He served as president of the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC, now known as Interpol) and chaired the January 1942 Wannsee Conference which formalised plans for the "Final Solution to the Jewish question"—the deportation and genocide of all Jews in German-occupied Europe.

"[4] He was the founding head of the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service, SD), an intelligence organisation charged with seeking out and neutralising resistance to the Nazi Party via arrests, deportations, and murders.

[13] His father was a German nationalist with loyalties to the Kaiser, who instilled patriotic ideas in his three children but was not affiliated with any political party until after World War I.

[21] Heydrich stated he joined the Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund (National German Protection and Shelter League), an antisemitic organisation.

In 1926 he advanced to the rank of ensign (Leutnant zur See) and was assigned as a signals officer on the battleship SMS Schleswig-Holstein, the flagship of Germany's North Sea Fleet.

[37][38] Although the starting monthly salary of 180 Reichsmarks (equivalent to €679 in 2021) was low, Heydrich decided to take the job because Lina's family supported the Nazi movement, and the quasi-military and revolutionary nature of the post appealed to him.

With Hitler striving for absolute power in Germany, Himmler and Heydrich wished to control the political police forces of all 17 German states.

[56] Beginning in April 1934, and at Hitler's request, Heydrich and Himmler began building a dossier on Sturmabteilung (SA) leader Ernst Röhm in an effort to remove him as a rival for party leadership.

[57] At Hitler's direction, Heydrich, Himmler, Göring, and Viktor Lutze drew up lists of those who should be killed, starting with seven top SA officials and including many more.

[70] In February 1938 when the Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg resisted Hitler's proposed merger with Germany, Heydrich intensified the pressure on Austria by organising Nazi demonstrations and distributing propaganda in Vienna emphasising the common Germanic blood of the two countries.

[72] In mid-1939, Heydrich created the Stiftung Nordhav Foundation to obtain real estate for the SS and Security Police to use as guest houses and vacation spots.

[76] On 27 September 1939, the SD and SiPo—made up of the Gestapo and the Criminal Police, or Kripo—were folded into the new Reich Security Main Office or Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), which was placed under Heydrich's control.

[82] Soviet military prosecutors did not use SD forged documents against the generals in their secret trial; they instead relied on false confessions extorted or beaten out of the defendants.

This questionnaire was placed in an envelope inscribed with a seal reading "Nacht und Nebel" and submitted to the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

[86] Heydrich created the "Zentralstelle IIP Polen" unit of the Gestapo to coordinate the ethnic cleansing of Poles in "Operation Tannenberg" and the Intelligenzaktion,[87] two codenames for extermination actions directed at the Polish people during the German occupation of Poland.

[88][89] Among the 100,000 people murdered in the Intelligenzaktion operations in 1939–1940, approximately 61,000 were members of the Polish intelligentsia: scholars, clergy, former officers, and others, whom the Germans identified as political targets in the Special Prosecution Book-Poland, compiled before the war began in September 1939.

"[93] Heydrich came to Prague to enforce policy, fight resistance to the Nazi regime, and keep up production quotas of Czech motors and arms that were "extremely important to the German war effort".

[103] Despite public displays of goodwill towards the populace, privately Heydrich was very clear about his eventual goal: "This entire area will one day be definitely German, and the Czechs have nothing to expect here."

[4] He was one of the main architects of the Holocaust during the early war years, answering to and taking orders from only Hitler, Göring, and Himmler in all matters pertaining to the deportation, imprisonment, and extermination of Jews.

[113][114] On Himmler's instructions, Heydrich formed the Einsatzgruppen (task forces) to travel in the wake of the German armies at the start of World War II.

[120] On 10 October 1941, Heydrich was the senior officer at a "Final Solution" meeting of the RSHA[d] in Prague that discussed deporting 50,000 Jews from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to ghettos in Minsk and Riga.

Given his position, Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these plans since his Gestapo was ready to organise deportations in the West and his Einsatzgruppen were already conducting extensive killing operations in the East.

[124] Earlier on 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorisation to Heydrich to ensure the co-operation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of a "Final Solution to the Jewish question" in territories under German control.

The explosion ripped through the right rear fender and wounded Heydrich with metal fragments and fibres from the upholstery causing serious damage to his left side: he suffered major injuries to his diaphragm, spleen, and one lung, as well as a broken rib.

[135] Heydrich reconciled himself to his fate on 2 June, during a visit by Himmler, by reciting a quotation from one of his father's operas: Ja, die Welt ist nur ein Leierkasten, den unser Herrgott selber dreht.

[145] The exact burial spot is no longer public knowledge—a temporary wooden marker that disappeared when the Red Army overran the city in 1945 was never replaced, so that Heydrich's grave could not become a rallying point for Neo-Nazis.

[148] Hitler planned for Heydrich to have a monumental tomb (designed by sculptor Arno Breker and architect Wilhelm Kreis) but, due to Germany's declining fortunes, it was never built.

Himmler initially forbade Heydrich from flying combat missions, but later relented, allowing him to join Jagdgeschwader 77 "Herz As" (Ace of Hearts) in Norway, where he was stationed from 15 April 1940 during Operation Weserübung.

[168][169] While in Norway, Heydrich also organised the arrests of political opponents and arranged for a contingent of 200 SiPo and SD men to be stationed in several major cities.

[170] On 20 July 1941, without seeking authorisation from Himmler, Heydrich rejoined Jagdgeschwader 77 during Operation Barbarossa, arriving at Yampil, Vinnytsia Oblast in a borrowed Bf 109.