previous occasions. But here was Hitler more or less admitting that he’d bet the family silver on what was yet to happen, that he’d gambled all of our futures on something that was not a cast-iron certainty; and the upshot was that anyone listening to him now was left inescapably with the distinct idea that things in the East were not going entirely to plan for our hitherto invincible armed forces.
When the speech and the thunderous applause that greeted it in the Sports Palast had finally concluded and the AEG radio was, at last, turned off by Major Dr Ploetz, it was immediately apparent that there were several others in that library who had the same thought as me: someone in the government — Hitler himself, perhaps? — had woken up to the painful reality of just what Germany had undertaken to do in Russia. And this being the Third Reich of course, which was based on lies, it meant that things were probably much worse than we had been told.
Our sombre faces told the same grim story. Indeed, General von Eberstein, who was some big noise in the SS general staff, may actually have muttered some desperate imprecation to a God who was certainly some place else, if anywhere at all. General Hildebrandt, who was Heydrich’s equivalent rank in Danzig, merely hurled his cigarette into the fireplace as if he was as disgusted with it as he was with everything else.
This might have been what prompted Heydrich to say a few words, to resurrect our visible lack of enthusiasm. More likely it was Fleischer’s handwritten note that Captain Pomme had handed him a few minutes earlier. Heydrich himself was grinning like he’d just eaten the last slice of honey-cake.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘If I could have your attention for just a few more minutes. I’ve been given a note by Criminal Commissar Fleischer of the Gestapo, which contains some excellent news. As most of you know, since May of this year we’ve had two of the Three Kings — Josef Balaban and Josef Masin — in custody at Pankrac Prison, here in Prague. These are, of course, two of the three leaders of Czech terrorism here in Bohemia. However, the third king, Melchior, as we like to call him, has eluded us. Until now. It seems that one of our two prisoners — I don’t know which, but somehow I feel sure that his name must be Josef — has agreed to cooperate with our inquiries and, finally, has revealed that Melchior’s real name is Vaclav Moravek, formerly a captain in the Czech Army. We have already begun a search for him here in Prague and at his home town of Kolin, near Losany, and it is now expected that we shall shortly make an arrest.’
I felt oddly sick. It seemed that while we’d been stuffing ourselves with Veal Holstein and Leipziger Everything, a brave man had been tortured into revealing the name of the most wanted man in the Third Reich.
‘Bravo,’ said one of my brother officers, an Abwehr major named Thummel.
Others also present applauded this news, which seemed to please Heydrich no end, and there he might, and perhaps should, have left the matter. But full of his own importance, Heydrich continued to talk for several more minutes. He was not, however, a public speaker. Self-conscious and calculating, he lacked Hitler’s common touch and rhetorical flourish. His voice was pitched too high to inspire men; worst of all, he used a string of big German words where one or two smaller ones would have worked better. Of course, this was typical of the Nazis, for whom language was often used to mask their own ignorance and stupidity — which they possessed in an inexhaustible supply — as well as to give their words the placebo effect of authority; like a doctor who has an impressive Latin name for what is wrong with you, but sadly not a cure.
Fortunately for everyone present, Captain Kuttner and Kritzinger the butler appeared with champagne and a tray of Bohemian glass flutes, and before long there was something of a party atmosphere in that library. I drank a glass without much pleasure and, when I thought I was unobserved, I slipped away onto the terrace and smoked a cigarette in the darkness. It felt like somewhere I belonged — a crepuscular world of creatures that hooted and howled and where one might hide to avoid larger predators.
After a while I glanced through the leaded library window and seeing no sign of Heydrich, I decided I might sneak off to bed. But I had not reckoned on Heydrich’s study being immediately at the top of the first flight of stairs; the doors were open and he was seated behind his desk signing some papers under the cold bespectacled eye of Colonel Jacobi. Insouciantly I headed toward the north wing corridor and my room; but if I had hoped not to catch the General’s eye I was quickly disappointed.
‘Gunther,’ he said, hardly looking up from his signature file. ‘Come in.’
‘Very well, sir.’
Entering Heydrich’s study in the Lower Castle at Jungfern-Breschan I had the distinct feeling that I was in a smaller, more intimate version of the Leader’s own study at the Reich Chancellery, and this would have been typical of Heydrich. Not that there was very much that was small or intimate about that room. The ceiling was about four metres high and there were marble relief columns on the walls, a fireplace as big as a Mercedes, and enough green carpet on the floor for a decent game of golf. The refectory-style desk had more glass protecting its smooth oak surface than a good-sized shop window. On this were a marble-urn lamp, a couple of telephones, a leather blotter, an ink-stand, and a brass model of a plane — quite possibly the same Siebel Fh 104 he used to fly himself to and from Berlin. In the arched window was a bronze bust of the Leader, and behind a throne-sized desk chair was a green silk wall-hanging with a gold German eagle holding onto a laurel wreath enclosing a swastika, as if it was something worth stealing.
Heydrich put down his fountain pen and leaned back in the chair.
‘That girl back at your hotel,’ he said. ‘Arianne Tauber. Have you called her to tell her you won’t be coming to see her tonight?’
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘Then don’t. Have Klein drive you into Prague. I think I will be safe enough tonight, don’t you?’
‘If you say so sir.’
‘Oh no. In future it’s for you to say so. That was rather the point of your appointment. But I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. Meet me at Pecek Palace tomorrow morning at ten o’ clock. I have a meeting there to coordinate the arrest of this Moravek fellow.’
‘Very well, sir. And thank you.’
I may even have clicked my heels and bowed my head. Working for Heydrich was like being friendly with a vicious tom cat while you were looking around for the nearest mouse hole.
Chapter 13
Arianne was pleased to see me, of course, although not as pleased as I was to see her, in our bed, alone, naked and willing to use her body to help divert my thoughts from Heydrich, Jungfern-Breschan, the Three Kings and Pecek Palace. I told her nothing of my worries. Where Heydrich was concerned, it was best to know very little, as I was beginning to discover myself. What did I tell her as, exhausted by our love-making, we lay intertwined like two primitive figures carved from the same piece of antler-horn? Only that my duties kept me out of Prague, in Jungfern-Breschan, otherwise I should certainly have visited her at the Imperial Hotel before now.
‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘Really, I’m quite happy here on my own. You’ve no idea how nice it is just to sit and read a book, or to walk around the city by myself.’
‘I do,’ I muttered. ‘I can imagine, anyway.’
‘I left a message for my brother. And there are plenty of other Germans in Prague I can talk to. As a matter of fact, this hotel is full of Germans. There’s a very beautiful girl in a suite on the same floor as us who’s having an affair with some SS general. And she’s a Jew. Doesn’t that sound romantic?’
‘Romantic? It sounds dangerous.’
Arianne shrugged that off. ‘Her name is Betty Kipsdorf and she’s utterly sweet.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘The general? Konrad something. He’s more than twice her age but she says you really wouldn’t know it.’ She laughed. ‘On account of the fact that he used to be a gymnastics teacher.’
I said I didn’t know who that could be. And I didn’t. I wasn’t exactly on first-name terms with any SS generals, even the ones I knew.
‘He’s very vigorous, apparently. For a general. Me, I always say that if you want a job done and done properly it’s a captain you want. Not some effete flamingo with clockwork heels.’
Flamingos were what the ranks called officers of the General Staff, a reference to the red stripes on their
