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Archive Collection description: PAN
Pannwitz Collection (1959;1985)
Heinz Pannwitz (1911-?1981) (real name Paulsen) was born in Berlin. In
1940 he became criminal commissioner heading Department GII of the Prague
Gestapo in German occupied Czechoslovakia. On 27 May 1942 an
assassination attempt was made on the life of Reinhard Heydrich
(1904-1942) which resulted in his death on 4 June. Heydrich was head of
the Nazi security police and governor of Bohemia-Moravia. The assassins
were intelligence agents sent by Czech military intelligence in exile in
Britain, aided by the Special Operations Executive.
Pannwitz was appointed head of a special commision to investigate the
killing. His final report was submitted to Hitler and found its way to
the archives of the Institute for Jewish Research, New York (YIVO). In
1959 Pannwitz wrote his account of the investigation found in this
collection. He would have had to rely on his memory as few books had been
published on the subject at that time. In the early 1980s, Pannwitz'
widow allowed Stanislav Berton access to the account and he later
published it.
Ref: MacDonald, C "The killing of SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich"
(London, 1989)
Contents
Typescript of Pannwitz' account, translated and annotated by Stanislav Berton entitled "The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich"; offprint of German publication of this account, annotated by Berton entitled "Das Attentat auf Reinhard Heydrich vom 27. Mai 1942. Ein Bericht des Kriminalrats Heinz Pannwitz" [The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich on 27 May 1942. An account by Criminal investigator Heinz Pannwitz] in "Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte", vol 4, 1985, pp 668-706.1 envelope
(Language) English & German
Unrestricted access
See also: the final report that Pannwitz submitted to Hitler is now in the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, New York.
A record for this collection is also available on the UCL Archives web site. To see it, please type PAN into the search field.
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This page last modified Wednesday 5 May 2010.
