(JTA) — The unmarked Berlin grave of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, one of the primary architects of the Holocaust, was found open.
According to the BBC, the Gestapo commander’s grave was left unmarked following World War II to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. Thus whoever opened the grave would have had access to information not publicly available.
Dirt was dug up the grave but was left of the body did not appear to be damaged.
German police have opened a criminal investigation. The perpetrator could be found guilty under German law of grave defilement.
Known as the “man with the iron heart,” Heydrich was the commander of the Nazi secret police and was one of the main organizers of Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom that marked a major escalation of the Nazi war against the Jews. He was also the chair of the 1942 Wannsee Conference, where the Nazi leadership settled on a plan for their “final solution” to the so-called “Jewish problem.”
Heydrich was killed by British-trained Czech commandos near Prague several months later and buried in Berlin. In a brutal crackdown following Heydrich’s death, the Germans murdered hundreds of civilians in the Czechoslovakian town of Lidice.
