Service Record of Reinhard Heydrich - Summary of SS Career - The Early Years

The Early Years

When Heydrich joined the SS, it was with the understanding that he would be a primary assistant to Heinrich Himmler and also Himmler's "right hand man" when it came to SS activities in southern Germany. The SS in 1931 was divided by shifting loyalties and geographical divisions, with two SS power bases building up in northern and southern Germany respectively. Two years before the Nazis were in power, this stage of the SS did not encompass the state police forces that Heydrich would eventually be put in command of by Himmler, and his task in 1931 was to develop an internal security group and help Heinrich Himmler to gain more power within the Nazi Party and the SS.

Heydrich was enlisted into the SS in the summer of 1931. After three weeks, Heydrich was given a commission as an SS-Sturmführer and began working out of a Munich apartment to establish his Ic-Dienst which would later become the Sicherheitsdienst. By Christmas, Heydrich was an SS-Captain which, in those days, was known as Sturmhauptführer (prior to 1934, SS officer ranks were the same as the SA. This rank would eventually become Hauptsturmführer). Just two weeks later, Heydrich was made an SS-Major as he continued to build his security service. Six months later, in the summer of 1932, he became an SS-Colonel (Standartenführer) as the SS at this point had no Lieutenant Colonel rank. An important irony of Heydrich's standing at this point in his career is that senior SS leaders considered him rather unimportant and he was referred to by one SS Group Leader in northern Germany as a "mere" Standartenführer.