HEYDRICH: Hitler's Most Evil Henchman

It has been 20 years since Nazi secret police chief Reinhard ""Hangman"" Heydrich was assiassinated in a daring plot in occupied Czechoslovakia. Since then his name has become a legend of cruelty and persecution, perhaps the worst to come out of the night-marish Hitler regime. This excellent, one might say almost objective biography by a noted English journalist pinpoints the sources of legend and makes the man come alive to us again. From naval cadet days when he played a violin, to marriage and entrance into the 19 Nazi party, to inter warfare followed by world warfare, we see his brilliant, ruthless progress to power. There is no attempt to make a long psychological examination of this psychopathic mind. The facts alone---facts of torture, mass murder, of hiding a part Jewish background---engross us too much once his character is established. How Heydrich manufactured the polish ""incident"" which led to War, how he alternated from diabolical political schemes to flying fighter planes in a flamboyant pursuit of that War, how he helped plot the murder of the Jews, and how he himself was finally, melodramatically murdered, makes a story probably unequalled in World War II literature. Should have wide interest to readers interested in the growing shelf of Nazi biography, and to those studying the warped personalities of the men who led us into the War.