Dramatic portrayals of Reinhard Heydrich
Dramatic portrayals of Reinhard Heydrich number among the most numerous of any Second World War figure, comparable to Adolf Hitler as well as war films depicting Erwin Rommel. Reinhard Heydrich has been portrayed numerous times 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]
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. David Warner portrayed Heydrich twice - once in the miniseries Holocaust and again 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.[2]
Heydrich was also played by veteran German actor Anton Diffring in the film Operation Daybreak. Heydrich is further shown in both major films about the Wannsee Conference (Conspiracy and The Wannsee Conference) and is mentioned and seen (for a brief few seconds) in the HBO movie Fatherland. The most recent appearance of Heydrich is in the Amazon.com series The Man in the High Castle, set in an alternate history where Heydrich still serves as head of the secret police and as an SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer. Heydrich is also spoken of, but not actually seen, in the Spaghetti Western parody film Inglourious Basterds.
The 2016 film Anthropoid details the events of Heydrich's assassination and includes a CGI version of Heydrich in some of the opening shoots of the film.