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

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"

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.

superb by Nancy Doherty

A fascinating analysis of Heydrich the man and a wife of a high ranking war criminal. Docherty didn't finish this book before she died, as a result it is published by amd edited by Christopher Lehman-Haupt who feels the need to write a long and opinionated summary in which he cannot keep his own political biases in check by alluding to Brexit and Trump and the fractions in the EU being driven by the same nationalism that got Germany into trouble and in doing so destroys what would have been 5 stars for Story to 4. Like many if his background and education, he is incapable of understanding that his oh-so-wonderful EU may have been founded with the best of intentions but through corruption, lack of accountability and ignoring democratic processes, have let down the EU and the rise in 'narionalism' in the EU is a rejection of the corrupt global superstate rather than the resurgence of 19th C nationalism and he singularly fails to understand that the rise of Trump was again a reaction to the failures of the neo.liberal globalist hegenomy he peons to in providing futures and jobs for generations of American workers.....
so great book based on its source material but Lehman-Haupt is a pompous, self opinionated and out if touch windbag.

Poor narrator

Only managed to listen to the first three chapters. Too much irrelevant background history.