Lina Heydrich – Reinhard Heydrich’s Widow and BESTIAL Nazi FANATIC who Turned her Castle into Hell

Lina Heydrich was born as Lina Mathilde von Osten on 14 June 1911 in Fehmarn, then part of the German Empire. Her father Jürgen was an impoverished German aristocrat of Danish origin who worked as a village schoolteacher and her mother was a housewife. The Von Osten family was strongly right-wing oriented and Lina was a convinced National Socialist and an ardent anti-Semite already from a young age.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party came into power in January 1933. Soon after their assumption of power, Nazi leaders began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews. When Himmler was appointed commander of the Bavarian political police detective force on April 1, 1933, he appointed Heydrich as his deputy.

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The 15th of March 1939. Six months  after the annexation of the Sudetenland,   a border area of Czechoslovakia containing  an ethnic German majority, Nazi Germany,   in flagrant violation of the Munich Agreement,  invades and occupies the Czech provinces of   Bohemia and Moravia. Adolf Hitler himself  arrives in Prague and on the 16th of March,  

By a proclamation from Prague Castle, establishes  the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.  In September 1941 Reinhard Heydrich becomes  a new acting Reich Protector and he arrives   in Prague with his wife who is a fanatical  Nazi. After his assassination one year later  

She will remain at her Czech castle  in which to enrich herself she will   use laborers from the Theresienstadt  Ghetto and Flossenbürg concentration   camp and abuse them as if they were her  own slaves. Her name is Lina Heydrich. Lina Heydrich was born as  Lina Mathilde von Osten on 

14 June 1911 in Fehmarn, then part of  the German Empire. Her father Jürgen was   an impoverished German aristocrat of Danish  origin who worked as a village schoolteacher   and her mother was a housewife. The Von Osten  family was strongly right-wing oriented and  

Lina was a convinced National Socialist and an  ardent anti-Semite already from a young age. In 1927 Lina graduated from school in Oldenburg  and in 1928 she began training as a trade teacher   in Kiel. It was at a rowing-club ball in Kiel  where 2 years later on 6 December 1930, she met  

A Naval Lieutenant who was known as ambitious,  arrogant, and having a passion for women. His   name was Reinhard Heydrich. The two became  romantically involved and on 18 December 1930,   less than 2 weeks later, they announced their  engagement. Because Heydrich left the daughter  

Of a senior naval officer to whom he had promised  marriage for Lina, a military court of honor,   scandalized by his disrespectful behavior during  his hearing, found him to have dishonored the   officer corps of the Reich Navy and compelled  him to resign his commission in April 1931.  

The dismissal devastated Heydrich, who  found himself without career prospects.  However, under Lina’s influence – and that of  her deeply nationalistic family – Heydrich,   who was initially indifferent to party politics,  moved closer to National Socialism. Lina’s brother  

Hans was a member of the Nazi SA since 1928 and  Lina herself joined the Nazi Party one year later,   shortly after she had attended a  Party rally where Adolf Hitler spoke. Reinhard Heydrich joined the Nazi Party and  the SS in June and July of 1931. At that time,  

Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS, was seeking  to create an internal intelligence service   for the Nazi Party. Himmler agreed to interview  Heydrich but cancelled their appointment at the   last minute. Nevertheless, Lina, a fanatical  Nazi party follower, ignored this message,   packed Heydrich’s suitcase, and sent  him to Munich. Heinrich Himmler was  

Immediately impressed with Heydrich  who, with his blond hair and blue eyes,   had the look of a perfect Aryan. Himmler brought  him into the SS in August 1931 and in December of   the same year Lina and Heydrich got married. The  marriage produced 4 children – two boys – Klaus  

And Heider and 2 girls – Silke and Marte. At that  time Reinhard Heydrich was working for Himmler who   tasked him with developing the Security Service,  the SD. By January 1933, the SD under Heydrich’s   leadership had become the most significant  intelligence agency within the Nazi Party.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party came into power  in January 1933. Soon after their assumption of   power, Nazi leaders began to make good on  their pledge to persecute German Jews. When   Himmler was appointed commander of the Bavarian  political police detective force on April 1, 1933,  

He appointed Heydrich as his deputy. Lina  triumphantly described the disempowerment   of the Bavarian government and the ongoing  waves of arrests in a letter to her parents,   in which she also wrote: “In the evenings, the SA and   SS had their special pleasure. They had the  task of arresting all political opponents,  

As far as they were known, and taking them to the  brown house. That was something for the boys. At   last they were allowed to take revenge for all  the injustice inflicted on them, for all the   beatings and wounds, and to take revenge for their  fallen comrades. More than 200 are now arrested,  

Some of them Jews. The Minister of the Interior  stands in the hall in his socks and nightgown,   surrounded by a crowd of SA and SS who don’t  know where to go because they are laughing.   Then they come and step on the crying Minister of  the Interior’s big toe with their heavy boots so  

That he hops from one leg to the other between  them. You can imagine the picture. The next to   be introduced is the Jew Lewy. They make short  work of him. They beat him with dog whips, take  

Off his shoes and stockings and so he has to walk  barefoot to his home in the company of the SS. ” Nine days after his appointment as Reichsführer SS  and Chief of the German Police on June 17, 1936,   Himmler appointed Heydrich chief of the newly  established Security Police Main Office which  

Brought together into one agency the Gestapo  – the secret police – and the Criminal Police   detective forces. With this appointment by  Hitler, Himmler and his de facto deputy,   Heydrich, became two of the most powerful men  in the internal administration of Germany. Lina Heydrich did not get on  well with Margarete Himmler,  

Heinrich Himmler’s wife. Among other  things, she accused her of stinginess,   which was aparent in her overly  simple housekeeping. Lina Heydrich   herself enjoyed the upscale lifestyle that her  husband’s rising positions afforded them both. On the night of the 9 – 10th of  November 1938, the Nazi SA, SS,  

Hitler Youth and German civilians  destroyed Jewish homes, businesses,   synagogues, hospitals and schools throughout  Germany, annexed Austria, and in areas of   the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, which had  recently been occupied by German troops. 91 Jews   were murdered. One of the main organizers  of the Kristallnacht pogrom was Reinhard  

Heydrich. Lina actively stood by her husband and  encouraged him to do even more “for the Reich”. In the following year 1939, it was Heydrich who  converted Salon Kitty – a high-class brothel   situated in a wealthy district of Berlin –  into an establishment for espionage purposes  

With hidden cameras and microphones throughout  the house. Heydrich had a high sex drive and   was a regular visitor to Berlin’s brothels  but during his “inspection tours” of Salon   Kitty all microphones had to be turned  off. However, not only Reinhard Heydrich,  

But also Lina herself is said to have had  several affairs. Because Reinhard Heydrich’s   duties led him to work long hours and often  be away from home, Lina would later recall:   “I was married to Reinhard Heydrich for 10 years.  He was not at home for seven of those years. “

The Second World War began on 1 September  1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. After the invasion of the Soviet Union in June  1941 a previously dormant communist resistance   movement in the Protectorate of Bohemia  and Moravia started acts of sabotage and  

Hitler dismissed Reich Protector Konstantin von  Neurath, who was sent on “ leave “ because of   his “soft approach” to the Czechs, and appointed  Heydrich as acting Reich Protector in September   1941. For the family, Heydrich’s appointment  meant a rise up the social ladder. Until then,  

He had virtually never taken part in negotiations  with Hitler and had always only been in the shadow   of Himmler. As the first representative of the  Protectorate, however, he negotiated directly   with the Fuhrer and was, of course, at the top  of the power hierarchy in Bohemia and Moravia.

When Heydrich arrived in Prague, he told his  staff: “We will Germanize the Czech vermin.”  Heydrich first ordered a narrow wave of terror  targeting real and perceived leaders of opposition   in the Czech lands. In October and November  1941, Protectorate special courts sentenced  

342 people to death and turned 1,289 “over to  the Gestapo. Heydrich’s brutal policies during   that time quickly earned him the nickname “the  Butcher of Prague”. Heydrich also established the   Theresienstadt ghetto which existed for three  and a half years, between November 24, 1941  

And May 9, 1945 and served mainly as a transit  camp for Jews on route to extermination camps. After her husband’s appointment as deputy  Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia,   the family moved from the Prague Castle  in which they had lived for a few months  

To the luxurious and idyllic castle Panenské  Břežany near Prague, which had already been   taken away from its Jewish owner Ferdinand  Bloch-Bauer after the German invasion and   was now redesigned much to Lina Heydrich’s  satisfaction. As the Protector’s spouse,   Lina enjoyed a status that her impoverished  aristocratic parents could never dream of. 

Of this time Lina later wrote: “I am a  princess and I live in a fairy-tale land.” Heydrich was so confident that his pacification  program in the Protectorate had succeeded that   he flagrantly disregarded measures for his own  security and traveled around Prague in an open  

Vehicle. On the 27th of May 1942, Heydrich  was in his convertible Mercedes when the   Czechoslovak paratroopers Jozef Gabčík and Jan  Kubiš succeeded in rolling a hand grenade under   Heydrich’s transport vehicle and wounded the  Nazi architect of the Holocaust. Soon after,  

With his face pale and screaming in pain,  Heydrich was taken to the emergency room   at hospital. He developed a fever and  wound drainage, and was in great pain.  Though not mortally wounded by the blast  itself, the grenade splinters in his  

Leg and lower back led to an infection  that killed the 38-year-old Heydrich on   June 4, 1942. Because of her pregnancy Lina did  not attend the funeral and their fourth child,   a daughter named Marte, was born on born 23 July  1942, shortly after Reinhard Heydrich’s death.

In recognition of her husband’s service to  the Nazi cause, especially in coordination of   the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question”  which was the code name for the systematic,   deliberate and physical annihilation of the  European Jews, Hitler gave Lina Heydrich the  

Castle in Panenské Břežany. She was also granted  a large lifetime pension as well as an insurance   policy which tuner her into a wealthy woman.  A playground and a swimming pool was built and   Lina decided to destroy the English park with  its rare trees. She sold the wood and planted  

Potatoes and other vegetables there which she  then sold to the German troops in Prague. In   order to run her business she needed workers and  in the castle grounds, she set up a miniature   labor and concentration camp, where around 150  prisoners from the Theresienstadt ghetto lived  

In former stables and worked for Lina Heydrich  under miserable conditions. They received little   food and witnesses said that she physically abused  them and treated her Jewish forced laborers badly.   According to later testimonies, she observed  the workers with binoculars and had SS guards  

Whip those who worked too slowly. She spat on or  beat Jewish forced laborers when their behavior   did not seem properly respectful to her. It was  not until February 1944 that the prisoners from   the Theresienstadt ghetto stopped serving in  Panenské Břežany altogether. Lina Heydrich,  

However, extorted at least some compensation  from Himmler: From Flossenbürg she got a group   of fifteen Jehovah’s Witnesses. She repeatedly  refused requests from their home concentration   camp at Flossenbürg, to pay properly  for their rent. The matter eventually   went so far that Himmler himself began to make  payments on her behalf from his own account.

On 24 October 1943, Klaus, one of Heydrich’s four  children, died as a result of a traffic accident   when he was cycling with his brother Heider in  the courtyard of the Castle Panenské Břežany.   Seeing that the gate to the street was open, Klaus  rode out onto the street where he was struck by a  

Small truck coming down the road. Right after the  accident, a Jewish doctor who was in the castle   work group gave the boy first aid but the injuries  were fatal and Klaus died later that afternoon.   Lina decided to bury Klaus in the castle garden  and the grave was dug by Jewish prisoners.  

However, on the eve of the funeral, Lina decided  that the final resting place for her Aryan   child must not be dug by Jews and by the morning,  German soldiers had dug and decorated a new grave.  Lina then wanted to have the driver  Karel Kašpar and all passengers shot,  

But the investigation found the driver not guilty. After the war, one eyewitness recalled having seen   Lina Heydrich standing with the guests  in front of the entrance to the castle   and saying: ‘Das ist alles meine” meaning  “That’s all mine”. However, she was wrong.

The family lived in the castle until April  1945 when they, along with many other Germans   left the area to flee the advancing Soviet  Red Army. Before leaving, she had rabbits,   geese and chickens slaughtered and  she took the jars of preserved meat  

With her. She shook hands with each of the  castle staff and promised them a pension   as she believed she would return to  her castle. However, she never did. In the second half of 1945, Lina finally arrived  with her children in her native Fehmarn. In 1948,  

The Czechoslovak Extraordinary People’s  Court sentenced her to life imprisonment   in absentia. For 2 years Lina had to hide  from the authorities for fear that she might   be extradited to Czechoslovakia. However,  the British authorities eventually refused   the Czechoslovak government’s request to  extradite Lina Heydrich to Czechoslovakia.

During the following decade Lina had only  a limited income. Her house in Fehmarn,   which had been temporarily confiscated  by the British after the war,   was returned to her. She repeatedly applied  for a general’s pension, even though Heydrich,   as an SS general, was not a “soldier”  according to the German authorities,  

But a war criminal. Eventually, however,  she was granted a widow’s pension. In 1965, she met Finnish theatre director  Mauno Manninen whom she married for the   purpose of changing her last name. Lina then  ran Reinhard Heydrich’s former summer house in  

Fehmarn as a restaurant and inn. A significant  part of its clientele were former supporters of   the Nazi Regime who reminisced about the  “good old days.” However, the restaurant   burned down in February 1969. Her husband Mauno  Manninen died in September of the same year.

In 1976, she published a memoir named “Life with a  War Criminal”. She repeatedly recalled the period   of her life in the protectorate with nostalgia and  even at the end of her life, she showed no remorse   and refused to admit any guilt of her husband  for Nazi crimes. About the atrocities in the  

Nazi camps, she said “ It was all a fairy tale’. When Lina died in Fehmarn on 14 August 1985,   she was 74 years old. In 1979, six years before   her death, she said, “National Socialism was  a faith, and I can never renounce this faith.” There were no tears shed for Lina Heydrich.

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