New biography of Heydrich

[Helly Angel]

I think this is the definitive bio... published in 2018, a lot of info and a ton of exclusives pictures.

[VanillaNuns]

Yeah, can't disagree with that Helly. I've read all the other Heydrich biographies by other authors and they all just lack fizz.

But I will give this one a go too. Its a good price and if the author did indeed interview Lina in the 1970s then there might be some golden nuggets contained within.

Possibly also some new unseen photos from the family archive. Heider has been releasing them drip drip over the past decade with the various republished Czech, German and Italian editions of his mother's biography. Each one of them is different from the others!

I was skeptical at first when this book was first announced, but the reviews have all been good so far.

[Helly Angel]

Yes, I definitely have to check out that book! Regarding photos... you will like this one by Max, more than half of the book are photos, as I told you exclusive!

[J. Duncan]

I’ve got all of Max’s books and they are well done creations. His text adds depth to the standard bios and of course you can’t find such photographic gems anywhere else.

[Helly Angel]

The one from Globus is brutal!!!!!

[VanillaNuns]

Having exhausted themselves with 300+ books dedicated to all the major battles of the World Wars, numerous collections of tank wrecks (which all look the same) - Images of War are now proud to present...

Heydrich: Butcher of Prague - Rare Photographs from the Wartime Archives

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1399097563/

Look at all those rare and unseen photographs previewed on the cover. This will be a collector's dream.

I can't wait.

PS - There's one for Himmler coming out too as well.

[Mark Costa]

Having exhausted themselves with 300+ books dedicated to all the major battles of the World Wars, numerous collections of tank wrecks (which all look the same) - Images of War are now proud to present...

Heydrich: Butcher of Prague - Rare Photographs from the Wartime Archives

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1399097563/

Look at all those rare and unseen photographs previewed on the cover. This will be a collector's dream.

I can't wait.

PS - There's one for Himmler coming out too as well.

I hope you are joking? These books are usually nothing more than compilations from other books and sources. I do not hold out any hope of seeing any rare photos from either book on Heydrich or Himmler. Don't waste your money.

Mark Costa

[J. Duncan]

He’s joking, of course.

[VanillaNuns]

For sure I'm kidding.

The Images of War books are great... when they are discounted to £3 each on Naval & Military Press in the annual winter sale.

[trespasser07]

Looked at a copy of this and its looks incredibly thorough due to extensive interviews with Heydrich widow and giving her version of events as is cuts away to her throughout. The early reviews are very positive for the biography.

[J. Duncan]

Got my copy today. Right away I found a photographic error on page 569: Edda Goering is wrongly pictured in place of Silke Heydrich!
This appears to be the only flub on the photos, which are common to all here and are interspersed throughout the text.

[VanillaNuns]

I was a doubting Thomas. I thought this would just be the same regurgitated stuff that we've seen before.

Oh, was I wrong...

Nancy Dougherty speaks to us from beyond the grave in this article.

I've copied some of the best bits below.

https://crimereads.com/an-interview-wit ... mans-wife/

I had had no trouble getting in touch with her by telephone, nor in securing her agreement to receive me at her home, where she ran a small pension, or rooming house, for an interview late in 1974, two years preceding the publication of her memoirs and a decade before her death in 1985. As I rode in a rented car on one of Hitler’s autobahns past the quaint villages and thatched houses of Schleswig-Holstein toward the new bridge to Fehmarn, I anticipated a cold, guarded, brittle, and fanatic Valkyrie—but then never in this exploration have I quite found what I expected.

By the time I arrived at her house, in the twilight of a cold and windy evening, it was not a propitious moment for either of us. Unknown to her, I was exhausted, having already conducted one interview that morning in Hamburg, and unknown to me, I had arrived on June 4, the anniversary of Reinhard Heydrich’s death.

My husband had come along with me, as, to be frank, a sort of bodyguard, though unlike me he spoke no German. The woman who greeted us in the driveway, before a rectangular, two-storied, whitebrick house, had obviously been crying. Inside, the first thing she did was offer me some cognac; the first thing I did was accept it. We sat nervously on a flowered couch while Frau Heydrich cooked dinner in a little, hidden kitchen into which we were not invited.

The room in which we sat, where my future interviews—three more following this one, over a span of seven years—were to be conducted, would have been a rather spacious rectangle were it not so crowded with furniture. There were a variety of tables, always with something on them—a bowl of apples, a vase of ferns—as well as a large cupboard made of highly polished, carved wood, an ancient seaman’s trunk embellished with wrought iron scrollwork, a few bits of pink porcelain in a niche in the wall, and other cozy or elegant objects that appeared and disappeared from day to day. In contrast, one other item was always there— a bronze death mask of her late husband.

One wonders just how many other stories are out there. Waiting to be told. This event described above happened 47 or 48 years ago.

The German journalist Gerd Heinemann was also a visitor to Fehmarn, first visiting Lina and the girls in April 1956.

I've seen a few unpublished photographs from Gerd's private collection of the occasion. I bet he has some good stories to tell too. Unfortunately, he is in very poor health now.

Anyway, I look forward to reading this when my copy arrives next week.

I also apologise for doubting that Nancy Dougherty was a serious author with a story worth telling...

[J. Duncan]

Skimming passages I found that Dougherty shares her personal experiences meeting with meeting and interviewing Lina. In this book Lina has a voice. I assume much of it should be about her, hence the title. The main reason I bought this book is to get Lina’s perspective since her own book isn’t in English.
The index is very detailed and there is a large bibliography at end. Max’s books were not listed (much to my disappointment.)

[VanillaNuns]

The index is very detailed and there is a large bibliography at end. Max’s books were not listed (much to my disappointment.)

I know Nancy Dougherty suffered from severe dementia in the last 10-12 years of her life before eventually succumbing to the illness in 2013. So most of her research is way before any of the recent Max Williams books.

Her coauthor who helped finish the book and put it together then died a few years later.

I wonder what she would have thought of all the new books, photographs and research in the past 20 years.

This book gives me real hope there could be more stories to come from other historical figures or their families who were interviewed decades ago.

Heidar Heydrich still has a lot of family photos from his childhood but he prefers to release them in small batches. Maybe they will all finally come out in the same book one day...

[J. Duncan]

I guess they didn’t add anything to the existing draft, although Diederichs and Gerwarth are listed in the bibliography.