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Thread: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

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  1. #1
    Ja mata, TosaInu Forum Administrator edyzmedieval's Avatar
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Heydrich was an able administrator and that's why he had such a high ranking in the army, notwithstanding his political affiliation. Nevertheless, Operation Anthropoid went a bit awry despite his lack of sustained protection (quite surprising), it wasn't carried out exceptionally well which also probably added to the anger since Heydrich almost survived.
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    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Quote Originally Posted by edyzmedieval View Post
    Heydrich was an able administrator and that's why he had such a high ranking in the army, notwithstanding his political affiliation. Nevertheless, Operation Anthropoid went a bit awry despite his lack of sustained protection (quite surprising), it wasn't carried out exceptionally well which also probably added to the anger since Heydrich almost survived.
    He was not army. He was cashiered navy. He joined the SS and founded (more or less) the SD within it. He passed pilot training and flew combat with the Luftwaffe in 1940 and 1941. He was not a particularly skilled pilot and was eventually forbidden to fly combat because of the info in his head should he have been captured. Physical courage? Certainly. But not a soldier and no more than adequate as a pilot.

    But he was pacifying Czechoslovakia and was being considered for the top post in occupied France. The Maquis would have faced a much tougher opponent in RH than they did.
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    Old Town Road Senior Member Strike For The South's Avatar
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Heydrich living may have spared a few thousand men and a few dozen man hours from anti partisan activity. The ability of one man to affect institutions are overblown in this thread.

    Mers-El-Kebir , Dontiz being denied his U boats, and repulsion from Moscow are the watershed moments in the second World War. I suppose you could add midway but probably not.
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
    Heydrich living may have spared a few thousand men and a few dozen man hours from anti partisan activity. The ability of one man to affect institutions are overblown in this thread.
    You are correct. Had Heydrich lived he would likely have gone on to cause fits for The Maquis after pacifying Czechoslovakia...but could not have materially changed the outcome of the war, nor even delayed the conclusion significantly.

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
    Mers-El-Kebir , Dontiz being denied his U boats, and repulsion from Moscow are the watershed moments in the second World War. I suppose you could add midway but probably not.
    You have identified less "obvious" turning points than those typically cited (Battle of Britain, El Alamein, Stalingrad. D-Day) and I like the tone you set with that. Each of the decisions/actions you cite lead to or embodied a watershed moment when something that had truly war-changing results attached to it.

    For the Pacific, Midway would not fit. Even before Midway, there was no possibility of the Japanese winning the war. I'd note Pearl Harbor as the crux event. Surprise attack character led to remorselessness on USA (thus undercutting the hope of winning via war weariness) and AH declared war thus completing the Anglo-US alliance effort of which Mers-el-Kebir had been an important component.
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Thread's probably done, so slight change of subject:

    Didn't the Nazis bring the same techniques to occupied France and Central Europe as the European colonizers brought to Africa and Asia?
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  6. #6
    Old Town Road Senior Member Strike For The South's Avatar
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Thread's probably done, so slight change of subject:

    Didn't the Nazis bring the same techniques to occupied France and Central Europe as the European colonizers brought to Africa and Asia?
    I mean, not really? When talking about colonization it is important to remember that the entirety of the colony was set up for extraction of wealth and resources. The infrastructure and economy are completely geared for that. Germany did extract material wealth (rather crudley) from its conquered places in the west but they never really bothered to set up these polities as subservient states.

    This is partly due to the infancy of NAZI administration in these places, partly due to a more "gentlemanly" war in the west, and partly due to the fact it was simply easier just to use existing infrastructure.

    It is better to see Central/Eastern Europe as a scorched earth demographic catastrophe. The area was not so much colonized as it was remade with new peoples.
    There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford

    My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

    I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
    I mean, not really? When talking about colonization it is important to remember that the entirety of the colony was set up for extraction of wealth and resources. The infrastructure and economy are completely geared for that. Germany did extract material wealth (rather crudley) from its conquered places in the west but they never really bothered to set up these polities as subservient states.

    This is partly due to the infancy of NAZI administration in these places, partly due to a more "gentlemanly" war in the west, and partly due to the fact it was simply easier just to use existing infrastructure.

    It is better to see Central/Eastern Europe as a scorched earth demographic catastrophe. The area was not so much colonized as it was remade with new peoples.
    I'm interested in the mechanical similarities between the imposition of occupation within Europe, to the European colonial imposition of order abroad. What about social and administrative structures of control? For Western Europe.

    Nazi plans for Eastern Europe apparently drew inspiration from Italian ones for North Africa (what the French had accomplished in the 19th c.?). Eastern Europe is much easier to interpret in a colonial framework, so I'm not emphasizing it.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 08-03-2018 at 13:36.
    Vitiate Man.

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    The glib replies, the same defeats


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  8. #8
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Was the Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Worth It?

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South View Post
    Heydrich living may have spared a few thousand men and a few dozen man hours from anti partisan activity. The ability of one man to affect institutions are overblown in this thread.

    Mers-El-Kebir , Dontiz being denied his U boats, and repulsion from Moscow are the watershed moments in the second World War. I suppose you could add midway but probably not.
    The appointment of Churchill as PM is probably the UK's equivalent of the repulsion from Moscow; stiffened the country's resolve sufficiently to drag out the war and allow the US to get properly involved. Churchill the individual was also more conducive to making the UK-US alliance work than probably any other UK politician. Any other leader may not have managed to get US public opinion sufficiently onside to allow Roosevelt to wholeheartedly throw the US behind a Germany-first strategy.

    Thinking about it, the early stages of WW2 may have been one of those rare periods in modern history where the personalities of the national leaders may have had a genuine effect on how events unfolded. Without Hitler, would there have been war? Without Stalin, would the USSR have been so ruthlessly efficient in its war direction? Without Churchill, would the UK have managed to hold out for and hang on to their allies? Perhaps only the US, separated by an ocean, had the luxury of choosing its course. That said, were there any other candidates for the presidency who were remotely as Anglophilic as Roosevelt? Among the chiefs of staff, only Marshall could be described as so; every other chief ranged from disdainful of to utterly hating the British. Choosing to fight the Germans wasn't a foregone conclusion.
    Last edited by Pannonian; 10-27-2018 at 01:10.

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