Berlin Trip : Topography of Terror Museum (Heydrich and His Simplistic Faculties)

“Everyone was afraid, even physically afraid, of Heydrich. Because they knew: in terms of consequence, this man with his primitive, simplistic intellectual faculties was superior to them, to Ohlendorf, Schellenberg and Six. He possessed two seemingly contradictory qualities to the final consequence: he felt hatred out of personal resentment and he was a utilitarian fanatic, unencumbered by any non-personal resentment.”

This line was written by Bernhard Wehner (1909-1995) who studied law and then joined the Nazi Party in 1931, later on becoming an SS officer. He was held in an American internment camp after the end of the Second World War and he then reinvented himself into a criminologist and journalist, writing about his experiences during the war. The whole line about someone in a position of such power being intellectually challenged seems so often why civilisations seem to go wrong, when the talented people aren’t making their way to the top. Heydrich must have had some political and organisational talents to get where he did, although perhaps his ability to get things done regardless of the morality behind them is why he got so far so quickly. Biographers seem to suggest that Heydrich was arrogant but saw himself as a competent man of action rather than as a visionary, eager to please senior members of the Nazis.

I hadn’t realised at the time that the museum has a special exhibition on Heydrich, but it’s really very good and it’s free of charge and at the museum until 10 June 2025.