budget secretary.  His loss of economic power (he continued in government as a Minister without Portfolio until 1943) resulted from disagreements wit Goering (and, indirectly) with Hitler) on increasing levels of military spending which, he thought, would derail the "economic miracle" in a storm of inflation.  He was probably right but, from Hitler's viewpoint, he also seems to have missed the main point of the whole exercise.

Schacht was at Nuremberg to answer a charge of "crimes against peace" (he was not indicted on the more serious charges available).  His low-level resistance activity after 1937, together with the relatively narrow scope of his involvement with the Nazis (confined to economic questions) probably secured his acquittal - although the importance of his contribution to keeping the ricketty Nazi "economic miracle" on the tracks for so long might have argued for a different outcome.  

After the war, Schacht developed a career as a development banker.  He died in Munich, aged 93.

Hjalmar Schacht wrote more than 20 books on economic topics.  One was titled, "Confessions of an Old Wizard" ; another, "The Magic of Money".  As more and more work is done elucidating the murky economic history of the Third Reich, Shacht's credentials for the titles of "wizard" seem stronger than ever.  They are certainly better than those that might be claimed for the pampered bureaucrats of Brussels and Frankfurt and the cowardly and uninspired politicians who "control" Europe's economy today.  Best regards, JR.