Heydrich's flying career.

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M

Medvedya

Master Sergeant
2,358
12
Nov 9, 2004
Bristol, UK
I was wondering if anybody knew definitively what combat flying Heydrich did. There seem to be two conflicting stories.

One account says he was a very bad fighter pilot and never flew combat missions.

Other sources say he did fly several sorties, but after a narrow escape one time both Hitler and Himmler ordered him never to fly operationally ever again.

So what was really the case?
 
Source!



"Description: Bf-109E-7,SS-Obergruppenführer and police general Reinhard Heydrich. This man was Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. In 1942 was killed in Prague by Czech Resistance there were send from Great Britain.He was flying in II./JG77 and JG1.His flying career is short."

8)
 
Hey, you're onto it, GRG !!....

- Yeah, Heydrich, who apparently lived on a Baltic island, flew over Norway with the Luftwaffe on the day of their invasion....

In 1941, Heydrich was absent from his duties as Chief of Security Police and the SD, during the first six weeks of the Russian campaign, flying with the Luftwaffe, but after the 23rd Sept. he was mainly in Prague...
This was also about the time of Himmler's first visit to Nebe [one of Heydrich's Einsatzgruppen Commanders], in Minsk,[perhaps July /August], and was the well known occasion when Himmler asked to watch a mass execution....it was only a small affair, [by their standards] but it upset him so much, he nearly fainted and shouted hysterically, showing every indication that this mass murderer was very deeply shocked......
 

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I just read some of the comments left over there at IL2Skins, about that particular skin!
For Christ's sake, if folks are that touchy about it, why in hell would they bother with a WWII based game in the first place?
 

Too right!
 
Well, he can't know Reini that well, as he's mispelt his surname....

Anyway, as you can see from that little lot, there's no clear picture as to his combat record.
 
From what I've read of the man, he was a proficient pilot, flying his personal Fw200 Condor every chance he got. One of his more normal accomplishments in an abnormal life.
 
Here a scan from my book written by a Czech WWII Aviation Historian Zbyněk Válka (BTW, "válka" means "war" )


Messerschmitt Bf 109E-1
6./JG 77
Stavenger-Sola AB, Norway,
1940-1941 (??? my guess)


Its pilot was a later sad-known Reichsprotektor of 'Protectorate Böhmen und Mähren' (Ocuppied Czechoslovakia) Reinhard Heydrich

Hope this helps... Sorry for bad quality... This blurry pic was the only thing I was able to seek for, as I know it from my olde book. But concerning that he was assasined in May 1942 in Prague, by a special forces Czechoslovak commando from the ressistance in England, his flying career had to be short...


Cheers,
Pisis
 
Well, I'd be the first to agree that it's a sensitive issue - I myself have visited the crypt in Prague, read about Lidice, ect.

However, as Pips says, it's for historical interest rather than any attempt to try and glorify Heydrich or make light of anything that he perpetrated not only on the Czech people, but on all the victims of the holocaust.

If anything, to see pictures of him doing mundane domestic things makes those terrible crimes he committed all the more real, and has been shown with the events of Srebrenica, the sheer ordinaryness of the people capable of the most appalling acts remind the world that there is always the potential for new Heydrichs to appear.

For that reason I feel that archives such as the one I linked to have a vital function.

Don't see him as the ultimate 'Bogeyman', for that's exactly what he would have wanted people to think of him as. If anything, he spent his whole life striving to project that image. Rather I prefer to view him just as a rather odd and bitter individual who suceeded in creating some impossibly vile schemes.
 
That second pic shows him quite young, standing in front of a Bf-109B....
I quite agree, Medvedya, it is important historically to have access to information of dudes like him....The bright side to all this, was that his life was short. They managed to take him out in 1942, and he didn't go on to do more damage, unlike some of his other cohorts....

What amazes me is we still have these other ''little Reinhardts' ''doing similar genocides, like in [eg:], Bosnia, Sudan and Zimbabawee....makes the UN really appear to be the ''paper tiger'' it is, when it comes to tracking-down and sorting these psychopathic meglomanics out......

Rest assured Pisis, I'm sure no-one here glorifies him, there is respect for the German Luftwaffe members who flew and fought a good fight, as they thought they were doing their job as soldiers, fighting for their Country. Those like Heydrich sullied their reputation, in fact, all decent Germans, even though their cause was seriously flawed.......
 

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