Dramatic portrayals of Reinhard Heydrich

Reinhard Heydrich as he appears in the alternate reality series "The Man in the High Castle"

Dramatic portrayals of Reinhard Heydrich number among the more numerous of any Second World War figure, comparable to Adolf Hitler as well as war films depicting Erwin Rommel. Reinhard Heydrich has been portrayed in both television and film, and was one of the few high ranking Nazis to be depicted in a dramatic film while the Second World War was still ongoing.^[1]

Early portrayals

The first known portrayal was in the 1943 film Hangmen Also Die!, where Heydrich was played by Hans Heinrich von Twardowski. That same year, he was the subject of the feature Hitler's Madman, where he was portrayed by John Carradine. Further works, produced during World War II, were The Hitler Gang, where Heydrich is portrayed by Peter Pohlenz, as well as Air Raid Wardens where he is played by actor Don Costello.

The sole film of the 1950s depicting Heydrich was Deadly Decision, produced in 1954 and starring Martin Held as Heydrich.

Heydrich also appears in the film documents and drama films which used the original German footage, such as the Czechoslovak movie Daleká cesta (1949).

The 1960s

Due to an increase in the World War II genre of 1960s cinema, the character of Heydrich began to be portrayed more frequently and was thus introduced to a new generation, many of whom had been children during the Second World War, Heydrich's role in the war in general and the Holocaust in particular. Heydrich's first portrayal in the 1960s was as a character in the Armstrong Circle Theatre, where he appears in a 1960 television episode entitled "Engineer of Death: The Eichmann Story" and is portrayed by Alvin Epstein.

Further appearances in 1960s film and television were:

• G.E. True (USA, 1962), portrayed by Kurt Kreuger
• Das Kriminalgericht (West-German mini-series, 1963), portrayed Malte Petzel
• Atentát (Czechoslovakia, 1964), portrayed by Siegfried Loyda
• Der Fall der Generale (West-German TV-film, 1966), portrayed by Malte Petzel
• Heydrich in Prag (West-German TV-film, 1967), portrayed by Martin Benrath

Actor Anton Diffring further portrayed Heydrich in the 1965 series Interpol (episode "Geld, Geld, Geld"). Diffring would portray Heydrich again, a decade later, in Operation Daybreak, a film focused on the assassination of Heydrich in Prague. It is adapted from the book Seven Men at Daybreak by Alan Burgess.^[2] Atentát and Daybreak set the standard for the procedural-style rundown of the assassination itself, which the mainstream of later films follow.^[3]

The 1970s — 1990s

The character of Reinhard Heydrich became internationally known when David Warner portrayed Heydrich in the miniseries Holocaust. Warner would again play the character in the 1980s TV production Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil. Warner's performance was rated as "cunning and chilling" with the Holocaust miniseries receiving several television awards.^[4]

Within Czechoslovak cinema, Heydrich appears in the 1974 war film Sokolovo, where he is portrayed by Hannjo Hasse, an East German actor, who often represented the Nazi villains in East European war movies. Czechoslovakia also participated in the making of the above mentioned movie Operation Daybreak. The character of Reinhard Heydrich is further frequently mentioned in numerous Czechoslovak movies dealing with the topic of the Nazi reprisals which followed Heydrich's assassination as well as Heydrich's role in enforcing Nazi directives in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.^[5]

Within West German productions, Heydrich appears as a character in the 1977 television production Manager des Terrors (1977) where he was portrayed by Dietrich Mattausch. Mattausch's performance was viewed as "cold and stunning",^[6] and he reprises the role of Heydrich in the acclaimed 1984 film The Wannsee Conference. The Wannsee Conference would inspire the remake Conspiracy (2001), Irish actor Kenneth Branagh, whose performance was described as "chilling portrayal" of Heydrich.^[3] A non-speaking extra stands in for Heydrich in the film Fatherland, set in an alternate history where as of 1964 Heydrich has become the Reichsführer-SS.

Documentaries

There have been numerous documentaries usually using the historical footage of Reinhard Heydrich, but in some cases the documentary also includes the acted scenes, such as the following:

• SS-3: The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (British/Czech, 1992).^[7] Contains one of the only known voice recordings of Heydrich
• Heydrich's Herrschaft from the German documentary series Die SS (2002),^[8]
• Revenge! The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich from the documentary series Dead Men's Secrets (USA, 2003),^[9]
• The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich - Prague, 1942 from the documentary series Infamous Assassinations (USA, 2007),^[10]
• Killing Reinhardt Heydrich from the documentary series Nazi Hunters (UK, 2010), in which Heydrich is portrayed by an uncredited actor.^[11]
• Atentát na Heydricha - Príbeh Jozefa Gabčíka a Jana Kubiša (Slovakia, 2013), Heydrich is portrayed by Petr Bjaček.^[12]
• Opération Anthropoïde — Eliminer le SS Heydrich (France, 2013), which used historical footage as well as some scenes from the 1964 Czechoslovak movie Atentát (The Assassination).^[13]

Modern cinema

In 2009, Heydrich is spoken of (but not actually seen) by the character Hans Landa in the Spaghetti Western parody film Inglourious Basterds. The same year, Heydrich briefly appears as non-speaking extra played by Ondřej Matějka in the awards winning Czech drama film Protektor, where the main character (radio commentator/Nazi-collaborator) describes him as "tall figure (who) attracts attention like a magnet". This movie also features the minimalist representation of the Heydrich's assassination which is not seen, only heard in the background.^[14][15] In 2011, Czech cinematography portrayed Heydrich in the extensive TV series (44 episodes) named Heydrich — konečné řešení (Heydrich — Final solution), which used historical footage of Reinhard Heydrich combined with scenes in which he was portrayed by an uncredited actor.^[16][17]

The same year, Czech director Petr Nikolaev finished his drama film Lidice (2011), where Heydrich was portrayed by German actor Detlef Bothe. Bothe portrayed Heydrich again in the 2016 British-Czech-French thriller Anthropoid.^[18][19] Bothe is often praised as "dead ringer" (twin) of Heydrich.^[3] Heydrich is widely spoken of but not actually seen in the third episode of the Czech TV series České století (2013—2014) named "Kulka pro Heydricha" (Bullet for Heydrich), which is focused on the dramatic background of the decision to kill Heydrich made by Czech resistance leaders in Britain.^[20]

Among the most recent appearance of Heydrich is in the sci-fi series The Man in the High Castle (USA, USA, 2015 — ), set in an alternate history where Heydrich still serves as head of the secret police in the year 1962. Heydrich, as portrayed by Ray Proscia, is shown in the series as having received additional fictional Nazi awards, for his role in the German conquest of Africa and suppression of the native population.^[21] In 2017, French director Cédric Jimenez finished the war thriller HHhH (also known as The Man with the Iron Heart) based on Laurent Binet's novel of the same name (while "The Man with the Iron Heart", is the name of another novel about Heydrich). Heydrich is portrayed by Australian actor Jason Clarke, who has no resemblance to Heydrich and the film is rated as "A flat portrayal of Heydrich but an exciting account of his assassination".^[22][3]

External links

• Fictional portrayals of Reinhard Heydrich (IMDb)

References