Read Online Hitler's Hangman by Robert. Gerwarth - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert. Gerwarth
Tags: Yale University Press
Ads: Link
heightened significance since the foundation of the German Empire
in 1871. The Kulturkampf – Bismarck’s unsuccessful attempt to break
political Catholicism during the late 1870s and early 1880s through the
22
HITLER’S HANGMAN
persecution and arrest of hundreds of Catholic priests for using the pulpit
‘for political ends’ – left a bitter legacy of mutual suspicion between
Protestants and Catholics.28
By the time of Heydrich’s birth, however, the intensity of confessional
antagonism was on the wane. At grassroots level, there was a tendency in
popular Catholicism to move away from the insular culture of the 1870s
towards an ostensibly patriotic attitude designed to counter the accusation
that the main allegiance of German Catholics lay with Rome and not the
Reich. Yet religion remained an important aspect of Heydrich’s early life.
While Protestant church attendance rates dropped significantly in the
early twentieth century, the secularization process was less dramatic for
the Catholic Church where observance was much more resilient.29 The
Heydrichs were part of this resilient Catholic milieu. Elisabeth, a pious
Catholic, led the children in their evening prayers and on Sundays the
whole family attended Mass. Reinhard served as an altar boy in the local
Catholic church.30 His consciously maintained Catholicism was one of
the few oddities in his early life, particularly when measured against
his radically anti-Catholic stance in the 1930s: it made him a member of
a tiny minority in the overwhelmingly Protestant city of Halle. According
to a census of 1905, 94 per cent of Halle’s 170,000 inhabitants
were Protestants. The Catholic community, by contrast, had just over
7,000 members.31
Another oddity of his childhood, considering his obsession with bodily
fitness in subsequent years, was his physical frailty. As a child of slender
and relatively small stature with a weak constitution and a susceptibility
to illness, Reinhard was encouraged by his parents to take up every kind
of physical exercise from an early age: swimming, running, football,
sailing, horse-riding and fencing. Heydrich’s life-long passion for sport
began here.32 The family’s summer vacations were usually spent on the
picturesque coast of the Baltic Sea, in the swanky seaside town of
Swinemünde on the island of Usedom. For the Heydrich children this was
surely the most exciting time of the year. They spent their holidays sight-
seeing, taking walks and enjoying boat excursions and days on the beach.33
Meanwhile the Conservatory continued to flourish: by 1907 it counted
a total of 250 fee-paying pupils and the number of employees rose to nine-
teen. Just one year later, in 1908, the Conservatory had 300 pupils, enough
to prompt the Heydrichs to consider a further enlargement of their busi-
ness.34 In April 1908 – Reinhard had just turned four – the Heydrichs
moved again, this time into a much larger and grander purpose-built house
in Gütchenstrasse, in which Reinhard was to spend most of his childhood
and adolescence. The three-storey house in an exclusive, status-conscious
location near the City Theatre testified to the increasing wealth of the
YO U N G R E I N H A R D
23
family, generated by Elisabeth’s income from the Dresden Conservatory
and Bruno’s ever-expanding Hal e Conservatory, which, by 1911, reached
a record high of 400 pupils and employed twenty-seven permanent
teachers.35 ‘The house’, a schoolfriend of Reinhard’s remembered after the
war, ‘gave the impression of prosperity: grand wood-panel ed rooms, a lot
of silver dishes, the finest porcelain.’ In the courtyard building, there was a
large music chamber where regular soirées and concerts were given and
schoolfriends celebrated Reinhard’s birthday parties.36
A contemporary architecture critic conveyed just how large and well
appointed the Heydrich family home really was:
The Conservatory is located in
in 1871. The Kulturkampf – Bismarck’s unsuccessful attempt to break
political Catholicism during the late 1870s and early 1880s through the
22
HITLER’S HANGMAN
persecution and arrest of hundreds of Catholic priests for using the pulpit
‘for political ends’ – left a bitter legacy of mutual suspicion between
Protestants and Catholics.28
By the time of Heydrich’s birth, however, the intensity of confessional
antagonism was on the wane. At grassroots level, there was a tendency in
popular Catholicism to move away from the insular culture of the 1870s
towards an ostensibly patriotic attitude designed to counter the accusation
that the main allegiance of German Catholics lay with Rome and not the
Reich. Yet religion remained an important aspect of Heydrich’s early life.
While Protestant church attendance rates dropped significantly in the
early twentieth century, the secularization process was less dramatic for
the Catholic Church where observance was much more resilient.29 The
Heydrichs were part of this resilient Catholic milieu. Elisabeth, a pious
Catholic, led the children in their evening prayers and on Sundays the
whole family attended Mass. Reinhard served as an altar boy in the local
Catholic church.30 His consciously maintained Catholicism was one of
the few oddities in his early life, particularly when measured against
his radically anti-Catholic stance in the 1930s: it made him a member of
a tiny minority in the overwhelmingly Protestant city of Halle. According
to a census of 1905, 94 per cent of Halle’s 170,000 inhabitants
were Protestants. The Catholic community, by contrast, had just over
7,000 members.31
Another oddity of his childhood, considering his obsession with bodily
fitness in subsequent years, was his physical frailty. As a child of slender
and relatively small stature with a weak constitution and a susceptibility
to illness, Reinhard was encouraged by his parents to take up every kind
of physical exercise from an early age: swimming, running, football,
sailing, horse-riding and fencing. Heydrich’s life-long passion for sport
began here.32 The family’s summer vacations were usually spent on the
picturesque coast of the Baltic Sea, in the swanky seaside town of
Swinemünde on the island of Usedom. For the Heydrich children this was
surely the most exciting time of the year. They spent their holidays sight-
seeing, taking walks and enjoying boat excursions and days on the beach.33
Meanwhile the Conservatory continued to flourish: by 1907 it counted
a total of 250 fee-paying pupils and the number of employees rose to nine-
teen. Just one year later, in 1908, the Conservatory had 300 pupils, enough
to prompt the Heydrichs to consider a further enlargement of their busi-
ness.34 In April 1908 – Reinhard had just turned four – the Heydrichs
moved again, this time into a much larger and grander purpose-built house
in Gütchenstrasse, in which Reinhard was to spend most of his childhood
and adolescence. The three-storey house in an exclusive, status-conscious
location near the City Theatre testified to the increasing wealth of the
YO U N G R E I N H A R D
23
family, generated by Elisabeth’s income from the Dresden Conservatory
and Bruno’s ever-expanding Hal e Conservatory, which, by 1911, reached
a record high of 400 pupils and employed twenty-seven permanent
teachers.35 ‘The house’, a schoolfriend of Reinhard’s remembered after the
war, ‘gave the impression of prosperity: grand wood-panel ed rooms, a lot
of silver dishes, the finest porcelain.’ In the courtyard building, there was a
large music chamber where regular soirées and concerts were given and
schoolfriends celebrated Reinhard’s birthday parties.36
A contemporary architecture critic conveyed just how large and well
appointed the Heydrich family home really was:
The Conservatory is located in
Similar Books
