Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Hitler's Hangman

  • The Life of Heydrich
  • By: Robert Gerwarth
  • Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
  • Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (260 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Hitler's Hangman cover art

Hitler's Hangman

By: Robert Gerwarth
Narrated by: Napoleon Ryan
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Buy Now for £21.99

Buy Now for £21.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Master of Auschwitz: cover art
The Nazis cover art
Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution cover art
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich cover art
Mengele cover art
The Third Reich in Power cover art
The Third Reich at War cover art
The Brothers Karamazov [Naxos AudioBooks Edition] cover art
Goering cover art
Russian Legends: The Life and Legacy of Nikita Khrushchev cover art
Hitler's Compromises cover art
Speer cover art
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World cover art
A Brief History of the Third Reich: The Rise and Fall of the Nazis cover art
Mary's Mosaic cover art
American Prometheus cover art

Summary

Reinhard Heydrich is widely recognized as one of the great iconic villains of the 20th century, an appalling figure even within the context of the Nazi leadership. Chief of the Nazi Criminal Police, the SS Security Service, and the Gestapo, ruthless overlord of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia, and leading planner of the "Final Solution," Heydrich played a central role in Hitler's Germany. He shouldered a major share of responsibility for some of the worst Nazi atrocities, and up to his assassination in Prague in 1942, he was widely seen as one of the most dangerous men in Nazi Germany.

Yet Heydrich has received remarkably modest attention in the extensive literature of the Third Reich. Robert Gerwarth weaves together little-known stories of Heydrich's private life with his deeds as head of the Nazi Reich Security Main Office. Fully exploring Heydrich's progression from a privileged middle-class youth to a rapacious mass murderer, Gerwarth sheds new light on the complexity of Heydrich's adult character, his motivations, the incremental steps that led to unimaginable atrocities, and the consequences of his murderous efforts toward recreating the entire ethnic makeup of Europe.

©2011 Robert Gerwarth (P)2016 Tantor

Critic reviews

"This admirable biography makes plausible what actually happened and makes human what we might prefer to dismiss as monstrous." ( The Wall Street Journal)

What listeners say about Hitler's Hangman

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    158
  • 4 Stars
    71
  • 3 Stars
    26
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    139
  • 4 Stars
    62
  • 3 Stars
    23
  • 2 Stars
    9
  • 1 Stars
    7
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    148
  • 4 Stars
    71
  • 3 Stars
    17
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Trying subject matter

A difficult listen, very dark, but mesmerizing and full of detail.

However, the narration is superb.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

robot narrator

Great book but it sounds like it is being narrated by a computer. Fascinating insight into the workings of the third reich.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

overall good

interesting book but spoiled for me by what was either poor editing or very odd intersections of another voice - sometimes words were said by 2 narrators in the same sentence. not sure if I would try to listen again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Perfectly delivered

Unlike other reviewers, I enjoyed the insertions of different recordings for the direct speech. Flawless pronunciation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Very interesting

A well researched insight into one of Hitler's lesser known key lieutenants. I recommend it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Interesting, but nothing new

Overall, this was an interesting listen
However, I felt the listen was off-putting due to the narration.
The narrator insisted on saying foreign words in an accent (mainly German), which only served to sound like a demented sat-Nav voice blurting out a word incorrectly. Also, when using a voice, it only served to come over more camp than C-3PO.
Truly, there was no need for these inflections and would have been a more enjoyable experience if they had been spoken without both of these ‘performance’ issues

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating, You Won't Want to Stop

What made the experience of listening to Hitler's Hangman the most enjoyable?

Such a well read and written book, the narrator's voice is perfect for this history lesson which gripped me from page one. A mass of background information makes you learn so much about Heydrich whom I had barely heard of before. His upbringing, his teenage years, his life as a son, man, husband, father and killer. How did he turn into such a horrific monster, or was he always one? I will listen to this again, brilliant.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Hitler's Hangman?

Too many to mention

What does Napoleon Ryan bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

His lilt is perfect for the book, the prounounciation of the German, Czech, Polish and Russian words/names really made the whole read authentic. No American twang to desensitise or glamorise. I was really impressed.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Definitely

Any additional comments?

I'll be looking up some more Napoleon Ryan narrations and Robert Gewarth books!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Disappointed

i had expected more. Two main criticisms.

1. i never grasped from this how or even why this man turned inro such a inhumane killer by proxy. There was no real psychological assessment at all. Indeed this just seemed to be a horror chronology. Sometimes far too much time spent on tangents that did not seem necessary.

2. The narration is appalling. The over dramatic exaggeration of German names was so annoying i nearly gave up.

On the whole not an entirely successful biography.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Very little

The authors pathetic attempts to rehabilitate a mass murderers character by obliquely suggesting he was a product of his times and therefore his history needs to be subjected to another revisionist examination. The fact is as the evidence clearly shows he was a brutal nazi pig who came from a decent family background and stamped on the face of everyone he came across to rise in Hitler’s autocracy. His wife was just as bad in her less powerful position and I hope they both rot in hell. Apart from this the book itself was well written and well read.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating book

Astonishing insight into the SS and the Jewish holocaust and the crimes of world war two

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!