Of course he wouldn't be infallible. Don't think I implied otherwise. What I was responding to was "would he have restarted the Hot War?". IMO no.
Hitler and Goebbels were operating from an utterly demented perspective that took their own Propaganda/Myth and turned it into personal perceptions of Reality (reminder to all: do not start and current event comparisons here). Heydrich did not share that reality. He was actually far more brutal and cruel than any of the top tier Nazis, including Himmler, but also, from all accounts, had his feet on the ground.
I think Heydrich is like Laventiy Beria: a man who had the combination of pragmatism and a wretched personality.
Heydrich was a dead-behind-the-eyes sociopath, and Beria was a rapist serial killer who made Ted Bundy look both merciful. But both men could support rational ideas, if only because they were useful in keeping power.
But it is important to remember that in an ideolgical society, pragmatism is not always a good thing.
Beria didn't just offend others with his horrible actions and fiendish personality. His support for reforms offended the ideologues. And when one thing went wrong, in this case the East German uprising, the Soviet leadership had their excuse to shoot him.
Even if Heydrich pursued a "rational" policy, he would still have ideological opponents. And once he slipped up, like the arrogant bastard he was, the knives would be pointed in his direction.
I'm not sure. By the time the Reich's economy really starts to collapse he may be dead or overthrown. If not we are looking at a 1970s era USSR. The Soviets were able to keep kicking the can down the road for almost 20 years as things got progressively worse for the WP countries and then the non-Great Russian parts of the USSR, and finally even into Moscow (toward the end in the USSR women, who were the primary shoppers, and some men, never left the house without a couple folded up string bags. If they saw a queue forming near a shop they would automatically join it, not because they necessarily needed what the shop sold, but because they might be able to by something, anything, to barter with later.). IOTL the Soviets always kept the specter of War on the table whenever they needed something (U.S. grain was a regular item of interest, U.S. would sell it at massive discounts, partly to prop up U.S. farmers, but also to keep the wolf from Moscow's door lest the Kremlin decide to go and get what they needed behind a wave of T-62 and T-72s.) The Reich could do the same thing, at least for a while.
The USSR blackmailed America into giving them grain? Wow!
But I think Germany would be in worse shape than the USSR, simply because Germany has FAR less resources than the USSR did within its borders. If Germany lost control of its satelites, its economy would collapse even harder.
The USSR problem was inefficiency and mismanagment, but it has successfully reformed its economy, it would be able to reform its economy. In Nazi Germany, there would be an even more severe resource shortfall.
Speer would be interesting. For one thing he was anything but an inspiring or dominating leader. Technocrat to the core, very practical, as one would expect given his professional training. I rather dount he would last long atop the viper's nest that was National Socialism. Himmler would likely have him "die in his sleep" inside a month, might take Gobbles two months. Heydrich would probably just shoot him between the eyes over a beer. Charlie the Tuna in a tank with a Great White.
It would be a mistake to underestimate Speer.
I think Speer's ability to avoid a death sentence with his masterful performance at Nuremburg proved he was an incredibly emotionally intelligent man. In politics, emotional intelligence is a valuable asset.
I bet he could rally the pragmatic forces of Nazi Germany to keep himself in power. The man may have been a technocrat, but he had to negotiate the Nazi hierarchy to get what he wanted. No man who was a pushover could do that.
I picture him being
