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The Hangman and His Wife: The Life and Death of Reinhard Heydrich
Maybe someday
38
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
37/100Critics
40/100Scholars
Author:
Nancy Dougherty, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
Publisher:
Knopf
Date:
May 24, 2022
A journey into the heart of Nazi evil: a portrait of one of the darkest figures of Hitlerâs Nazi eliteâReinhard Heydrich, the designer and executor of the Holocaust, chief of the Reich Main Security, including the Gestapoâinterwoven with commentary by his wife, Lina, from the author's in-depth interviews.
What The Reviewers Say
Dougherty is adept at dissecting Lina Heydrich’s attempts to exonerate her husband from the label of 'the Hangman,' and gets to the essence of what it was like to enjoy the privileges of living so close to the center of Nazi power. Dougherty periodically moves beyond the Heydriches’ story to go into great detail on some events, such as Kristallnacht; here she risks losing her focus. She is, however, extremely dexterous in demonstrating Reinhard Heydrich’s role in policy making and implementation in Nazi Germany. Dougherty also deconstructs the internal dynamics of the Nazi party, in which Heydrich excelled. Of particular interest in this biography is its discussion of the postwar experiences of Lina Heydrich and her children, and what they reveal about the families of high-ranking Nazi officials.
... an exhaustive and dark expedition into the diabolical mind of a truly evil villain and unsettling insight on the deliberate delusion that blinded some Germans to the horrific atrocities committed by the Third Reich..
Dougherty’s particular contribution is that she has extensively interviewed the feisty and mostly unreflective widow, Lina, who generally ends her revisionist observations with a verbal shrug: 'nicht wahr?' (wasn’t it so?).
... gripping.
