The Hangman and His Wife

The Life and Death of Reinhard Heydrich

By: Nancy Dougherty, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

Length: 26 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

An astonishing journey into the heart of Nazi evil: a portrait of one of the darkest figures of Hitler’s Nazi elite—Reinhard Heydrich, the designer and executor of the Holocaust, chief of the Reich Main Security, including the Gestapo—interwoven with commentary by his wife, Lina, from the author's in-depth interviews.

He was called the Hangman of the Gestapo, the "butcher of Prague", with a reputation as a ruthlessly efficient killer. He was the head of the SS, and the Gestapo, second-in-command to Heinrich Himmler. His orders set in motion the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938 and, as the lead planner of Hitler's Final Solution, he chaired the Wannsee Conference, at which details of the murder of millions of Jews across Nazi-occupied Europe were toasted with cognac.

In The Hangman and His Wife, Nancy Dougherty, and, following her death, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, masterfully explore who Heydrich was and how he came to be, and how he came to do what he did. We see Heydrich from his rarefied musical family origins and his ugly-duckling childhood and adolescence, to his sudden flameout as a promising Naval officer (he was forced to resign his Naval commission after dishonoring the office corps by having sex with the unmarried daughter of a shipyard director and refusing to marry her).

Dougherty writes of his seemingly hopeless job prospects as an untrained civilian during Germany’s hyperinflation and unemployment, and his joining the Nazi party through the attraction to Nazism of his fiancée, Lina von Osten, and her father, along with the rumor shadowing him of a strain of Jewishness inherited from his father’s side. And we follow Heydrich’s meteoric rise through the Nazi high command—from SS major, to colonel to brigadier general, before he was thirty, deputy to Heinrich Himmler, expanding the SS, the Gestapo, and developing the Reich's plans for "the Jewish solution".

And throughout, we hear the voice of Lina Heydrich, who was by his side until his death at the age of 38, living inside the Nazi inner circles as she waltzed with Rudolf Hess, feuded with Hermann Göring, and drank vintage wine with Albert Speer.

©2022 Nancy Dougherty and Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (P)2022 Random House Audio

Misunderstood Nazi

Lena lived until 1985.
The stories went on a bit , but there is much detail that is very interesting
I got the impression that the wife thought her husband was just misunderstood.
I’ve picked up a bit of German, as it is frequently mentioned.
Fascinating tale of assassins.

Brilliant look behind the curtain of the Nazi state.

The author of this book does history a great service. She peels back the curtain on the Nazi state and reveals the inner workings of the Nazis terror state. Through the eyes of Frau Heydrich and other eyewitnesses, we the readers observe the moral corruption of the Nazi bigwigs. While I disagree with some of the conclusions in the epilogue concerning the fates of Heydrich’s children, this book does an excellent job breaking down how the most famous criminal in a government of criminals functioned.

Stuff I didn’t know

There is much to unpack in this story. A fascinating evil man who saw himself a bureaucrat and yet sent millions of people to their death. The role of the Czechoslovak in WWII was unknown to me so interesting parts of their history.

Well worth the time

Well worth reading if you are a student of WW2, the Third Reich, or Holocaust history. What makes it stand out is that it is a biography of both Reinhard and Lina Heydrich, their marriage as well as their individual lives.

Frau Heydrich almost seems to have appreciated and enjoyed her visits with interviewer and author Nancy Dougherty. Her personality shines through and can be appreciated in spite of the backdrop of her story. The book is rich with history and intrigue as well as personal anecdotes that bring the infamous figures of history down to a human and almost understandable level.

I listened to the audiobook by Suzanne Toren, who did a masterful job of interpreting the text over 26 hours. It is a commitment, to be sure, but every moment held my attention.

Evil explained....NOT!

If you are seeking a deep psychological insight into the mind of a monstrous psychopath you will not find it here. Heydrich's wife is vacuous and shallow and offers no clues to the mindset of the Butcher of Prague. The book only reinforces Arendt's observation on "the banality of evil"