According to a number of German media reported on the 15th, former senior Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich's nameless grave in Berlin was excavated, and the German police were looking for suspects.
Berlin police told Bild that an employee of the Berlin Invalides Cemetery found that Heydrich's grave had been excavated on the 15th, and the police had launched an investigation into this serious insult. The Daily Mirror quoted police sources as saying initial findings indicated that "nothing was removed" from the grave.
While the motive for Heydrich's grave being opened is unclear, in a similar case in 2000, left-wing extremists dug up the grave of Horst Wesser, allegedly the leader of the Nazi Stormtroopers (SA) in Berlin. After neo-Nazis began gathering the man's grave, they removed Wesser's skull and threw it into the River Spree, the left-wing group said. But police denied at the time that Wessel's body had been removed, saying the grave was actually wessel's father's resting place, not Wessel's own.
Heydrich was reported to have served as head of the SS National Security Department under SS leader Heinrich Himmler. The SS Ministry of State Security controlled the Gestapo and Nazi security services. Heydrich was also one of the masterminds of the Nazi genocide against the Jews. Hermann Goering, another aide to Nazi leader Hitler, had instructed him to find "the ultimate solution to the Jewish problem."
Hitler referred to Heydrich as the "man of stone", and his other nicknames included "Butcher", "Executioner" and "Himmler's Evil Genius". Some speculate that Heydrich, 15 years younger than Hitler, is eager to one day lead Nazi Germany. This possibility is explored in novels such as Robert Harris's Fatherland and Philip Dick's The Strange Man of the High Castle.
In early 1942, Heydrich presided over the top-secret Wannsee Conference in Berlin, which finalized the Holocaust plan. In May of the same year, he was attacked by a team of British-trained Czech and Slovak agents, and eventually died in Berlin in June, where he was buried with the highest honor by the Nazis.
After the Red Army occupied Berlin in 1945 and the Allies won World War II, the markings on the graves of all major Nazi leaders were removed to prevent them from being used as a rallying point for Nazi sympathizers, and Heydrich's grave was also among them, which until now remains unmarked.