Simon Sebag Montefiore:
“...Heydrich was born of musical parents in the city of
Halle, near Leipzig, in 1904. His father was a Wagnerian opera singer and the
respected headmaster of the Halle Musical Conservatory while his mother, who
was extremely strict and regularly beat her son, was a talented pianist. Young
Heydrich was never popular among his peers, who nicknamed him Moses because of
(untrue) rumors that he had Jewish ancestry.
Deeply sensitive about these rumors, in his teens Heydrich
came to believe in the supposed inherent superiority of the Germanic people,
but he was totally uninvolved in politics until a social-professional scandal
ended his naval career. After the First World War, Heydrich joined the navy
where the ambitious but sensitive officer who played violin beautifully was
teased for his supposed Jewish origins. He had just become engaged to Lina Von
Osten when he was cashiered from the navy for a simultaneous sexual
relationship with another woman. In 1931, at age twenty-seven, he joined the
SS, impressing Heinrich Himmler during his interview with his knowledge of
secret police techniques derived from his obsessional reading of American
detective novels and police procedures. In 1933 he was promoted to brigadier
general and given the responsibility of setting up the SD, the SS security
service, where he identified the administrative talents of Adolf Eichmann, who
became the Jewish expert of the SS....”
(‘Titans of History’, 2012)
"The German editions have a Weimar tinge: cocktail party
meets official injustice. Chandler spent some time in Germany as a young man,
then later in life joined up with the Canadian army (B.C. unit) to fight the
Germans in WWI. So, you know, it was a complicated relationship."
(from
‘The Long Goodbye: The 49 Best Covers from Around the World’:
Beautiful and Bizarre Visions of Raymond Chandler's Classic, March 26, 2018 By
Dwyer Murphy)
The Long Goodbye was first published in 1953, long after Himmler and Heydrich were dead. It is used only for illustration.
