William Blair says, October 18, 2005, a newsreel film of Reinhard Heydrich’s funeral proves his popularity with the Czechs. Picture (from David Irving…

William
Blair says,
October 18, 2005, a newsreel film of Reinhard Heydrich’s funeral proves his popularity with the Czechs.

Picture (from David Irving’s forthcoming Himmler biography) shows
Adolf Hitler consoling the sons of Heydrich, Heider and
Heino, at the state funeral in Berlin. Heider himself described to Mr Irving thirty years later the vast throngs of Prague citizens who lined Prague’s Wenceslas Square, “the womenfolk wearing mourning clothes and carrying flowers” at the lying in state of his father. Below: Commemorative stamp issued, showing the death-mask of
Heydrich.

How hated was Reinhard Heydrich in Prague?

TOM
Strasnov, in his letter of October 16 about Reinhard
Heydrich, stated that “…the claim that the thirty thousand Czechs therefore mourned his death in Prague is very unrealistic and untrue.”

I have a copy of a German newreel (Die Deutsche
Wochenshau) of Heydrich’s funeral including the official mourning in Prague (Newsreel Vol. 36 of Through Enemy Eyes, readily available from International Historic Films,
IHF
Film.com).

It shows thousands of ordinary citizens lined up and filing past his coffin in what is described as the Honour
Courtyard (Ehrenhof) of Prague Castle. In addition, there is what appears to be a delegation of miners with their characteristic black caps and uniforms as well as groups in native dress.

The film also shows the cortège from the castle to the main train station. The streets are lined with citizens, many giving the Hitler salute. So on the face of it, it would appear that there was more than a little sympathy for the Reichsprotektor.

William
Blair

*
International Historical Films Inc., 3533 South Archer
Avenue, Chicago, IL 60609 [email: [email protected]]

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Our dossier on
Reinhard Heydrich

Oct 1941: Erklärung
des Stellvertretenden Reichsprotektors,
SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich, gegenüber der
neu eingesetzten Protektoratsregierung

Jun 9, 1942: Rede
des Reichsführers SS beim Staatsakt für SS-
Obergruppenführer Heydrich im Mosaiksaal der Neuen
Reichskanzlei am 9. Juni 1942

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