SS Lieutenant-General Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), a Nazi Party and German police official, was a leader of the Nazi campaign of genocide against European Jews. Heydrich joined the Nazi Party and the SS in 1931, and after Hitler became Fuehrer in 1933, he helped bring the entire German police apparatus under Nazi control. Heydrich ordered the creation of the first ghettos in occupied Poland, and convened the Wannsee Conference. Heydrich was the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia when he was assassinated by Czech partisans in May of 1942. In retaliation for this assassination, the Nazis destroyed the entire Czech village of Lidice.
