The grave of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi official considered unusually cruel even by his colleagues, was mysteriously opened overnight but no-one knows why.

The Gestapo commander, once described by Hitler as ”the man with the iron heart,” died in 1942 after a successful operation by Czech operatives working for the British Special Operations Executive.

He was buried in Berlin, but in common with all high-ranking Nazis, all markers showing the location of his grave were removed after the war.

Read More

Today's Top Stories

Nevertheless, the location of Heydrich’s grave was known to a few insiders.

In the early hours of Thursday morning person or persons unknown dug up the grave, although as yet it’s unclear why. Nothing has been removed and the motive is unclear.

As yet, Berlin police have no suspects.

• 

  Holocaust survivor watched starving prisoners 'roast and eat a human child'

Heydrich was interred in Berlin's Invalidenfriedhof, a military cemetery in the middle of Berlin which became a no-man’s land during the Cold War.

While Hitler planned for the architect of the Holocaust to have a grand marble tomb it was never built and a simple wooden marker placed on the grave was removed in 1945.

The Nazi régime took out brutal reprisals for Heydrich’s assassination. Faulty intelligence obtained by Gestapo interrogators connected the assassins with the village of Lidice.

• 

  Multimillionaire businessman buys Adolf Hitler's hat 'to give to the Jews'

• 

  Nazi daggers used to torture prisoners are being sold on UK websites

Days after Heydrich’s funeral, every man and boy over the age of 16 from Lidice and the neighbouring village of Ležáky was murdered by German troops.

All of the women from Lidice were sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp.v Overall, at least 1,300 Czechs, 200 of them women, were killed in the reprisals.

Additionally, the mass extermination of Europe’s Jews that Heydrich had planned was put into operation. Three death camps – Treblinka, Sobibór, and Bełżec. – were built, as part of named Operation Reinhard which was named after the mass murderer remembered as ‘The Butcher of Prague’

Source: Read Full Article